Acting was my first love.
Joe Manganiello
I grew up a big comic book reader, as a kid, and I love the whole fanboy crowd.
Also, to be honest, my dad wanted me to be an athlete. And I think all sons want to prove something to their dad. So now, aged 35, I want to see what I can achieve physically.
I wouldn't tell anyone to study werewolves - I studied wolves, how they moved, their tendencies and sensibilities.
Acting was the only place that I ever felt like I belonged so went for it with everything I had.
I grew up a misfit. I never fit in.
When I'm training for 'True Blood,' I don't eat any sugar except for some fruit here and there. So it's no sugar, no bread, no real carbs all day.
I was happier going back to my roots: training like men do in my hometown of Pittsburgh. Back home the guys in the gyms don't lift to look good; they're lifting to lift. They do it because they want to squat more and bench more.
Well, being 6' 5', pull-ups are my nemesis. I have really long arms so I have to do twice the work of someone with short arms to get the weight up there.
I was kind of a dark kid. I loved Halloween, and I loved vampires and the black and white old monster movies.
It's tricky when I'm constantly traveling and adjusting to new time zones and trying to also keep up with my workouts.
When I was growing up, it was Clint Eastwood, it was Harrison Ford and Steve McQueen - these guys were tough. They were leading men, but they were also tough and physical.
I mean, I feel like I've been pretending I was a werewolf since I was a little kid.
I mean 'One Tree Hill' had some rabid fans - you'd be surprised - they're almost in a class of their own.
When I first got out of drama school, my original manager tried to get me to change my name because people were having trouble spelling it and saying it.
American comedies especially are all about these men being browbeaten by their wives and it's impossible for me to watch.
I had a fan make me a silver wolf-tooth necklace. That was really great.
I think you can be athletic and intellectual at the same time.
I started working at clubs when I was sixteen, which is young. I would not want my kid doing that, but I did, and that's how it went.
Matt Bomer and I went to Carnegie Mellon for drama together.
I got to L.A. in 2000, when we were coming off the '90s: women looked like men and the men all looked like women.
Well, if I hadn't have been an actor I would have gone on to play college sports.
I wake up at the same time every day to get to the gym.
I train like a pro-athlete, not like an actor who's just trying to look pretty.
I watched so many comic book movies where the actors weren't as built as the characters in the book. It made me mad because they didn't look right.
I mean, everyone walks into the gym on day one skinny or fat. Arnold Schwarzenegger walked into the gym skinny at 15 or 16, and I was that way, too.
I've always been an athletic guy, but the extent to which I go for 'True Blood' or for 'Magic Mike' is because of the role that I'm playing.
I come from classical theater training and when I went to college it was a bunch of kids that were hand-picked from around the world. I was around such brilliant young minds and incredible artists with incredible teachers.
