Joe Manganiello Biography
Joe Manganiello is an American actor who had his breakthrough portraying werewolf Alcide Herveaux in five seasons of HBO’s True Blood. He kickstarted his professional film career starring as Flash Thompson in Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man. Manganiello has worked as the host of Deal Or No Deal Island since 2024. Deal Or No Deal Island SN 2 premiered on January 7, 2025, on NBC.
Joe Manganiello Age
Manganiello was born Joseph Michael Manganiello on December 28, 1976, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, U.S.A. He is 48 years old as of 2024. Manganiello celebrates his birthday on December 28th.
Joe Manganiello Height
Manganiello stands at an approximate height of 6 feet and 5 inches.
Joe Manganiello Family
Manganiello was born to Susan and Charles Manganiello in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He grew up in Mt. Lebanon, Pennsylvania in a Catholic household alongside his younger brother, Nicholas. Charles was born in Massachusetts outside of Boston.
Joe Manganiello Relationship
Manganiello has been in a relationship with Caitlin O’Connor since September 2023. Caitlin was born on August 3, 1989, and is 35 years old as of 2024. She is an American actress, model and host who guest-starred on Two and a Half Men, Tosh.0, and Key & Peele.
Manganiello has practiced Transcendental Meditation for a long time which he learned at the David Lynch Foundation Center in Los Angeles. He once worked as a roadie for Goldfinger and is friends with its lead singer, John Feldmann. He toured with band internationally as their security member.

Manganiello is a lifelong fan of the Pittsburgh Steelers. He worked as the director and producer of DieHardz, a 2007 short documentary about Steelers fans who meet at bars in Los Angeles, California. He is also a Pittsburgh Penguins fan. Further, he worked as the host of the NHL Awards and the NHL Expansion Draft in 2017. During a trip to Sydney, Australia, he went to a Wests Tigers rugby league match.
Joe Manganiello Sofía Vergara
Manganiello was previously married to Sofía Vergara. They married on November 22, 2015, in Palm Beach, Florida. He proposed to her on Christmas Eve 2014 after dating for six months. They shared news of their separation on July 17, 2023, to Page Six and their plans to dissolve their marriage after a seven-year marriage. The divorce was finalized in February 2024
Joe Manganiello Net Worth
Manganiello has an estimated net worth approximately $40 Million which he has earned through being an actor.
Joe Manganiello Spiderman
Manganiello auditioned for the role of Peter Parker in Spider-Man. He secured the role of Eugene “Flash” Thompson as is first acting job out of college. He recurred the role multiple years later and made a brief cameo in Spider-Man 3. Flash is a high school bully and a jock. He often bullies and mocks Peter Parker.
Joe Manganiello True Blood
Manganiello joined the cast of HBO’s True Blood as werewolf Alcide Herveaux in 2009. He played the character for 42 episodes from 2010 to 2014. Alcide is a full-blooded werewolf who owns Herveaux Contracting, a construction company in Jackson, Mississippi. He has a complicated relationship with Sookie who killed his ex-fiancée, Debbie Pelt, in self-defense
Manganiello’s role in the series brought him popular and critical recognition. Readers of Entertainment Weekly Magazine nominated him The Favorite Pop-Culture Werewolf of All-Time. His performance in the series won him the 2011 Scream Award for Breakout Performance – Male and for Best Ensemble. He also won a Saturn r Best Guest Starring Role in Television Award and a NewNowNext Award.
Originally, he was cast as Coot but producers asked him to read for Alcide instead. He filled in on the novels while growing out his beard and hair. Further, he trained twice a day for months to gain muscle so that he could match the character’s description in the books. He also got a suntan to differ from the vampires on the series and studied wolves.
Scheduling problems with True Blood made him drop out of the screen test for the role of Superman in Man of Steel during the final stage. He told Access Hollywood that he had his measurements for the suit and everything was already taken but regrettably never got to screen test due to his schedule.
Joe Manganiello Deathstroke
Manganiello joined the DC Universe as Slade Wilson/Deathstroke in 2017. He made his first appearance as the character in a post-credits scene of 2017’s Justice League. He had a more extended role in Zack Snyder’s Justice League in 2021. In 2019, he was confirmed to star in the Ben Affleck Batman film. However, his future as the character remained uncertain after Affleck was asked to step down from the film.
Joe Manganiello One Piece/Crocodile
Manganiello stars as Crocodile/Mr. 0 in One Piece in 2015. Mr. 0 is the head of the criminal organization Baroque Works. He can manipulate sand, a power he attained by eating the Sand-Sand Fruit. The series’ 2nd season is currently in production in Cape Town, South Africa.
Joe Manganiello Deal Or No Deal Island
Manganiello has worked as the host of Deal Or No Deal Island since 2024. The series follows contestants as they compete in physical challenges on an island to reclaim briefcases with cash prices. The winner of the challenge chooses a contestant to play the “Banker’s Challenge,” a game of Deal or No Deal, where they must make a good offer on their chosen briefcase to escape elimination. The last contestant plays a a high-stakes game of Deal or No Deal with the biggest prize being a jackpot collected from the total value of the offers received during the season.
Deal Or No Deal Island SN 2 premiered on January 7, 2025, on NBC. Kamari Love and Ben Crofchick work as the banker’s assistants. It features 14 contestants who were revealed on October 10, 2024. They will compete for concealed briefcases containing up to $200 million in cash prizes on the Banker’s private island in Panama. The contestants include
- Alexis Lete
- Courtney Kim
- David Genat
- Dickson Wong
- Will Kirby
- La Shell Wooten
- Luke Olejniczak
- Grace Cook
- Parvati Shallow
- Phillip Solomon
- Rock Carlson
- Seychelle Cordero
- Storm Wilson
- Sydnee Peck
Joe Manganiello Ethnicity and Nationality
Manganiello’s mother has Croatian, German, and Armenian roots. During an episode of PBS’ Finding Your Roots on February 7, 2023, Manganiello learned that his legal paternal grandfather, Emilio Manganiello, was not his biological grandfather. It was also revealed that his biological great-grandparents included an African-American man named William Henry Cutler and a white woman named Nellie Alton.
Manganiello’s biological grandfather was one of Cutler and Alton’s three mixed-race African-American sons. With this information, researchers traced back his paternal lineage back to his great-great-great-great-great-grandfather, Plato Turner. Plato was an African slave who was freed before slavery was abolished in Massachusetts. He then fought for the Continental Army during the American Revolution.
Terviz “Rose” Darakjian, his maternal great-grandmother, survived the Armenian genocide where her husband and seven kids were killed. Darakjian’s eighth child drowned while she was escaping across the Euphrates River. She later met Wilhelm Beutinger, a German soldier, in an internment camp for survivors. He became pregnant with his child. However, she never saw him again after he returned to Germany where he resumed his life with his German wife and children. The child grew up to be Manganiello’s grandmother. Manganiello gained Italian citizenship in October 2022 through his paternal grandmother’s Sicilian ancestry. Thus, he has both American and Italian citizenship.
Joe Manganiello Instagram
Manganiello has an active Instagram account that has over 2.5M followers. CLICK to view.
Joe Manganiello Education
Manganiello studied at St. Bernard School in Mt. Lebanon, Pennsylvania before joining Mt. Lebanon High School. In 1995, he graduated high school with honors and received he school’s Great Alumni Award in 2011. While growing up, he worked as the captain of his football, basketball, and volleyball teams. Further, he played the three sports at the varsity level.
Manganiello got the role of Jud Fry in his school’s senior year production of Oklahoma! He also participated in the school’s TV studio. In this magnitude, he used to borrow equipment to write and direct films with his friends. This, ultimately steered him towards an interest in acting.
While in high school, Manganiello sustained a series of sports injuries including a torn medial collateral ligament while returning a kickoff in a varsity football game against Ringgold High School. His time off sports made him rethink his future and decided to audition for the Carnegie Mellon School of Drama during his senior year. After he was denied admission, he joined he University of Pittsburgh and worked in the theater over the next year.
Manganiello then reenrolled to Carnegie Mellon a year later, winning a scholarship and joining the acting program that year. While there, he participated in theater productions, writing, producing, and acting in Out of Courage 2: Out for Vengeance, a student film. In 2000, he graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in Acting. Next, he went to New York City and Los Angeles via his school to participate in group auditions. In this magnitude, he secured contacts in the entertainment industry including an agent, a manager, and a screen test for Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man.
Joe Manganiello Career
While studying at Carnegie Mellon University, Manganiello starred in many productions in Pittsburgh’s theatre scene, including portraying Ulfheim in When We Dead Awaken, Lorenzo in The Merchant of Venice for Quantum Theatre, and Joe in the Pittsburgh premiere of The Last Night of Ballyhoo.
After graduating college, Manganiello relocated to Los Angeles, California where he rapidly signed with a talent agent. Three days later, he auditioned for the role of Peter Parker in Spider-Man. He secured the role of Eugene “Flash” Thompson as is first acting job out of college. He recurred the role multiple years later and made a brief cameo in Spider-Man 3 .
Manganiello started doing TV work, appearing as Tori Spelling’s boyfriend on VH1’s So Notorious in 2006 and guest starring on Las Vegas, Jake in Progress, and Close to Home. He starred as John Leguizamo’s Alcoholics Anonymous sponsor in CBS’ pilot, Edison. In 2007, he starred in the Scrubs episode, My No Good Reason, and in MyNetwork TV’s American Heiress. Moreover, he starred as Officer Litchman for a four-episode arc on NBC’s ER. He returned to the stage starring as The Chick Magnet for the New York City premiere of Skirts & Flirts in May 2007.
2008 to 2009
Manganiello starred as Stanley Kowalski in A Streetcar Named Desire for the West Virginia Public Theatre in 2008. In June 2009, he portrayed Leo Belraggio in the West Coast premiere of Terrence McNally’s Unusual Acts of Devotion. The previous summer, he worked with McNally and director Leonard Foglia to form the role at the Ojai Playwrights Conference.
Manganiello starred as lawyer Brad Morris on multiple seasons of CBS’ How I Met Your Mother. In 2008, he joined the cast of One Tree Hill SN 5 where he starred as bartender Owen Morello. He returned for the series’ sixth and seventh seasons.
Manganiello starred as Stu in FOX’s Til Death for two episodes and appeared in Wounded. In 2009, he starred as Navy SEAL squad leader Lt. Sean Macklin in Behind Enemy Lines: Colombia. He trained with a former Navy SEAL for multiple months so that he could authentically play his character. He paid the former SEAL to come to the set and stay in the cast’s hotel. That same year, he starred in an episode of Medium. Moreover, he has had guest roles in CBS’s CSI television franchise including CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, CSI: Miami, and CSI: NY. He appeared in Irene in Time as Charlie that same year.
2010 to 2014
Manganiello was featured in television commercials for Taco Bell in 2010. He also filmed TV pilots for 100 Questions and Livin’ on a Prayer. He joined the cast of Steven Soderbergh’s Magic Mike as Big Dick Richie. Later, he recurred the role in its 2015 sequel, Magic Mike XXL.
After finishing the filming of True Blood SN 4, Manganiello filmed an episode of White Collar with Matt Bomer. He also filmed What to Expect When You’re Expecting before returning to Los Angeles to shoot an episode of Two and a Half Men with Ashton Kutcher
In between Magic Mike films and finishing out his last two seasons of True Blood, he filmed David Ayer’s Sabotage alongside his childhood idol Arnold Schwarzenegger. Schwarzenegger later became his friend and mentor and penned the foreword to his book Evolution. He also returned to stage, appearing in as Stanley Kowalski in A Streetcar Named Desire at Yale Repertory Theater in New Haven, Connecticut.
Manganiello took his documentary film La Bare, which he financed, directed, and produced under his production company banner 3:59 with his brother Nick, to Park City, Utah, for the Slamdance Film Festival. He received several offers from distributors in the lobby after the initial screening. Within 24 hours, he had sold the International and Domestic rights including sales to Showtime and Netflix. His work in the film won him the Triple Threat Award from the Maui International Film Festival.
2016 to present;
Manganiello joined the DC Universe as Slade Wilson/Deathstroke in 2017. He made his first appearance as the character in 2017’s Justice League. In 2019, he was confirmed to star in the Ben Affleck Batman film. However, his future as the character remained uncertain after Affleck was asked to step down from the film. He won a 2017 Emmy for narrating Pittsburgh is Home: The Story of the Penguins, a documentary that covered the 5-decade of history of the Pittsburgh Penguins hockey team.
Over the years, Manganiello has extensively worked as a writer, official ambassador, and paid consultant with Dungeons & Dragons. His characters are part of the Dungeons & Dragons canon, making appearances in video games, adventure modules, and in toy stores.
Manganiello has starred in episodes of Nerd Poker, The Big Bang Theory, CelebriD&D, Critical Role, and Force Grey. Manganiello and John Cassel worked as spec-script writers of the first Dragonlance novel for Warner Brothers in 2017. The following year, he debuted Death Saves, a company that produces fantasy/heavy-metal-themed streetwear, a range of high-end jewelry, clothing, and gaming accessories. The company has also developed officially licensed products for The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance, Mandy, Game of Thrones, and Dungeons & Dragons. At one point, the company has a full hold over the catalog of the late fantasy painter, Frank Frazetta. He will voice Rose in Army of the Dead: Lost Vegas. Manganiello serves on the board of trustees for Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh.
Hasbro
Manganiello worked as a game designer for Hasbro’s remake of Hero Quest to write a quest book as a stretch goal in 2020. Despite not reaching the stretch goal, he announced that he worked with Hasbro to have the quest book and additional game pieces included anyway. In October 2022, Hasbro’s eOne declared that he was to produce and direct the first official documentary about the history of Dungeons & Dragons timed to release during the 50th anniversary of the game in 2024. He would work with Kyle Newman and Nick Manganiello under their 3:59 banner.
Joe Manganiello Movies and TV Shows
Manganiello has starred in several films and TV shows during his career such as
- Out of Courage 2: Out for Vengeance
- Spider-Man 3
- Not Evelyn Cho
- Behind Enemy Lines: Colombia
- The Girl With the Tramp Stamp Tattoo
- Sabotage
- The Joel McHale Show with Joel McHale
- Magic Mike XXL
- Rampage
- Jay and Silent Bob Reboot
- Archenemy
- Shoplifters of the World
- Moonhaven
- The Spine of Night
- Magic Mike’s Last Dance
- The Kill Room