Actor Joe Manganiello

By: Johanna Kenrick

Monday June 15, 2009

..acting is a way of life

There are actors for whom acting is a profession. And then there are those for whom acting is a way of life. For Joe Manganiello, acting is more than just a career, it's the only option. Manganiello is perhaps best known to the outside world as “Flash Thomson,” bullying Peter Parker in Sam Raimi's Spiderman, or “Owen Morello,” Brook's (Sophia Bush) love interest on teenage drama One Tree Hill. Along with these roles, Manganiello has been showing his face in a variety of popular television shows such as How I Met Your Mother, Scrubs and 'Til Death. Looking over the list of Manganiello's credits is like browsing a the bookshelf of an avid bibliophile: title after title, all different genres and subject matters. It's the credit list of someone who's playing for love of the game.

Born and raised outside of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Joe Manganiello graduated from the celebrated Mt. Lebanon High School, where he was an active athlete, participating in football, basketball and volleyball. Sidelined after an injury, Manganiello began to turn to acting more and more. He began cultivating his talents by writing movies for himself and his friends.

“I found myself writing on a pad that I kept next to my bed late into the night then waking up at the crack of dawn to go out and film till the sun went down. I'd add music and edit the scenes together and then have screenings during school periods. ” Manganiello said of his adolescent hobby. In his senior year he was cast as “Jud” the sinister farm hand in Oklahoma!. Coming out of high school, Manganiello auditioned for the Carnegie Mellon University School of Drama. Initially rejected, Manganiello committed himself to earning a spot. After spending a year at the University of Pittsburgh and trying out for every acting opportunity that came his way, Manganiello re-auditioned and earned himself a coveted spot at Carnegie Mellon (there was 2% acceptance rating that year.) Manganiello referred to his time at Carnegie Mellon as “four of the most grueling years of my life.” Shortly after completing his work there, Manganiello arrived in Los Angeles and was cast in Spiderman.

Since Spiderman, Manganiello has turned to a variety of projects, both on camera and on stage. Currently, Manganiello is performing at San Diego La Jolla Playhouse in Unusual Acts of Devotion. His character, Leo, is a jazz musician celebrating his fifth wedding anniversary with a group of friends. As the story unfolds, so do the characters and a variety of secrets and relationships are revealed. It's a play that depends on its actors to give the characters the understanding they deserve. So far, Manganiello appears to be living up up to the job. Reviewers have described his performance as having a “loping, easygoing charm” and another commenting that he “shines as Leo, a real man's man with a soft mushy center.”

Although perhaps better known to the public for his film and television performances, it seems appropriate that the classically trained Manganiello should return to theater. When asked about his work in theater, it's clear that Manganiello holds a great deal of reverence for the job. “Being on stage is like tightrope walking without a net,” he comments. “Anyone can be coached and edited together to act in film and TV...The same cannot be said about the stage. The profession of acting is ancient, it's thousands of years old. You really get a sense of that when working in theater. That's why it's especially important for me to do it as much as I can.”

Manganiello has done a good deal of work in theater, playing “The Chick Magnet” in the 2007 premiere of Skirts and Flirts by Gloria Calederon Kellet, and notably, portraying the infamous brute “Stanley Kowalski” in a 2008 production of A Streetcar Named Desire. “I loved playing Stanley,” Manganiello said of the performance. “It's scary to say but the part came really naturally to me. I think I found it cathartic in a way. Growing up my father was the toughest man I'd ever met. He had this really intense sense of justice mixed with a volcanic Sicilian temper. I remember one time at one of my fifth grade football games the opposing team's coaches were using headsets to read our defenses and call in plays to their sidelines, which is borderline psychotic in terms of pee wee league football...Well, my father tried to rip the door of the press booth off of the hinges and was threatening to kick the opposing coaches' asses all the way out of the parking lot. For right or wrong, that man cared. He was an is extremely passionate and that is definitely something I inherited from him and definitely a trait that helped me step into Stanley's shoes.”

Perhaps because of athlete build, Manganiello seems to have his fair share of 'tough guy' parts. He played a bully in Spiderman and in Scrubs and recently starred as a Navy SEAL in Behind Enemy Lines: Columbia. Manganiello is known for occasionally doing his own stunt work, and in preparation for Behind Enemy Lines: Columbia trained with former Navy SEAL Lt. Geoff Reeves.

Manganiello's work with Lt. Reeves is evidence of his unwavering dedication to his work. “When I got to the set in Puerto Rico, I was the only one involved with the production that had actually gone and consulted with a Navy SEAL,” he recalls. Now more informed, Manganiello noticed inaccuracies in the script and costuming - “things that would be glaring errors to anyone in the military who would spend their hard earned money and time to sit down and watch our movie.”

Unwilling to settle for an inaccurate performance, Manganiello flew in Lt. Reeves on his own time and put him up at the hotel to have a consultant on set. “I mean, how you could plan to make a Navy SEAL movie without consultation from a Navy SEAL is beyond me. That is definitely not how I was trained as an actor. CMU taught us to be historians in that way. Scholars of whatever world we were inhabiting....I think the movie would have been 80% worse had it not been for his presence on the set.”

This type of dogged devotion to his work is typical of Manganiello. He refuses to think of acting as something one dimensional done for attention or a paycheck. “Acting,” he says “is part psychology, part philosophy, part history, mixed in with some physical training and a dash of magic. It's constantly challenging you in ways you didn't even know existed....The Renaissance Tarot deck has a card called 'The Magician'...the card is meant to symbolize the Shaman's journeys to Heaven and Hell and his duty to then educate his community as to what he has learned from both. I think that's what we do.”

The metaphor of a journey to Heaven and Hell seems appropriate, given that Unusual Acts of Devotion was penned by Tony award winning playwrite Terrence McNally, who, though celebrated, often works with controversial material. His 1997 play Corpus Christi in particular, witnessed death threats to producers and over a thousand protesters on opening night. Unusual Acts of Devotion itself has such themes as suicide, murder, adultery, and homosexuality, among others. Manganiello seems aware of but undaunted by socially explosive material.

“Terrence writes controversial material, you can't really argue with that, but it's not controversial for the sake of controversy. Terrence McNally to me is like a chemist, the stage is his laboratory and the actors are his volatile elements being mixed together in test tubes over burners in front of a live audience every night....I chose to take on this role in this play because I knew that it would challenge me and stretch me as an artist....My teacher at CMU, Victoria Santa Cruz would always say that 'acting is a means.' It is a way of exploring life and the lives of others and ultimately my job is to provide an unusual experience for the people sitting out in those seats.”

Manganiello is not certain of his plans after McNally's show finishes, but ever the athlete, he hopes to wrap up in time to return to Pittsburgh and throw the first pitch at a Pirates game.

Manganiello is originally from Pittsburgh, but the past few years have seen him globe-trotting enough to make even the most seasoned traveler jealous. He's traveled the world as a roadie for the band Goldfinger (he cites music as a major influence for him) and has worked in New York, North Carolina, Puerto Rico, different parts of California – which makes for a tough lifestyle. “I identify with the scene in Fight Club where Edward Norton's character talks about everything being single serving as he moves from one airport, hotel and rental car place to the next.” Manganiello points out that traveling to new places can allow for a more focused approach to work: it eliminates many of the distractions and offers opportunity to experience new places. However, he's quick to add on that it has a major caveat: “It can make having a relationship kind of tricky. It takes a very understanding and supportive woman on the other end to make it work.”

Manganiello may be on the road a lot, but ever the dedicated actor, he maintains a Twitter, a Facebook page, a MySpace and his own website. He sees the Internet as a fascinating new way to connect with others – especially his fans. “...The fans I've met in the last year through my Internet presence are my core. They are my rock. They are the ones who were with me from the start. The ones who attended my first shows. And the ones I hope will feel responsible for my success as my career rockets skyward.”

Throughout his work, Manganiello makes one thing clear: he plays no character halfway – acting is what he loves to do and what he has to do. “It can be absolutely brutal at times and other times it can stun you in amazement,” Manganiello says. “As far as doing anything else with my life? Believe me, I tried.”

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Actor Joe Manganiello

By: Johanna Kenrick

Monday June 15, 2009

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