Joe Manganiello has recently added a new bullet to his resume, serving as the host of the Peacock series Deal or No Deal Island . But, while being a reality TV host is a new look for the True Blood actor, there was actually a time when he was nearly a reality TV contestant, a possible castaway on Survivor .
The Magic Mike actor recently did an interview with Men's Journal where he talked about a number of subjects, including breaking the silence about his divorce from Sofia Vergara . At the time of the piece, Manganiello was about to fly off to film Season 2 of Deal or No Deal Island , which takes the hit NBC game show and brings it to the beach to incorporate a social strategy element.
But his love for the reality TV genre is not newfound. As he revealed in the interview, he has been a huge fan of Survivor since the very beginning, when the CBS reality series took America by storm in the summer of 2000 and forever changed the face of television. He and his two roommates would throw weekly watch parties of the show when they lived together in West Hollywood. But, as Manganiello recalls, one fateful night brought him from watching people starving and backstabbing for a million dollars to nearly doing it himself.
"I was at a house party a few years later and ran into someone who worked for CBS casting," he says, "and they said, 'You would be great for Survivor .' I said, 'Oh my God, I can win!' I went into my whole strategy, and they said, 'Would you make a tape? But you can't be an actor.'"
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Luckily for Manganiello, despite pursuing an acting career, he was working for a masonry company at the time to make ends meet. And so, following the partygoer's advice, he sent in an audition tape, pitching himself as Joe, a construction worker from Pittsburgh. His video not only laid out the strategy he has plotted over years of watching, but also went into his background, a descendent of an Armenian genocide survivor, saying, "I'm a survivor. I have survivor genes in my blood."
To say Manganiello was hungry to be on Survivor (a show which, ironically, starves people on a deserted island) would be an understatement. He had already figured out how to prepare himself if and when he got on the show. As a contact wearer, he was going to get his eyesight corrected through surgery (though he later found out the show provides contact solution to players on the island). Most audaciously, he was going to wean himself off of solid foods to help prepare himself for nutritional deficiency.
"I'd met a yogi whose specialty was taking people off solid foods," he says. "The philosophy is that you could eat a leaf that contains more nutrients in it than an entire large pepperoni pizza. I was going to wean myself off solid food so I wasn't worried about energy."
Unfortunately, the opportunity never came to pass. True to what the CBS employee had told him, the producers loved him, and allegedly wanted to cast him. However, a pilot that he had shot the year before had gotten picked up by VH1. And so Manganiello went off to film So Notorious , a 2006 sitcom starring and based on the life of Tori Spelling . And his Survivor dreams failed to become reality.
It only makes sense, then, that Manganiello chomped at the chance to do a show about people competing in challenges on an island for money when the opportunity arose. Though much has changed about the Spider-Man actor in the near 20 years since he sent in that Survivor audition tape. He had grown to stardom, which now put him in the host role rather than a contestant, something he absolutely loves to do. And, with Survivor legend "Boston" Rob Mariano appearing on the first season of Deal or No Deal Island , he really got to have his fan cake and eat it too. Even if that cake contains fewer nutrients than a leaf.
Next, Joe Manganiello Shuts Down 'Simply Not True' Narrative of What Led to His Divorce From Sofia Vergara
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