Joe Manganiello speaks of “True Blood”, his ancestry and the accommodation of the special epic universe

The interests of Joe Manganiello are distant – and an overview of his curriculum vitae testifies to this.

The 48-year-old star began to increase in 2009 after winning his escape role as a werewolf Alcide Herveaux in the supernatural series “True Blood”. He then entered the universe “Magic Mike” as Big Dick Richie when the first film was released in 2012, and he recently played alongside Vince Vaughn in the comedy of Netflix 2025 “Nonnas”.

But Manganiello is not only defined by his acting career: in 2023, he appeared on “Finding Your Roots” and was vocal since how the revelations of ancestry changed his life. He is also a proud parent of pets of his senior dog, Bubbles, who is often by his side (and, of course, has his own Instagram account).

Now Manganiello seems to be in his accommodation time. In addition to hosting NBC’s “Deal Or Not Deal Island”, he has now disseminated his passion for themed parks as an hour of the one hour special of the network entitled “Inside The Worlds of Epic Universe”.

The program, which will be presented on NBC on August 20 at 9 p.m. he and streams on Peacock the next day, explores the five worlds that make up Universal Epic Universe At Universal Orlando Resort: Celestial Park, Super Nintendo World, The Wizard World of Harry Potter – Ministry of Magic, How to train your Dragon – Isle of Berk and Dark Universe.

Before the opening date of May 22 of the theme park, Manganiello sat with Teday.com while turning on Epic Universe to talk about his identity and his career with multiple facets, and how his worlds collided.

Universal and Peacock are part of our parent company, nbcuniversal. This interview was condensed and published for more clarity.

So you are here filming the Special TV Universe. Tell me about your involvement.

Well, I guess because I am an employee of Nbcuniversal that I was asked to welcome and launch the special for the park, which is super cool, so I can see it first. And then, you know, hanging out with some of the actors, some of the projects, Warwick Davis of “Harry Potter”, the two stars of “How to Train Your Dragon” have passed.

Toothless?

The actors. Well, no, so we can go see Krokmou, who is crazy. This animatronic dragon is crazy. And you scratch your chin and it starts, as, a little purring and growled.

We are not used to being able to engage in technology like this by ourselves.

It was like these robots, like the presidents’ room (in Disney World). And now it’s like, yes, it’s quite incredible. And even in the Dark Universe Ride (Monsters Unchained), all these animatronic creatures were incredible. Frankenstein, it’s crazy.

So yes, it was super fun to do it all. You come back (return to) childhood when you do it, you start to think what you think as a child. And yes, you have breathed a little and see all these things for real, and be able to walk inside. It’s quite incredible.

What childhood memories come back to you?

I was on “True Blood” for so many years as a werewolf. And I think that the child I was manifested for me as an adult, because Halloween has always been the long holidays for me, and my mother made me costumes and things. So, you know, I dressed like Dracula when I was a child and in your mind, when you are a little child, you pretend that you are a vampire. And I remember that my parents took me to a haunted house when I was little, and I suppose that there was a Dracula which came out of a coffin, and I was dressed in Dracula, so I went up to the coffin and I put my hands upwards, and he picked up and put me in the coffin and closed it with me.

What?! Were you panicked?

No, I’m a vampire, it’s a vampire! So you are like, “that’s what I’m supposed to do”, yes, like, I was in character when I was a little child, I knew, like: “Why am I afraid? I’m going to live with vampires.”

It is very courageous for a child.

You are very diplomatic. But that’s the thing: I think that as a child, you know … I think it was a Val Kilmer quote where he said: “The children dream of being Batman, not the guy of the Batman costume, not the actor of the Batman costume.” And so there is a bit of, you know, I have never dreamed of being an actor playing a werewolf. I dreamed of being a werewolf. So here you can walk and claim that you may be in this medieval village, this Gothic and Romanian village.

You brought your dog, bubbles, through a dark universe last night. Do you dress your dog for Halloween?

Last year, I dressed it for Cinco de Mayo. Ok, it’s a chihuahua, so we celebrate Cinco de Mayo. … The previous year, we were in fact in Firenze, Italy, for Halloween, and we had a small dragon costume that we put on it with small Flappy wings. … people send me all kinds of things. I think there is, like, a lawyer’s costume in the cupboard. She was a bat for a year – cool and flappy wings.

Another thing I know that is important to you is your ancestry. You were on “Find your roots” in 2023.

I obtained the results the previous year. It took them a year because I made some discoveries during this year which then pushed the episode to the following season.

I also want to be clear that because of the side of my mother of the family, I am interested in genealogy from an early age because of the German Armenian component that I knew. I grew up knowing that I was Armenian, I knew that I was German, but I did not know how or for whom, and that is what led me to apply (to “find your roots”) and it took 10 years. And finally, they got to the point where they thought: “Yeah, it was going to work.” The technology was simply not there, and they thought they were going to run in road dams because of the Armenian genocide. … And finally, after 10 years, their team has thought: “OK, I think science is where we have access to enough databases that we think we could do something. So try.” And so they returned after about six months and said, “We do not think we will be able to do it”, but a month later, they made a breakthrough, then they said it was on.

Wow.

And then they reminded me about a month later, and gave me the opportunity to get out of the episode, to withdraw from the episode due to the problem of paternity involving the side of my father. They cannot reveal problems of paternity unless there is the consent and knowledge of all the involved parts, and because my father is still alive and that he had to be informed if we were going to go ahead to potentially reveal who his father was. So, it opened, it was the great discovery which then opened the side of my father of the family tree.

I have not obtained these results for three years, and I had several historians on the pay that flows in bulk. I found the members of my German family, there was a part of the German family living in Canada, and I came into contact with them and they had a manuscript German family tree which returned to the 1400s. I connected with a historian in Germany, I went to do everything, and I found my ancestors who fought in the Napoleonic wars. There is a famous architect, a mayor in the city from which they all came. Then, I have another historian specialized in New England and Virginia, and he has been working for two years, detangling all of this and plunged into my Irish ancestry. My great-great-grandfather came during the famine of potatoes, joined the union of the Union and fought in the American civil war and disappeared somewhere towards the west shortly after. I’m going to go to New England from here for the marriage of my cousin, and I’m going to go to the memorial and a serious marker from my fifth great grandfather (Plato Turner), an African slave who fought in the American Revolution against the British.

And then, about a year and a half ago, I had a ping out of 23 and my father has half a sister living in Ohio. This same organic grandfather had another child eight years later, so I was able to meet her and I have a half-one living in Ohio.

It continues.

So, the conversation with “Finding Your Roots” consists in making their very first episode in a row, because also finding it then without the shadow of a doubt which was my organic grandfather. I left “finding your roots” without really knowing who my organic grandfather was, but his DNA proved it, so we know that it was this man. Then, I dug and found a wedding certificate from the 1800s which proves where my European chromosome has cut … which also proves what I think my family name is because there were several, but I have to go (again) to genetically test certain people. We set up a kind of gallery of genes of the people of Rogues that we want to test to see if I correspond to their Y chromosome, then there is a village on the border of Wales and England where I think my last name comes from … Anyway.

I touched an agreement. Thank you for sharing it all.

Don’t launch me, I know.