Like the aughts’ other bloodsucker tales Twilight and The Vampire Diaries, True Blood eventually expanded its supernatural population to include werewolves — and our first peek at Joe Manganiello as the sensitive (and extremely jacked) lycanthrope Alcide Herveaux on June 27, 2010, did not disappoint. Within minutes of the actor’s debut, fans were convinced that Anna Paquin’s Sookie Stackhouse needed to ditch Stephen Moyer’s vamp Bill Compton and get with Alcide. Because if she didn’t, they would!
Who Was Involved
Manganiello, now 48, had been acting since college when he joined True Blood in season 3, but his turn as the flannel-clad construction worker made him a real star — and threw the fictional town of Bon Temps into chaos. Sookie had been in a serious relationship with Bill, but when he disappeared, Eric Northman (Alexander Skarsgård) hired Alcide to help her find her vampire lover. Sparks flew immediately. “Who Alcide was on the inside was such a good — but odd — match with who Sookie was on the inside,” Manganiello said last year. “And also, like, I’m the one who can go out in the day! I can go out in the sun!”
Why We Remember It
The Stackveaux chemistry was off the charts — not a light statement on a show where everyone was undressing everybody else with their eyes 100 percent of the time. And while True Blood always had a notably hot cast, Manganiello’s sculpted torso was truly a thing to behold. “I was in the gym, twice a day, six days a week, with a trainer,” the actor has said.
Key Details
Manganiello wasn’t even supposed to stay on the HBO hit after his first season, but his character became so popular that the writers decided to keep him on. He even had the support of author Charlaine Harris, who wrote the novels that served as the basis for the show. “[She] was like, ‘Oh, the werewolf. Yeah, honey,’” Manganiello once joked. “She was really all about it too.”
The Aftermath
While Alcide didn’t end up with Sookie (or even alive), Manganiello’s career took off after True Blood ended in 2014. The following year, he lit up the big screen as male stripper with a heart of gold Big Dick Richie in Magic Mike XXL, and he went on to star in everything from action movies like 2017’s Justice League and 2018’s Rampage to arthouse stalwart Terrence Malick’s 2016 Knight of Cups. Offscreen, he married Sofía Vergara in 2015, making him one half of one of Hollywood’s hottest couples for nearly a decade. (They split in 2023.)
Joe Manganiello Is ‘Looking’ for ‘Right Werewolf Script’ After ‘True Blood’
A New Perspective
Haters love to clown on True Blood for its often bizarre mix of graphic violence and even more graphic sex scenes, but Manganiello is still proud of its legacy. He has described the ratings hit as a “really wild, crazy, intelligent” series that “pushed the culture forward at the time” — and noted that the cast was stacked with Oscar and Tony award winners. “We were all really, really overqualified,” he quipped in 2024.
Where Is He Now?
Manganiello — who found new love with actress Caitlin O’Connor — recently starred in the Netflix comedy Nonnas with Vince Vaughn and Lorraine Bracco, and he’s hosted the reality competition Deal or No Deal Island since 2024. And because True Blood’s final episodes sidelined Alcide in favor of the vampires, he’s on the lookout for “a good werewolf script.” As he joked to Andy Cohen last year, “I have unfinished business in the werewolf department.”
