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Thank you.

Okay.

Wow.

Rejection.

How sometimes that can fuel you.

This is an article about me and Cowher Wesco were rejected because we were too small from Penn State.

And I said this at the time, prior to this game, let me quote myself, growing up everywhere, everything was Penn State, this and Penn State that.

Everyone looked up to them as the ultimate in college football.

That's probably why I picked NC state, because I knew I'd get the chance to play them if I couldn't play for them, cause they didn't want me.

I wanted to play against them.

Some of the greatest fuel you can have is when people say you can't do something is to prove them wrong, and always becomes a very fiber and DNA of what you made out of I bet you It'll be interesting to talk to Joe Manganiello today.

But I got to ask you a lightning rod question to see if you are a true Yinzer.

Okay, I know, here we go.

Here we go.

Favorite Pittsburgh food?

Favorite Pittsburgh food?

I mean, I got to go for Primanti sandwich.

Okay, perfect.

First word or phrase you think of when you think Pittsburgh.

Pittsburgh.

Well, man.

Football.

Football.

Yeah.

Growing up in Pittsburgh.

Who or what inspired you the most?

You know, I've become really good friends with Troy Polamalu over the, over the years.

And, there's just something about that guy.

You know, and I think when you really watch the tape on him, when you see him, crossing himself, saying mantras during the games, and you really realize how, how spiritually strong he was on the inside and, and how much he didn't let the trappings of fame, or money really affect him.

That guy is, I really feel like if we were, we were a thousand years ago.

That guy, he's like, he's some kind of, like, knight or warrior in the Crusades, you know what I mean?

Yeah.

No, I like that.

And so, yeah, it's so funny because talking about growing up and you graduated Mt.

Lebanon high school in 1995.

And I go back to 1995.

That was a year we went.

The little old team from Pittsburgh played that team in Dallas.

And, you know, they were going to, you know, Michael and Deon and and Emmitt and Troy are going to practices in their limos.

We got in the school bus and like, it's a little team from Pittsburgh, you know, and we went to practice that way.

So yeah.

But you you grew up in Mt.. Lebanon.

Tell me about that.

Tell me about going to high school.

You you you played football, but then an injury kind of derailed you.

Correct?

Yeah.

So I played three sports.

I played football, basketball and volleyball.

Right.

And, and, yeah.

So I was, returning to kick off against Ringgold, Joe Montana's old high school sophomore year.

And, cleats stuck in the mud.

Kid hit me, legs.

You know, ran off the field because when you get injured, you run off, you know, run off.

You know, that's what we're taught.

Yeah.

You know.

All right.

Right.

And knew something was wrong.

And, you know, I just started thinking at that point about what I was going to do past high school.

Like, the brain started going because, you know, I had never really had a lot of time to think.

I never came home after school, three sports a year, and then during the summer, it was just I was on a cycle.

So it was the first time I really got to sit down and think, who am I?

What am I going to do?

What am I meant to do?

What can I do?

What you know, what's where's my passion?

You know, what's that thing that's waking me up in the morning?

And, I had started making my own movies around that time.

And Mount Lebanon, was notorious for having, like, just an amazing campus, amazing facilities.

Anything a kid could ever want there.

And we had a TV studio with teleprompters and, like, old and, like, analog editing equipment, which at the time was, you know, cutting edge, but, like, you know, you had to cut your own film, splice your own film, put the soundtracks in, I had teleprompters, I would type all the scripts.

And so my actors didn't need to memorize.

I could have it all there scrolling for them, you know, I'd stay after school and do it.

So I knew that, like, like there was something there for me writing, directing, storytelling, you know, even acting.

And I borrowed the cameras on the weekend.

We'd go and shoot feature length films.

We shot like, you know, I had a friend of mine was a martial artist.

He would choreograph the fight scenes.

I would I would write the scripts, I would direct them.

We figured out how to make homemade squibs so we could do gunshot effects like we were.

We were crazy, you know?

And, I knew there was something there.

And so, you know, when that injury happened, it wasn't like I couldn't have come back and play it.

I mean, obviously, I could have.

Wait, what year was that?

Were you a sophomore?

I was a sophomore, and I just started thinking, this is I need to move in this direction.

And what happened was, towards the end of high school, you know, obviously, we know, you know, one of the great drama schools in the world, Carnegie Mellon.

Yeah, it's in Pittsburgh.

And, I didn't apply anywhere else.

I only I applied to Carnegie Mellon.

I tried out.

You have to audition to get in.

They take about 16 actors a year out of about 1000 kids to try out.

Wow.

That's a very small number.

Yeah, I didn't get in out of high school, so I late applied to Pitt across the street, went to Pitt for one year, worked my tail off just myopically like this is it.

And a year later walked from Pitt to Carnegie Mellon one more time.

Tried out again.

And that year I was one of the 16 kids that got in.

Wow.

I mean, so, so so you you dealt with rejection.

You dealt with like sense of like, okay, I just, okay.

I didn't get in.

I had to also now I gotta figure out something besides football.

And also when I found this passion, it seemed a little odd.

Maybe.

But I said, you you found a passion in high school.

Yes.

And then you used to rejection almost kind of like.

Like you know what?

Tell me.

I can't do it.

I will show you.

I can do it.

Oh, yeah.

Made me angry.

Yeah.

Made me angry.

The pressure was on and again, you know, there was no plan B. Yeah.

I didn't apply anywhere else if I didn't get in, I, you know, I mean we're talking like very, very low odds.

If I didn't get in I don't know what I would have done.

Yeah I don't know what happened.

You know, it's interesting.

I want to share a story with you.

I, I thought about you and I've kind of read about your path and how you've kind of taken that element of rejection and kind of made yourself the most resilient man in the earth, kind of, because it's not how many times you get knocked down, it's how you get it, how many times you get back up that really defines you there.

There was an article that I pulled up last night when I came out of high school at Carlynton High School.

I was went on a bunch of trips and I went to Penn State.

A buddy of mine went to Penn State, but they did not offer us a scholarship because they said we were, quote, too small.

So I went to NC state, where I had a scholarship.

My senior year, we played Penn State, and there was an article that was written that day about our journey, how to get there.

I pulled out that right before we went on the field, and the last thing I remember was Penn State saying to me, you're too small to play Division one football.

And I said, you're going to see how small I am.

Grenades are small too, aren't they?

And so I said, so, you know, you know, you're going to get the worst part of me.

I will be your worst nightmare today.

So that rejection fueled me to continue to go on to say, you know what?

When people say you can't do something, you know, like, that's all I needed to hear as my motivation to do it, right?

Yeah, whatever.

Whatever it is that makes you find that extra gear.

Because if you really want to be great at something, right, you have to find the extra gear.

The regular gears aren't.

But that's just not.

That's not where greatness lies.

You have to find that extra gear, and a lot of times it's somebody telling you you can't do it.

It's somebody telling you you're you're you're stupid for doing that.

Somebody's telling you you're too this.

I mean, listen, all the things that I heard, you know, even after I beat, you know, was working as an actor, you know, too this or too that because, you know, you leave Carnegie Mellon, you go to LA, right?

And you're going out there, you want to pursue an acting career, a theater career.

I mean, what what was your intent when you went out there?

So my my intent was to study classical theater at Carnegie Mellon, become a really intelligent, trained actor, like, do it the right way, you know, and that's something that is something that was instilled in me, I think, from growing up in Pittsburgh was, you're going to do it, do it the right way.

Yeah, okay.

Like work hard, do it the right way.

Go get it.

Go get your education.

Do it the right.

Be a smart actor.

And, but my intention was always to work in film.

And so, Carnegie Mellon set you up with these showcases at the end of kind of like the combine.

Yeah.

Okay.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Right.

Right, right.

They have the big schools Juilliard, Carnegie Mellon, North Carolina School for the Arts.

It was northeastern.

There were a few other different schools, and you would have three minutes on stage in New York.

And then in L.A., you'd have a one minute monologue in a two minute scene with a partner in front of all the agents, all the managers, all the casting directors would come and they would start recruiting kids.

Wow.

So it was like a comeback.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Totally was.

And so, I mean, and you, you do that.

Was that a one time thing that you did?

So we did.

I think we did because it was split in the times so that the different people can make it.

You know, there were like four shows.

You did four shows in New York and they needed four in LA.

And, out of the ones in New York, in LA.

I mean, you know, it was, the results that I got were they were equivalent to like, the number one quarterback in the draft.

Yeah.

Wow.

He was like that.

Like I had my I had my choice of agent.

I had my choice of manager.

So that four years at Carnegie Mellon became like this rocket sled for me.

Yeah.

Once I got to that actor's combine.

Yeah.

Right.

Right.

And then out of that, I got offered a TV holding deal, which was like, they're going to develop shows for you, but I at the time, this is the year 2000 actors.

Do you had to choose a lane.

You were a TV actor.

You were a film actor.

It wasn't.

There was no.

The Sopranos had done one season.

It wasn't the way that we think of HBO or we think of Mad Men or Breaking Bad or right, Game of Thrones.

It was like, you know, George Clooney was the only one who did TV and film.

Yeah.

And, and so I chose I said no to the TV deal.

Even those six figures coming out of school, this would have been guarantee.

I said no, I said, I'm a film actor.

And then I got, I got invited to audition for Spider-Man, and I wound up getting it.

Wow.

That's all that week.

And so in that time out there, did you did you try to go back?

Are you going back and forth?

Were you continuing to go through that the next?

What goes after that?

Like you're out there and you're kind of okay with this from one project to another.

How many did you end up scheduling ahead and like, okay, what do I have after this?

If you don't have something you hate?

Well, that's the thing.

I mean, you're you're unemployed most of the time, especially as a young actor.

Yeah.

You know, because you bounce from job to job.

And again, if you're not going to do TV, then you're not going to have that kind of job security.

You're going to have, you know, Spider-Man was I think it's shot.

It's shot over the course of six months, but it was maybe like ten days over six months.

Yeah.

Right.

And then you're unemployed.

Right.

So you got to, you know, so you're constantly trying to find the next job.

I always say, you know, you'll never sleep as hard as you do in your trailer on set because there's nowhere else you can be.

You got a job, you have a paycheck like you can just lay down and, like, you know, sleep when Because when you're not, when you're not on set, you're looking for the next thing.

You know.

And you then get with your brother and you guys form this production company, right?

Yeah.

349, 359.

Right.

359 359 I'm thinking 359 and it goes back to the same thing, the four minute mark breaking the barrier, doing the things that no one else says you can do.

Yeah.

I mean, you know, I mean, that's the thing is, like, there's a phrase that I think about a lot, you ride the horse, the direction it's going, right?

And I think there's a tendency, especially coming from this part of the world where, you know, that work ethic, you know, like, I mean, you know, when you're a kid and you play football, it's like when I was a kid, it was like, if your head isn't ringing after you hit that kid, you didn't hit him hard, right?

Right.

You're right.

I mean, you heard that a lot, 100%.

So there's a bit of it that that kind of speaks to swimming upstream.

If it's not hard, if it's not the hardest thing you've ever done, then it's not worth doing and it's not the right thing, or you didn't do it right, or you didn't work hard enough and yes, I understand.

I understand that philosophy.

Try your hardest because otherwise you're going to live a life of regret.

You're going to look back and think, what if, right, and you can't live like that.

You've got to put everything you've got right, you know, onto the field, right?

You know, into that audition room, whatever it is.

With that said, sometimes things just don't go that way.

Yeah, it just happens.

This is life.

Life throws you curveballs.

I mean, whether that's, you know, things with health, things with family, things with, you know, rejection.

You know, there are a lot of roles that I signed contracts for.

I mean, you know, a great example is like, you know, Deathstroke, I was I was hired to play the villain in a Batman movie.

I was the main villain in a Batman movie.

That never happened.

Wow.

And I signed a three picture deal, and it didn't happen.

And so, you know, that's a great example of, well, you know, thinking your life is going in this direction, but it's going to go over here in this direction.

And right around the time that that started happening, there were a couple of other big, huge roles that were mine or I was told that were mine in the contract for that also didn't happen.

It was like a row of them and it was like one of the most colossally horrible, like streaks of like things that didn't happen for me.

But what did happen was, I wound up getting hired as a writer a lot.

So I started getting hired for these writing jobs, and I started having time to sit and write, and people started giving me feedback and saying, you should be doing, you know.

And my father, I think back to my father.

My father was always said he was surprised when I became an actor because he thought I would have wound up a director and writer.

So I was always directing my friends.

Yeah, I know, and so it's kind of like one of those things where, like, I look at, you know, sometimes you think, well, my dream is to be a Hall of Fame player.

Yeah, but what you realize is that your skill set is built more for the long run.

I'm a Hall of Fame coach.

Yep.

I know, and I'm the one who's supposed to run this whole show, right?

Which is Even tougher.

You know, and more intense.

And it takes more hours and more of a of a varied skill set than, than just being a player.

And that's, that's kind of what I realized.

So in that moment of like, you know, of whether it was a rejection or something falling part life not going the way that I thought.

It opened me up to the possibility that maybe I wasn't just an actor.

I'm also the guy who's supposed to be behind the scenes working all of this.

And and because I was an actor or I am an actor, I know how to talk to them.

Yeah.

Which a lot of directors and writers, they don't know how to talk to know.

And and I think I'll say this, I think Pittsburgh is about that, too.

Pittsburgh is about collaboration.

Pittsburgh is about bringing people together.

Leaders.

They bring people together.

They know how to unite Pittsburgh to stay together.

That's why everyone's touching everybody, because we all feel like we know each other.

Right?

I mean, so, I mean, really.

Hey.

Oh, you know, you'll be okay, coach.

Like.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, like like they have to touch you Had your back.

Hey, Joe.

You okay?

Joe?

You'll be all right.

Come on, man, so you get up.

You're you're fine.

So.

But I do think that there's a little bit of that in.

What you talking about the water in Pittsburgh.

There's a there's I don't know if it's a territorial thing that we take pride in where we grazed, but also we took a lot of pride of being in that community.

You know, we played for each other.

There was this.

And I think that's what Pittsburgh are kind of all about.

It's like you're your pride to be from there.

And and you're going to be there for people whether they need it or not.

And maybe that's just to teach them the lessons that you learned along the way, right?

Yeah, yeah.

And that's what's interesting.

I think for me, moving back at this time is, you know, it's really like the first time in the history of Hollywood where, I mean, at least like, yeah, you don't need to be there.

What's on the docket?

Oh.

You mean like.

Like currently?

Like right now?

Yeah.

Well, right now, you know, I finished two seasons as, executive producer and host of, Deal or No Deal Island on NBC.

Right?

So for me, that was, you know, again, it's like how the how the business shifts.

Yeah.

You know, and I mean, I'm sure for you, like, you're looking at football today versus you coaching in the 90s and and even in the 2000s, like the rule changes the way that defenses are kind of penalized or kind of hamstrung a lot.

You know, the way the hitting is with the quarterbacks.

And you know, the game has changed in entertainment as well.

And, you know, like I said, when I came out to, to LA in 2000, you know, you did film and television that were very separate, actors didn't do American actors, didn't do American commercials they wanted to do commercial make money, had to go to like Japan or Europe or somewhere way far away.

And, and you definitely didn't host a game show.

But things change.

Yeah.

And, and I think the quality of things change, I think, I think social media has changed a lot.

I think, I think it's interesting where, you know, me taking a hosting job for a game show.

I never would have done that five years ago.

In fact, I turned down opportunities to do that years ago because as an actor, you wanted to hide who you were.

You didn't want people to know who you were.

Yeah.

But now I think with social media, which is what's interesting, is like, if you don't set a baseline of who you are, people mistake you for your characters in a certain way, like they people thought I was my character on Trueblood.

They thought I was my character on Magic Mike.

It's interesting that when I started hosting the game show and stopped kind of hiding who I was to the public a little bit.

Yeah, they realize, oh, those are characters.

Wow.

I really like his acting, you know, like, it's a funny thing.

And also like, it's just fun.

And for me, it was, it's something that that I love doing.

I love being a producer on the show.

I love having role in my sleeves up and getting my hands dirty.

So.

So that's definitely something, that I was, you know, involved with on, on the producing side, but, I'm getting ready to go back, to shoot another season.

I'm acting on a series for Netflix called One Piece, which is, very famous Japanese manga, anime, live action adaptation, where I play a very notorious pirate on the show.

So I don't I don't have to produce anything.

I can just go and show up and act, which is fun.

I've found myself working in other countries more than I was even working in the states, and then definitely not working in Los Angeles ever.

So at that point you start thinking, well, would I have chosen to live in LA had it not been for work?

And the answer is no, of course not.

I never would have just moved there.

Random, right?

And then it became like a six hour flight further away from everywhere.

I'm going to work.

Yeah, and with taxes.

And, you know, I don't want to get into, like, listen, LA is not as clean as Mount Lebanon.

Yeah.

Right.

Let#s put it that way.

Right.

Yeah I know it's not, it#s friendly.

It's not as nice.

And I started realizing how much I had been, I, I never really referred to LA as home.

Yeah.

I would always when I was coming back to Pittsburgh, I'd always say, hey, am flying home this weekend.

I'm flying back home.

Back home to where you walk down the street and people say hi to you.

People want to talk to you people.

People to me especially coming, you know, in LA, you know, people will film you while you're eating.

Yeah.

You know what I mean?

There's just a sense of entitlement about the whole separation between, you know, you in that, you know, Pittsburgh people treat me like I'm a neighbor.

Yeah.

And I mean, and I am their neighbor.

You know, I take my trash out on Sunday night.

I say hi to neighbors.

You know, no question.

It's just like to be able to live in an atmosphere that feels like a community to leave here, to go to South Africa, to go film the next season of One Piece and then know that you can come home.

Like if it was raining and there was a package on my porch, a neighbor would go and take it and put it under the awning in the back like just I love Pittsburgh, I love the people here.

I love the way they treat me.

I love the way they treat people that I bring back.

I love the way they treat Caitlin.

You know, they've always been great to my mom, who's from a Boston native.

And so, you know, and I love the teams.

I love the children's hospital.

So for me to come back and be here and also, you know, this house opened up.

This house was a house that my mother used to volunteer at.

Oh, wow.

Used to volunteer in this house.

This is like a historical, you know, house that my mother used to volunteer at during the holidays as a docent, as a, you know, tour guide.

That's cool.

She could be in the house.

Yeah, that, you know, it came up for sale.

I came in and took a look at it and it was like, it's the same zip code.

It's it's like a couple streets over from where I grew up.

I can walk from my walk to know she lived with you guys in the house.

No, no, no, she's she's, she's she's now on Mount Lebanon.

So.

Okay, I know you're a reader.

Did you read every one of those books behind you?

So I've read most of everything in back to Me.

I will say that.

So I work as a chief creative officer for Dungeons and Dragons.

Okay, okay.

So as a kid, I loved fantasy novels, Dungeons and Dragons, etc.

so, a lot of this is the history.

It's like a history of role playing and Dungeons and Dragons, like I have a lot of the original, all like most of the original material that I use because I get hired by them.

Like I got hired to develop, a series of my favorite books as a kid.

I got hired as a writer screenwriter to write the the screenplays for the first season of television, based upon my favorite book.

So I have all of those up there.

Then I have all the what The books kind of were based on the gaming books.

I have those down here.

Okay.

Then I have up there.

I have all the all the novels.

There's almost 200 novels in the series.

I have almost all of them, you know, up here for reference, because it's like a it's like a workspace.

It's a, you know, a bunch of reference.

You know everything's out that you don't have to look it up.

You know, exactly what shelf you know exactly how many books in if you use book.

Yeah.

And then also too, what's fun too, about having, you know, this space, having a library is that, you know, I feel like, you know, I feel like Odysseus, you know, or like, I had like the Odyssey.

Like I went away for 25 years to fight, you know, Troy, the Trojan War.

And I've come home with the spoils of war.

So I have, you know, my helmet from death from, you know, and then I have, like, Axl Rose's microphone from the only time Guns N' Roses played the Apollo Theater.

I have, you know, footballs signed by.

You know, I got I got Franco, I love Frank.

Franco was like, an uncle to me.

Yeah.

You know, I got Franco.

Peyton Manning came out to LA, I met him.

You sign a ball, I gotta get you sign a ball.

So I need to send you a ball, a helmet, and my book.

So I'm going to get this from you before you go.

So because it's I want to I want to make your book case.

I mean, I don't know, I mean, I have your book here somewhere.

I have it I've been putting them all up.

I have I have a book over there.

I want to Saigo.

Saigo.

Sign one for you.

No, you're the best, brother.

Thank you.

Thanks, coach.

It's an honor.

Love you.

And, thanks for having me on.

Yeah.

Thank you man.

Joe Manganiello really epitomizes never say taking no for an answer.

Resiliency.

Never forget where you came from.

Being able to pivot in life, taking an opportunity and embracing it.

And unbelievably so, coming all full cycle back to Pittsburgh and making it at home.

It is a great career.

It's an inspiration to a lot of people, but it's also just another Pittsburgher who lives his dream and never forgot where he came from.

Hi, I'm Joe Manganiello, this is my dog bubbles.

And you can watch my conversation with coach Bill Cowher only on WQED.

Yeah, you good.

We good?