Joe Manganiello quotes:

When I was growing up, it was Clint Eastwood, it was Harrison Ford and Steve McQueen - these guys were tough. They were leading men, but they were also tough and physical.

I mean, everyone walks into the gym on day one skinny or fat. Arnold Schwarzenegger walked into the gym skinny at 15 or 16, and I was that way, too.

I was happier going back to my roots: training like men do in my hometown of Pittsburgh. Back home the guys in the gyms don't lift to look good; they're lifting to lift. They do it because they want to squat more and bench more.

I come from classical theater training and when I went to college it was a bunch of kids that were hand-picked from around the world. I was around such brilliant young minds and incredible artists with incredible teachers.

I've always been an athletic guy, but the extent to which I go for 'True Blood' or for 'Magic Mike' is because of the role that I'm playing.

I grew up a big comic book reader, as a kid, and I love the whole fanboy crowd.

I actually met Carrie Fisher a couple of years ago. When I told her that she was my first crush, she insisted that we get married and have a reality show about it. I'm lucky to have made it out of that weekend without getting married.

I was kind of a dark kid. I loved Halloween, and I loved vampires and the black and white old monster movies.

Well, if I hadn't have been an actor I would have gone on to play college sports.

I did [Henrik] Ibsen and [Anton] Chekhov for years. Obviously I didn't get the kind of recognition I have now. Somebody once told me, "You ride the horse the direction it's going."

When I'd be out-and-about at a club and the music would come on, I was never the guy that was gonna dance. But after Magic Mike - I have like two or three go-to moves. That's what Magic Mike gave me.

I mean 'One Tree Hill' had some rabid fans - you'd be surprised - they're almost in a class of their own.

Also, to be honest, my dad wanted me to be an athlete. And I think all sons want to prove something to their dad. So now, aged 35, I want to see what I can achieve physically.

I train like a pro-athlete, not like an actor who's just trying to look pretty.

Acting was my first love.

When I first got out of drama school, my original manager tried to get me to change my name because people were having trouble spelling it and saying it.

It's tricky when I'm constantly traveling and adjusting to new time zones and trying to also keep up with my workouts.

When I'm training for 'True Blood,' I don't eat any sugar except for some fruit here and there. So it's no sugar, no bread, no real carbs all day.

I went to a school that's predominantly computer science and engineering. So, there's a real shortage of hot girls, let's say.

I had a fan make me a silver wolf-tooth necklace. That was really great.

I watched so many comic book movies where the actors weren't as built as the characters in the book. It made me mad because they didn't look right.

I'm a nerd. But I'm not that hard-core.

I mean, I feel like I've been pretending I was a werewolf since I was a little kid.

American comedies especially are all about these men being browbeaten by their wives and it's impossible for me to watch.

Every weekend the drama department would have parties. The 20 hot girls on campus? All of them were in the drama dept. So we'd have somebody standing guard at the door to keep all the computer science guys out. We had to guard our women at all times.

I started working at clubs when I was sixteen, which is young. I would not want my kid doing that, but I did, and that's how it went.

Women do a lot of uncomfortable things for men - and I appreciate it all. I appreciate high heels. I appreciate thongs.

Sometimes people say things they don't mean, and you just have to let it go.

I'm glad that I lost, I'm glad that I failed, I'm glad that I felt that way and decided to do something about it.I never wanted to feel that way again and it drove me.

I wake up at the same time every day to get to the gym.

I don't think there's any such thing as male objectification"¦I think that word exists only with women because there are societal pressures for them to behave a certain way and to look a certain way. Someone put it to me once: Women are sex objects and men are success objects. That was really interesting to me.

I was single long enough, and when I was, it wasn't about putting notches in the bedpost.

In the age of camera phones and screenshots and Twitter.... At the end of the day, I want to share my life with somebody, you know? I want picture albums. I want to look back at our time together. And I also want kids. And if you want kids, then you want marriage.

I wouldn't tell anyone to study werewolves - I studied wolves, how they moved, their tendencies and sensibilities.

The best love advice I've ever received is probably, 'I'm not leaving the relationship; I'm just leaving the house.'

I'd rather be a liar than an asshole.

Matt Bomer and I went to Carnegie Mellon for drama together.

I quit because that thing inside of me that was driving me to drink that way was causing me so much pain that I was starting to get afraid for my own life, and my own health. It wasn't necessarily one instance. It was a lot that had piled up.

I grew up a misfit. I never fit in.

We've all had those phone conversations. Things are heated, you're in a position where you're gonna say something nasty. Instead, you say, "Oh, I've got that thing in the oven." Lie. Get off the phone. Don't perpetuate a bad situation.

I think you can be athletic and intellectual at the same time.

I am kind of giant "¦ on (the True Blood) set.

I don't think there's any such thing as male objectification

Sex accounts for about 40 percent of your relationship, but if it's bad, then it's 60.

[ Being naked on scene ] was like walking a tightrope without a net - with a giant fan blowing at you.

Acting was the only place that I ever felt like I belonged so went for it with everything I had.

Doing theater is like walking a tightrope without a net.

I got to L.A. in 2000, when we were coming off the '90s: women looked like men and the men all looked like women.

I play characters who are comfortable naked, but that's something you work up to. I did a play off-Broadway in New York when I was in college. It was full-frontal nudity. It's nerve-racking.

I love walking around and grabbing coffee and sitting in a park and people watching"¦ I love Greenwich Village.

David Ayer was put on my map, at that point, and I always kept note and clocked his career. When he started directing, I saw Harsh Times, I saw Street Kings and I saw End of Watch. I gave my agents a list of directors that I wanted to work with, and at the top of that list was David. I wanted to have that experience.

I wanted to work with somebody who seemed like he came from the same place that I did, which is that total immersion and learning about the world around, from this very gritty, dark side, and had access to that.

I'm an actor that cares.

There are these little towns outside of L.A. Once you get an hour and a half, two hours out, you get into these little, tiny towns that are almost like stuck in time.

So listen, man, "weird" is my middle name. I'm ready for anything. The weirder, the better.

I screen tested for Training Day many years ago, which was David Ayer's script with Antoine Fuqua directing.

I'm an average guy. I wasn't the dude who was gonna sit at the stage and dump all my paycheck into the girl.

The reason I couldn't pay my rent was because I was one of the worst drinkers you'd ever seen in your life.

Once you become famous, being single becomes a liability.

I think when portraying someone that does exist in real life, there's an amount of respect and you want to do them justice. I don't really care what anybody says out there about what I did in the film; I care what these guys thought about what I did. If I'm making them happy, then I know I'm on the right track.

What's funny is that male strippers don't wear thongs anymore. They wear flat backs.