Joe Manganiello in Conversation with Happy Sad Confused’s Josh Horowitz: Bloodlines

Overview

Acclaimed actor Joe Manganiello joins us for a candid conversation with Happy Sad Confused host Josh Horowitz about his gripping new memoir, Bloodlines — and the remarkable life and career behind it.

Joe Manganiello has built a career playing men who seem almost superhuman — from the seductive werewolf Alcide Herveaux on True Blood to the unforgettable Big Dick Richie in the Magic Mike films. But behind the screen persona, Manganiello was fighting a private, seven-year battle that would upend everything he thought he knew about survival. In Bloodlines, he tells his story for the first time.

At the height of his success, Manganiello’s body began to fail him. A cascade of autoimmune-related illnesses led to chronic pain, repeated medical crises, and multiple near-death experiences, while doctors struggled to explain what was happening. Searching for answers beyond conventional medicine, Manganiello embarked on an extraordinary journey through spirituality, ancient rituals, family records, and his own ancestry — uncovering stories of violence, displacement, survival, and inherited trauma, including the history of an ancestor who survived the Armenian genocide.

In a live recording of Horowitz’s Happy Sad Confused podcast, hear Manganiello discuss what his experience has taught him about masculinity, ambition, faith, and a career in Hollywood that has defied categorization.