Perhaps some of yinz have seen Joe Manganiello run out of the tunnel at Acrisure Stadium, leading the Terrible Towel twirl at a Steelers game. Others may remember him as a classmate at St. Bernard’s, Mt. Lebanon High School, or even Carnegie Mellon’s School of Drama.
More recently, the True Blood and Magic Mike alum is navigating the wild and sometimes wacky world of reality television as executive producer and host of NBC and Peacock’s Deal or No Deal Island. Manganiello has long been a fan of reality television, having watched the premiere of the original Survivor in 2000. He had just moved to Los Angeles and he and his roommates threw a party for the premiere.
“For me, especially as host and executive producer [of Deal or No Deal Island], there’s a lot of documentary filmmaking parallels to it,” Manganiello tells the Pittsburgh City Paper. “As a documentarian, you’re constantly thinking about the edit as you’re filming.”
For those unfamiliar, Deal or No Deal Island is a spinoff of the game show Deal or No Deal. The tropical version features contestants competing in physical challenges on an island to get briefcases containing money. The winner of each round chooses someone to play a Banker’s Challenge (which is like a game of the original Deal or No Deal) where they try to make a good offer on their chosen briefcase so they’re not eliminated from the game. The final contestant plays a game of Deal or No Deal and gets the jackpot of all the offers from throughout the season.
When asked about his favorite reality show hosts, Manganiello is a big fan of Jeff Probst, the long-running host of Survivor. He also names Matt Kunitz, who created Fear Factor and Wipeout and is the showrunner of Deal or No Deal Island.
“If we’re going to go with Pittsburgh, let’s go Dan Cortese,” he says, referring to the Sewickley native who hosted MTV Sports in the ‘90s . “I loved Dan growing up, he was the coolest.”
In addition to reality TV, a big part of Manganiello’s life is his beloved Chihuahua, Bubbles, who has been with him for over 10 years. When asked how she was doing during our interview, Manganiello lifted the pup onto the computer screen to say hello.
When he adopted Bubbles about five years ago, Manganiello’s friends compared him to Mickey Rourke, who owns a bevy of chihuahuas. While Bubbles doesn’t like other dogs much, she did have a doggie boyfriend in Ireland for a few months.
“Seeing how the Steelers are going to play in Ireland, we’re going to try to go and see if Bubbles’ boyfriend is still there,” Manganiello says. “She’s a great traveler, she’s been all over the world, she even has a European Union passport that was issued in Ireland.”
Upcoming projects for Manganiello this year include Nonnas, a Netflix comedy film that also stars Vince Vaughn, Susan Sarandon, Lorraine Bracco, Linda Cardellini, Drea de Matteo, and more, premiering on May 9. Manganiello plays Vaughn’s best friend in the movie.
“People are going to love it, it’s hilarious, it’s all about being Italian” says Manganiello, who is a quarter Sicilian and an Italian citizen.
But not everything on his scheduled is for laughs. He’ll be hosting a fireside chat at SXSW with the CEO of Colossal Biosciences about the future of genetics and de-extinction. In early April, he’ll be visiting Washington, D.C. to speak on Capitol Hill to commemorate the 110th anniversary of the Armenian genocide (Manganiello is also of Armenian descent).
When Manganiello does have some downtime, he describes his perfect weekend in Pittsburgh:
“I’d land at Pittsburgh International, grab a rental car and go straight to Fiori’s for pizza,” he says. “I’d check into my hotel and the next morning wake up and get Nicholas Coffee in Market Square, then probably get Fiori’s again for an early lunch, then hit up the gym with my mom.”
He also says he’d have to get Primanti’s and a second pick-me-up from Nicholas Coffee too.
“It would be on the weekend of a Steelers home game and hopefully the Penguins would play as well, so I’d do a Saturday night Penguins, Sunday Steelers,” he says. “Then off to Nemacolin!”
This article appears in Mar 12-18, 2025.
