Why Joe Manganiello's True Blood Nude Scenes Left Him 'Traumatized'

From Leonardo DiCaprio chowing down on bison livers to get the perfect shot for "The Revenant" to Shelley Duvall being terrorized by director Stanley Kubrick on the set of "The Shining," Hollywood is littered with tales of actors enduring some pretty horrible conditions during filming. Over on the small screen, things can be just as brutal. According to former "True Blood" star Joe Manganiello, he had to deal with some nasty weather issues while filming the supernatural romance drama — made worse by the fact that he was often shirtless or completely naked.

During an interview on The Jennifer Hudson Show, Manganiello told the Oscar-winning host that filming some of the sexier scenes on "True Blood" was the opposite of steamy. "Let me tell you something," Manganiello explained. "When I was on 'True Blood' we didn't shoot in Louisiana — the warm Louisiana. We shot in Malibu [in] December, January for anybody who's out there it's below 20 degrees at night and now on 'True Blood,' we were naked." 

Not only was it freezing, Manganiello said that he had so much trouble doing his job as an actor that the crew even noticed his shivers and told him to cut it out: "[We did] nothing with clothes on! So then they're like, 'Stop shivering, try to make it sexy!' Like no man, I'm freezing," he laughed. "So believe me ... I wouldn't take it. I was traumatized by it all."

So why exactly was Joe Manganiello wandering around in the chilly Malibu air in various states of undress? The actor played Alcide Herveaux on "True Blood" for five seasons, and the reason he was often shirtless is because Alcide sheds his clothes in order to transform into a werewolf. Not only that, but Alcide is presented as a love interest for series lead Sookie Stackhouse (Anna Paquin) — as an alternative to vampires like Bill Compton (Stephen Moyer, Paquin's real-life spouse) or Eric Northman (Alexander Skårsgard). Ultimately, Alcide dies during the show's seventh and final season while arguing with Bill over who's better suited to protect Sookie from danger.

So what has Manganiello been up to since he played the hunky, shirtless Alcide? Before even wrapping on "True Blood," Manganiello joined Channing Tatum's semi-autobiographical 2012 film "Magic Mike" as Big Dick Richie, a fellow dancer (and he reprised the role in "Magic Mike XXL" in 2015 after "True Blood" was officially done). He's well known as a passionate Dungeons & Dragons player and is even working on a documentary about the tabletop game's storied history, and he currently hosts the spin-off reality competition game "Deal or No Deal Island" for NBC.