Kevin Nash and Joe Manganiello ate a lot of steak during the filming of the Magic Mike movies.
Joe Manganiello recently sat down with Tyler Treese of ComingSoon to discuss a variety of subjects, when the subject of professional wrestling came up, Manganiello revealed he was a big fan of wrestling during the golden era:
“The answer is yes, a big giant resounding yes, but I was a fan during the golden era,”Joe Manganiello revealed. “Macho Man Randy Savage was my favorite wrestler by far. Wrestlemania IV was the highlight. His match against Ted DiBiase where he won the title, I went crazy when I was a kid for that. And then super angry after WrestleMania V when the Mega Powers exploded. I just don’t think that wrestling for me was the same really. Stone Cold came into the ’90s but like, of course, we’re talking Macho Man in the ’80s, who I then got to hang out with on the set of Spider-Man.
“And then you’re talking about the ’90s and the Attitude Era, you’re talking about big, sexy Kevin Nash. You’re talking about then the Big Show. Nash and I were castmates in Magic Mike and Magic Mike XXL and then Big Show [Paul Wight] plays in my weekly Dungeons and Dragons group. So there’s a long history of me with professional wrestlers. I also shot a movie a long time ago with Ken Kennedy or Mr. Anderson and he invited me to tour around with the WWE for a little while at the time.
“I love all that kind of old-school wrestling. And my buddy Chris Bauer was the one who got me into Pro Wrestling Guerrilla. And I started going to PWG matches, but I had been going for a while prior to bringing Sofia. Wrestling is not Sofia’s thing. So I was like, “You gotta come with me on Friday night to this wrestling show. Like, please come with me. You’re going to laugh.” And so we just had a blast.”
When asked what it was like to be on set with Kevin Nash for Magic Mike, Manganiello revealed that Nash was his lifting and eating buddy during the filming of the movies:
“Kevin was my lifting buddy at the gym so we would always go to the gym together for Magic Mike,” Joe Manganiello said. “During Magic Mike, we stayed in touch. Then when Magic Mike XXL came out, he was always my lifting buddy. We would go to Ruth’s Chris Steak House afterward. Without fail, every night we’d go in there, and this gives you an insight into what we were eating at the time or what we needed to eat to keep the engine going, but the waitress would come around and be like ‘Can I take your order?’ I’d say, ‘Yeah, I’ll have the porterhouse for two’ and she’d go, ‘OK, great.’ Then she’d walk away, and Nash was like, ‘Hey, I haven’t ordered yet. I’ll also have the porterhouse for two.’
“He was my lifting buddy. He was my eating buddy. We still stay in touch. I love that guy. He’s also one of the fucking smartest people you’ve ever met. Like you’ll just be sitting there bullshitting, and then he’ll come out with some fun fact about Cubism and the Cubist period. And you’re like, ‘What the f*ck?’ There’s nothing that guy doesn’t know. He’s a fountain of information on everything. He’s a trip, man. I love that dude.”
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Are you surprised to learn that Joe Manganiello is a wrestling fan? Did you watch the movies he did with Kevin Nash? Let us know your thoughts by sounding off in the comments section below.
