There’s plenty of male eye candy on HBO’s hit vampire drama True Blood, as leading man Stephen Moyer is keenly aware.
“I may come in fourth behind Joe Manganiello, Alex Skarsgard and Ryan Kwanten, if I’m really honest,” the English actor, 42, admits in The Advocate‘s August 2012 issue. “I’m a little upset. Once upon a time I was doing very well in that area, but after Alex and Joe joined the show, I naturally went down in the pecking order.”
The sexually-charged series often requires the actors to appear nude on camera, which Skarsgard, 35, is more comfortable with than Moyer. “We all know each other really well, and it’s not that I care about what the actors think, but I don’t think the crew necessarily needs to see my bits,” Moyer explains. “As for Alex, hey, whatever floats your boat, man.” (Skarsgard is known for not wearing a modesty sock while shooting.)
Dropping trou on True Blood has its perks: it made Manganiello’s job much easier when he was cast as a stripper named Big Dick Richie in the movie Magic Mike.
“We’ve been privy to most of Joe’s performance in Magic Mike just from being on set with him. Joe is not somebody who’s afraid to take his top off or hump desks,” Moyer, who’s expecting twins with wife and costar Anna Paquin, 29, tells The Advocate. “If you went up to Joe and said, ‘I hear you’re playing a stripper,’ he would do the dance for you then and there. He would probably do it for my dog, Banjo. He has no shame.”
