It’s been widely reported that Joe Manganiello was in the running to play Superman in Man of Steel. Zack Snyder has confirmed this himself while explaining why he felt Henry Cavill was better for the role. But it turns out Manganiello was actually a lot closer to starring in Man of Steel than we thought. Manganiello told the real story on this week’s episode of “Happy Sad Confused” with MTV’s Josh Horowitz.

According to Manganiello, he had a 90 minute meeting with Zack Snyder for the Man of Steel role. Snyder and his wife were big fans of True Blood, the HBO show that Manganiello starred in at the time, and thought that he’d be a great Superman. Manganiello also met with all of the producers, the casting directors, and they even called the costume department at True Blood to get his measurements so they could start building his Superman suit. Unfortunately, that call is what ended his chances of playing Superman.

HBO was not willing to let their True Blood star take the time off needed to go make a Superman movie. Understandably, he was under contract with them and they needed him. Manganiello’s agent did all that he could to try to make things work out. He went straight to the executives at Time Warner, the company that owns both HBO and Warner Bros., but unfortunately there was nothing that could be done.

Manganiello, who grew up reading comic books, was very disappointed, but he started to think about the positives. He was grateful to have his True Blood job, as it was his first steady acting gig in years. But even with that positive outlook, Manganiello couldn’t bring himself to watch Man of Steel when it was released. A couple of years later while he was home recovering from surgery (on pain killers), Manganiello finally caught Man of Steel on TV.

You can listen to Manganiello tell the story himself around the 44:13 mark in the audio player below.

SOURCE: Happy Sad Confused