“True Blood” star Joe Manganiello is in Sydney to promote the sixth season of the U.S. hit supernatural series. Together with his girlfriend, model Bridget Peters, the 36-year-old hunk, who plays werewolf Alcide, has been entertaining interviews and photo ops in town, and just basically driving his fans to total distraction since coming to the country on Tuesday.

Speaking to Fairfax Media, Manganiello said there’s positive development on his character on the show this year.

“It made me upset reading script after script after script for years where he was constantly being picked on, being punched, being cheated on, guns being pulled on him. It was enough already,” the actor complained.

“I was really excited this year to explore that side of him in that there’s a much more aggressive side, there’s a much more active side. And I think it’s going to make a much more vital, interesting character if he ever came back to interact with some of those characters that he had been involved with before.

And the changes didn’t stop on his character. Even the show’s fanbase has grown as well.

“For years I have a lot of men come up to me and say, ‘hey, you’re in my wife’s favourite show’ or ‘my wife would kill me if I didn’t get a picture with you’ or ‘my wife likes your character.’ So there’s a lot of guys that their wife want the show but they know exactly who I am and can quote me,” he said. “There’s almost embarrassment or fear about saying ‘I really like your show.’

“Somehow that has changed this year,” he said, adding that man men are now admitting that they like the show. “Maybe there’s something about the full frontal female nudity that’s bringing guys around and say, ‘hey, your show is all right. I watch it with my girl.’”

And while he doesn’t think of himself as a sex symbol (“that’s for other people to label or say”), he is concerned with being a role model (“that is something that I do think about”).

“I think Charles Barkley was wrong, the American basketball player who said, ‘I’m not a role model. It’s not my responsibility.’ I don’t agree with that,” he added. “And I do try very hard to set an example.”

Manganiello plays a character in the show who is almost always shirtless or totally nude in scenes. Not that anyone is complaining. In fact, one of the biggest draws of the show is seeing his well-toned physique.

However, he’s still uncomfortable with his mother seeing him having sex on screen.

“I think the eating of corpse is they’re okay with, but I do call my mum before sex scenes and say, ‘Mum, you might want to walk out of the room on this one. I don’t really want you to see me like this and know that I would do that to somebody. I just don’t want that in your head.’ So my mum has learned how to walk out of the room when that comes on.”

Fan fact: Manganiello was supposed to play the titular character in the “Man of Steel” instead of Henry Cavill. But his dedication to playing his role on “True Blood” prevented him from donning Superman’s costume.

Director Zack Snyder even asked for his measurements from the show’s costume department so they could make him a Superman suit. But when his shooting schedule conflicted with the film’s production schedule, he had to give it up.

That said, he isn’t going to watch the film, at least not for a while.

“I don’t think I can,” he honestly told APN. “It broke my heart because there was nothing I could do. I wasn’t allowed to shoot it.

“I think going to watch that movie would be a bit like watching my girlfriend have sex with someone else.”

Manganiello was also Foxtel’s special guest for the 11th ASTRA Awards at the Sydney Theatre on Thursday.

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‘True Blood’ Major Death Comes; Find Out Who’s The Beloved Character Killed Off [Read]

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