Joe Manganiello: I may be the only villain to wear an ostomy bag under my ‘Justice League’ armour
Mumbai, Oct 24 (IANS) Actor Joe Manganiello has revealed that he wore an ostomy bag under his full Deathstroke armour while shooting the end scene of ‘Justice League’, as he battled a life-threatening illness that led to the removal of his entire large intestine.
During his appearance on The Tonight Show by Jimmy Fallon, the actor said he kept his health struggles private for years, even as he continued working through a prolonged and difficult recovery.
Manganiello used an ostomy bag following an emergency 2016 surgery where doctors had to remove his large intestine after it failed due to a severe, undiagnosed autoimmune condition.
The actor recalled: “I collapsed on the ground and I had to be taken to a hospital and the doctors couldn’t figure out what was going on no matter however many scans they gave me nothing was showing up and they wound up cutting me open at the 11th hour to try to save my life and they found that my entire large intestine had turned to pus and was going to explode.”
The actor revealed that it was “caught it at the last moment”.
“When I woke up, you know, I had to be told that my intestine was gone and that I was left with an ostomy bag that might last forever. And I got out of the hospital and I lost 60 pounds in two weeks. People had to help me lift my legs. I had to learn how to walk and stand up again.”
Manganiello shared that he tried to gain the weight back, he got a call to star as the main villain in Ben Affleck’s Batman.
“And I take this as a sign that if I can shoot one day next month and then maybe I’ll be well enough next year from this mystery illness to go off and shoot this movie. And so I say yes.”
He added: “And what people don’t know is when I shot that scene for the end of Justice League in my full armor as Deathstroke, I’m probably the only villain ever with an ostomy bag on under the armor.”
The 49-year-old actor credits everybody who was in my life at the time because “the illness lasted seven years and it was up and down and this crazy roller coaster. And, you know, I just some days just doing nothing was the best thing that I could do.”
“Just hanging on and hoping that there would be some day where this would this would release.
And that’s why I wrote it (this book), because I know how embarrassed I felt or or how how tough I felt I had to be for everybody around me, for everybody out there.”
The actor said that he didn’t want to be “looked at as the sick guy.”
He added: “I think there are a lot of people out there that feel that way. And there’s a lot of people that are battling and their family members are battling. And I just hope that maybe if I came clean about it all, it would destigmatize that type of illness, ostomy bags and allow people to talk.”
–IANS
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