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Manganiello to be film festival’s Shooting Star

His wife, Sofia Vergara, will present the award during a June 14 tribute at the Celestial Cinema in Wailea

WAILEA -- When actor-producer-director-writer Joe Manganiello accepts the 2019 Maui Film Festival's Shooting Star Award in a June 14 tribute at the Celestial Cinema, his actress-wife Sofia Vergara will be the one presenting it to him.

Following the award tribute, the festival will premiere "Bottom of the 9th," a drama in which the husband and wife co-star.

Festival founder and director Barry Rivers announced the award today honoring "an actor in a Maui Film Festival Premiere who delivers a breakthrough performance that lights up the screen."

"We are thrilled to honor Joe Manganiello for his incredible work in 'Bottom of the 9th,'" said Rivers. "Joe has been a part of our Maui Film Festival ohana for quite some time, and we are very proud to present the world premiere of a film that clearly means so much to him and, as a lifelong Brooklyn Dodgers fan, to me, too."

The tribute and screening will take place in the festival's signature venue, the Celestial Cinema under the stars on the Wailea Gold & Emerald Golf Course. Maui Film Festival is celebrating its 20th anniversary June 12-16 at the Wailea Resort and the Maui Arts & Cultural Center.

It previously announced that it will honor Paul Rudd with its Nova Award on opening night, and will present the 2019 Shining Star Award to Awkwafina June 15. Other honorees will be announced in the coming weeks.

Manganiello is best known for co-starring for five seasons in HBO's hit vampire series "True Blood," and for playing male stripper "Big Dick Richie" in Steven Soderbergh's "Magic Mike" and "Magic Mike XXL."

Although his physique and towering 6-foot-5 height have constantly put him on magazine polls of the world's fittest and sexiest men, he is a graduate of Carnegie Mellon University, a published author and Emmy Award-winning narrator. He self-financed, produced and directed the documentary "La Bare," about male strippers in Dallas, which debuted and sold at the Slamdance Film Festival. He was given the 2014 Maui Film Festival's Triple Threat Award for his work on that film.

"I grew up a misfit. I never fit in," he is quoted as saying on the Internet Movie Database (IMDB). "I had all of these parts that were in direct conflict with each other. I was an athlete, but I was extremely artistic. I was a big strong kid who was also very sensitive and empathetic. I was a jock who was good at math and chess and loved to read. I didn't know what group to hang out with in school until I started acting. When I did, I realized everyone was as weird and out of place as I was, and that I could combine all of those weird opposing characteristics together and create characters that made sense to me in my weird way. Acting was the only place that I ever felt like I belonged so went for it with everything I had."

"Manganiello was most recently seen battling giant monsters in New Line's 'Rampage' with Dwayne Johnson, and in his debut as super-villain 'Deathstroke' during the end credits scene in Warner Brothers/DCEU's 'Justice League,'" says a Maui Film Festival release. He has just completed work on the comedy "Shoplifters of the World," which his production company, 359, also produced.

In Sabin Films' "Bottom of the 9th," Manganiello plays Sonny Stano, a once-aspiring baseball player who returns to his Bronx neighborhood after serving 17 years in prison for a violent crime he committed in his youth, according to an IMDB synopsis.

He will share the stage for the award presentation with his Colombian-born actress wife, a four-time Emmy nominee for her role as Gloria in American Broadcasting Company's Emmy-winning hit comedy series "Modern Family."

For more details and information on the 2019 Maui Film Festival, visit www.mauifilmfestival.com.

* Freelance writer Rick Chatenever can be contacted at rickchatenever@gmail.com.