Joe Manganiello Uses Sex Appeal to Sway Jury

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Now enjoying the skyrocketing success of True Blood and his recent film Magic Mike, Joe Manganiello now revisits the recurring role on How I Met Your Mother that enabled him to achieve that success.

"It's awesome," Manganiello told ET's special correspondent Melissa Peterman of returning to the show. "I missed everybody. You see everybody out and about over the years...but it was just really fun to get back in. It really feels like--other than the beard and long hair--like I never left."

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Manganiello ("Brad") originally appeared on the show as a fellow lawyer friend to Jason Segel's character, "Marshall," in Season 2. The now blooming star's character is now at odds with his former best friend over a court case in Season 8, and he attempts to use his good looks to sway the female jury.

"[Marshall's] got to dig deep...He's got to fight hard," he said of Marshall's response to Brad's tactics. "He uses some really unorthodox tactics to battle Brad as well and it just escalates."

Manganiello's character not only gives his old buddy Marshall a hard time in the upcoming episode but also inadvertently riles Neil Patrick Harris' character, "Barney," by challenging his dominance in attracting women.

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"It's competitive," Harris said of the altered dynamic on set with Manganiello present. "I'll tell you what, [there's] a lot of swooning [in] his direction....Everyone [gasps] every time he walks by."

Barney isn't the only one who is affected by Brad's swooning ways, as Alyson Hannigan's character, "Lilly," Marshall's wife, is also persuaded by his good looks and seductive tactics, to the extent that she turns against her husband.

"I was rooting for my husband until the pen incident," Hannigan said of her character's courtroom experience with Brad, "and he drops his pen and bends over, and now I'm easily swayed."

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Check out Manganiello on How I Met Your Mother tonight (Nov. 26) at 8 p.m. on CBS.