Channing Tatum Interview, Fighting

MoviesOnline sat down with Channing Tatum (“A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints,” “Stop-Loss,” “Step Up”) at the Los Angeles press day for his new movie, “Fighting,” written and directed by Dito Monteil, who weaves a tale of two men headed straight for failure…until they cross paths and realize each has exactly what the other needs for big success.

Small-town boy Shawn MacArthur (Tatum) has come to New York City with nothing.  Barely earning a living selling counterfeit goods on the streets, his luck changes when scam artist Harvey Boarden (Terrence Howard) sees that he has a natural talent for street fighting.  When Harvey offers Shawn help at making some real cash, the two form an uneasy partnership.

The cast also includes Luis Guzman as fight promoter Martinez; Zulay Henao as Shawn’s love interest, Zulay Velez; and Brian White as Shawn’s rival and former wrestling teammate Evan Hailey.

Tatum was excited to reunite with his Saints director.  Of working on the film with Montiel, Tatum says: “Dito and I wanted to make a film about lonely people…about two guys who find each other and common ground—even though they represent two different ends of the spectrum.  They both have something they need from each other.”

The troubled, sensitive and good-natured Shawn is a character far removed from Saints’ violent, streetwise Antonio, but Tatum was eager to challenge himself as a performer.  He and Montiel created a detailed backstory for the character who has fled his roots in Birmingham, Alabama, in order to try his luck in the city. 

With his upcoming roles in 2009, Tatum will establish his place among Hollywood’s next generation of leading men. He recently wrapped production on the adaptation of the Nicholas Sparks bestseller “Dear John,” starring opposite Amanda Seyfried.  He plays a soldier on leave from the army who meets and falls in love with a young woman (Seyfried).  Lasse Hallström (“The Cider House Rules,” “Chocolat”) directs the adapted script by Jamie Linden.

Tatum will also star as the lead of the highly anticipated “G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra,” directed by Stephen Sommers. He plays Duke, the lead member of an elite military unit comprised of special operatives known as “G.I. Joe.” Others in the cast include Sienna Miller, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Dennis Quaid and Rachel Nichols.  The film is slated for release on August 7, 2009.

Channing Tatum is a fabulous guy with a big heart and a wonderful sense of humor. Earlier, just as our interview with Terrence Howard was about to start, Channing ran into the room, quickly tagged him and ran out before a startled Terrence could react. Here’s what Tatum had to tell us about his new movie, “Fighting”; working with Terrence; and his upcoming projects:

Q: What's with that stealth attack on Terrence? Are you going to come in and....

Channing: And start attacking people?

Q: Are you preparing for the G.I. Joe junket?

Channing:  No. No!  Just be like [makes scary combat face] 'Yaaaa!  G. I. Joe!!'
I'd probably run into the wrong guy and I'd be 'wham!' knocked out.  That wouldn't be good press. 'Channing Tatum, Knocked Out!'

Q: You and Terrence seem to be buds, locked at the hip now.  Are you two dating?

Channing: Hmm, he's sexy.  What's wrong with that?

Q: Are you doing a third movie with Dito Montiel [Fighting director]?

Channing:  He's re-writing a script, sort of a spy movie.  We don't know if we're gonna do it but he's exploring it; sort of an interesting opportunity.  Everybody thought that Dito would be doing some international spy type of film.  I definitely thought he would be into it.  But then he had a crazy, cool take on it.  We've all seen the "Bournes" and everything and this won't be a "Bourne."  I promise you that because no one can do "Bourne" better than "Bourne."

Q: You talked about doing a fighting movie with minimal fighting.  Was it important to you that this wasn't about the physicality of it but was about the relationships?

Channing: Yeah.  The fighting in this...it was a basketball film.  I don't know if anybody told you that. The most hilarious things was I said “I don't want to do a basketball film” and way before Dito was even on it, I tried to think of one director that I know would never do a basketball movie because they were like “Well, what director do you want?” and I was like “Dito” because I never wanted to do a basketball movie.  And low and behold, a month later, he calls me up and he's like “Hey, I know it's basketball movie but come her.  I've got a take on it.”  I come to meet him and he tells me it's Midnight Cowboy and I'm like “That's amazing.  I would love to play Joe Buck in Midnight Cowboy, especially your version of Midnight Cowboy. Hell, yeah!” And then I'm like “Wait a minute. We haven't taken basketball out. It's still a basketball movie, Dito.  We can't get away from that.”  He's like “I know, just trust me.  We'll get it out, or we'll figure it out.” Finally, throughout all the different versions of what we were doing, we had less than three weeks to get the movie going, I just suggested “Let's make a fight film” because the basketball would just keep getting more and more violent, knowing Dito. I'm like "Right, just take the basketball out.” And Kevin Misher, the producer, was just like [sigh] “I don't know if I can do that.  Let me work on it” and a week later they did it and it was awesome.  It was great.

Q: You were attached to a Parkour movie at some point.  Did any of that bleed into this?

Channing: Yeah, but it was a completely separate thing with a different producer.  I don't know what is going on with that. I know it's getting re-written.

Q: I was wondering if that became this?

Channing: No. 

Q: What was the toughest thing about doing this movie? Was it the fighting?

Channing: I guess probably. Because Dito just does drama and now he's done commercial drama.  I think they are two different things. There's commercial and there's drama but we really wanted to make a commercial film with decent acting and good characters because I think people now think “commercial film? Oh great but the acting isn't going to be that great anymore because they just don't care.  They just want to see a big, huge blow-up of a movie.”  That's really what we wanted to do, bring those characters to a commercial film and go really excited about it.

Q: Shawn is a tough street kid but he also opens doors for little old ladies.  Did you have to find that balance to play him or is that just you?

Channing: I'm from the South.  If I didn't open a door for my mom or my sister, I got slapped on the back of the head.  That got fixed real quick.  I wasn't about to not do that.

Q: So you brought that experience to the character?

Channing: Yeah. That's what Dito really wanted.  They came to him and told him he couldn't cuss in the movie (PG-13). He was like “You want me to do an underground fighting movie on a PG-13? I can't do it.  I'm going to go home and think about it tonight and, if I can't wrap my head around it, then you have to find somebody else to do it.”  We were way down the line on the movie for him to tell us that. We talked about it.  It was really his idea. “Oh, Shawn just chooses not to cuss.  That's just his upbringing.  He went to church.  He doesn't cuss because he chooses not to.  Harvey is the same way.  He's old-fashioned.”

Q: I didn't miss it.

Channing: Yeah, you don't notice it because that world is so dangerous that you would expect it and no one did it and it just goes to show you, you can do anything if you do it right.

Q: Did your dancing background help with the fighting scenes at all?

Channing: Yeah. I'd say that dancing has helped, probably, in everything.  Even in acting.  You're comfortable with your body, then you can relax.  You don't get tight or tense and even choreography, moving with people, staging, knowing your distance and stuff like that.  Probably the most dangerous thing is distance when you're doing those fake fights.  You're swinging with all your might and they have to time you and you always make eye contact so you can't know exactly how far away you are because you're looking in someone's eyes.  You swing and you've just got to know.

Q: But they got your nose?

Channing: Oh man.  It was over here [he indicates way over to the right side of his face]. I'm looking at Kevin Misher because there are no mirrors around where we were fighting and I'm like “It's not good, huh?” And Kevin's like [sighs and looks away] he didn't even answer me. Dito was like [frightened look] “Oh...right”
[laughter] and then Yuri ring man was there thank God and he goes and puts two spoons on ice and mashes my nose back in.  It didn't swell that bad.  My eyes got black a little but nothing we couldn't cover.

Q: He's used to fixing that kind of thing?

Channing: Yeah, he's just like “right”.. [indicates putting his nose back where it belongs].  He was mashing the swelling away.  They just know how to fix 'um.  It doesn't feel good but they know how.  Spoons and quarters, two cold quarters and just squeezing your nose. Now you know.  Next time it happens, go “I got this!”

Q: What was your workout for this?

Channing: The greatest thing about my career is I get to be really on and really off. I'm at home drinking beer and eating cheeseburgers and chocolate cake but then I'm on, I get really serious and it's all the way to the wall and that's great because I have all day to work out.  People that do nine to fives don't.  So, I wake up and I run for an hour, then go and do my training.  So, when I was doing Fighting, I would go work out for two and a half hours with straight up learning how to fight, learning how to be comfortable on the ground and standing up and taking punches and blocking them.  Then I'd go home and run for another hour and a half so running was a big part of my program but then eating well as well.

Q: You are described as “hugely up and coming.”  Your career is in a great place.

Channing: Thank you.

Q: You go from smaller films to G.I. Joe. What was the challenge to go into the lead of this huge Hollywood movie?  What was daunting about that?

Channing: It's not only daunting, that type of film in general for like a seasoned actor or an actor that had done one of those films before like lower on the call sheet.  I had no idea what I was doing. I had no clue.  I was terrified of the movie.  I had really no aspirations to go do a huge film like that really, not yet in my career.  I didn't feel ready for it.  I kind of got thrown into it and, in doing so, it really opened my mind.  It's just acting.  It's a different style of acting; more skipping along the surface and it is about the big explosions and stuff.  You're not sitting there trying to do Shakespeare.

Q: You are also playing a character that you can't take seriously but you take the work seriously.  So, where is the line between those two?

Channing:  You kind of find it. It's weird, and you laugh at it.  That's the only way to do it.  I don't know anyone who wasn't laughing on the set all the time on G.I. Joe.  Marlon Wayans is my like partner in the movie and we laughed through the entire thing. I'm sitting there looking at a green screen yelling “Ripcord! Yaaaaaa!” and stuff like that and you're just like “What am I doing?” Or you're like “You get the rockets.  I'll get the nanomites.” Wait a minute, what are nanomites?  I don't know what is going on. But you just have fun with it and you pray, pray, pray that they get a good take because you don't know what anything looks like. You don't know what you're reacting to. They're like “Look right! Look left!” You don't know what's happening so you can only trust your director and that's it.

Q: All the other actors we've spoken to on the film say they were told to over-act.

Channing: Yeah, exactly. I was afraid of over-acting but that's what you can't be afraid of.  You don't have to over-act.  I was the guy that they'd have to pull it out of me.  I'm like “No, man.  It just feels too big.  I can't do it.”  He's like “Just trust me. Promise me you're gonna do it and I promise you I won't use the take if it's not right.” I'm like “Okay” and I do it and it would be like pulling teeth but you do it and you see it back after the movie.  I haven't seen the movie but I've seen the ADR stuff and it fits and you can't believe it.  You thought you were the worst actor on the planet.

Q: What was the line in that film that you thought you would never be able to say with a straight face?

Channing:  Every one of the lines.  Every single one.  [Laughs] I don't think it made it into the film.  It was “action figure sold separately” or something like that they wanted me to put in the film. Marlon had a line that was like “and a kung-fu grip.”  All the G.I. Joe's have a kung-fu grip and he had to say that about somebody that grabbed him.  He's like “Oh, he's got a kung-fu grip.”  I'm like that's never gonna work.  That's never gonna be in the movie and it's in the movie and it works a little bit. All the fanboys will be like “Yeah!” And people that don't know about the kung-fu grip will be like “Whatever. It's what he chose to say right then.”

Q: It's self-referential?

Channing: Yeah. Very, sometimes.  Just for a wink at the crowd.

Q: This audience will be different than the Fighting audience.  Are you ready for the crazy fans? 

Channing: It is gonna be crazy. I don't think I can honestly say that I'm ready.  If it does good.  If it doesn't do good, then I'm totally ready.  It's just gonna be like it is now.

Q: Shawn is on a downward spiral on the streets.  He meets Harvey and kind of turns his life around.  Did that ever happen to you? Were you ever kind of lost and someone came along who helped?

Channing: Yeah. I've had the real, amazing situation that I've always had someone in my life like that whether they were interchangeable or not, there was always someone who came by at the right moment to sort of put things in perspective for me and to make me look at something, maybe how I wasn't before.  I've had a thousand of them.

Q: Like spirit guides?

Channing: Yeah, exactly.  People that are your little guardian angel that just comes at the right moment.  I remember I got so pissed off one day about something.  I don't remember what it was now, but I had one of my friend's little boys with me and I took him out for the day and I was like “God, I hate it when...whatever.. happened” and he looks up and says “You shouldn't hate anything” and I was just like [makes a sad, crying face] “You're right! I'm sorry.”  He was so young.  He could barely even walk and he was like “You shouldn't hate anything.”  Oh my God, you're absolutely right.

Q: Talk about working with Terrence.  You have an incredible rapport. Is it a love/hate relationship? 

Channing:  No. I've loved watching that guy act since I remember seeing him in films.  It was way before I was an actor or even planned to act. And then I met him at Sundance and he had seen "Saints" and he had all these amazing things to say about "Saints" (A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints) and about my performance it in and it literally welled me up because it was the first time that I had a real actor, someone that I really thought of as a great actor tell me that he liked my work and I just almost couldn't take it. He was like “I want to do something someday so let's keep each other in mind.” I was just like “Ahhhh, yeah.” He loved Dito so we were always on the lookout for something and as soon as we got to sit and hang out, the guy's like a big brother now.

Q: I heard that you were attached to Footloose?

Channing: No, not me.

Q: So what other projects are you doing?

Channing: Let's see. I don't really have anything coming up.  There's a bunch of things that I'm now starting. Sort of my producing career.  I have a bunch of projects.

Q: You have a company?

Channing:  Yeah, it's my company with just a couple of buddies who are my writing partners and we're just starting to write now.

Q: What's the name of it?

Channing: 33 and Out.  You're 33 and you're out.  It just means for us to work hard.  Just get to work because I love it.  I love acting but I think I'm going to really enjoy being on the other side one day. I like creating, almost not being in the spotlight.  I like just to be a creative person that gets to write something that I think is interesting and see it come to life.

Q: What summer movies are you looking forward to?

Channing: What's out there right now? Star Trek I'm interested in.  I love Chris Pine. Obviously, I love J.J. and his films and I love Chris Pine.  I've always noticed him in every movie he's ever been in and I'm so happy for him that now, this is his movie and he's gonna rock it!

Q: When Dito says the spy movie he's working on can't be "Bourne," what does he mean?  It can't be that realistic?

Channing:  No. You can't try to re-make "Bourne" unless you have a crapload of money which I don't think is even what "Bourne" needs. "Bourne's" already "Bourne" and Bond have kind of done those things about as good as you can do them in that way.  You can do something like it but you're just gonna be chasing that and maybe getting close to it.  I don't think you can beat "Bourne" at its own game.

Q: So then what is he going to do?

Channing:  I don't know. You'll have to watch the movie.  I know what he's gonna do but I haven't read the script yet but I know his take on it and it's a Dito take and it's amazing.

Q: Terrence said that you are an actor without an ego.

Channing: Oh, that's cool!

Q: Where did that come from and how long can that realistically last?

Channing: I think you try your hardest to stay out of the spotlight and you don't listen to people.  I'm mean, as sweet as you guys are, I don't read what is written because I think it can warp you. You have enough people telling you you're something.  A part of that is going to assimilate in your head. I don't want to read what other people write [about me].  I don't want to know.  I just want to keep doing the things that I'm doing and hanging out with people that know me from before I was an actor.

Q: Can you say something about your movie Dear John? Is that a romance with Amanda Seyfried?

Channing: Yeah. Romantic movie.  Nicholas Sparks.  I think everybody knows The Notebook, for the most part.  It's not that far away.  It's a tearjerker [that plays on] your heartstrings, hugely sentimental in more of a contemporary way.  The Notebook was a very artistic film and captured a time and I think this is a very contemporary, relative time.

Q: You play a soldier?

Channing: Yeah, a soldier who is home on leave and falls in love with a girl and he has a peculiar relationship with his dad.  His dad has, unbeknownst to anyone in the family, Aspergers or a form of it and he's a very reclusive person and not a social person which has, in turn, made John a little bit anti-social.

Q: Who plays the dad?

Channing:  Richard Jenkins, such an oh my God, amazing actor!  He's the guy that you tap when you just need a brilliant actor to come in. Right, brilliant actor? Go! And he hits it every time, on the mark.

Q: Did Sparks write the script before the book? [We correct him that it's “The Last Song” for Miley Cyrus that Sparks is doing that].

Channing: Right.  I'm interested in seeing that. He has such a formula. It's like novacaine, man, it works! It just does. I got to meet him. He's actually a very interesting guy.

Q: At the end of this, you guys are leaving town with the money so you're probably going to be chased.  Would you do a sequel?

Channing: If it's Terrence and Dito, absolutely.  I'll totally do it.  I don't know. Maybe if they're not involved but I love those guys and I couldn't' see this movie being done without them.  You can pretty much start any number 2 Fighting with Terrence knocking on my door, “I'm in trouble” and you're like “Right. Of course, you're Harvey.  Of course you're in trouble.”  But I would totally do it.  I don't think they're going to do anything bad.

Q: Do you have summer plans?

Channing:  I'm trying to figure out what movie.  I don't know.  There's all these scripts out there with directors attached but no one can read the scripts because they're so top secret and you're like “How do I want this movie? Look, I love you as a director and I would bend over backwards to do anything you're gonna do but I just want to know what it is” and they're all being like so, like J.J. does, which is really smart.  He won't let anything out about anything which is kind of smart. You go into the meetings and you've gotta sign the confidential agreement thing and they sort of tell you what it is and you're like “Alright.  I understand what that character is.  I think I would enjoy playing your version of that so....can I read a script?” They're like “Hummmmm, we'll call you.”  You're like “Shit!” because no one is making little movies any more.  It's just gonna be big movies for a little while and maybe little small independents or these little tweeners like Fighting, they are gonna be less and less, I think. 

“Fighting” opens in theaters on April 24th.