Channing Tatum: Fighting

What do you feel when you fight?

Terror. Absolute fear. Well, it depends. If you're like in a professional fight, a professional fight is all about keeping your composure, and that's what a professional fighter is. Martial arts in general is nothing more than an art form to take the mystery out of fighting. You want to know what it feels like to get hit in the head. You don't know what it feels like to start to get choked out, so there's nothing you're not ready for. You get hit and you're like, all right, that's just normal. That's what martial arts is. A regular fight, like a fight on the street is a little more uncomposed and it's more visceral and just kind of emotionally prompted. A professional fighter, if he gets in a fight on the street, he is more than likely to take the impassioned person apart because he is just going to be coming in, in reckless abandonment, and the composed fighter will just be able to, you know, keep calm and take it over.

Were you ever lost in your life, like Shawn, until someone special came along and guided you?

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's always someone that came by at the right moment to put things in perspective for me and really make me look at something maybe like how I wasn't before. I've had 1000 of them, people that just...they're your little guardian angel that comes in right at the moment. I remember I got so pissed off one day about something, I don't even 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. I was like, "God, I hate it when whatever happened." And he looks up and he goes, "You shouldn't hate anything." And I was just like [tearing], "You're right, I'm sorry." He was so young he could barely even walk and he was like, "You shouldn't hate anything." I was like oh my God, you're absolutely [right] -- shit!

You seem like you haven't fallen into that ego trap of Hollywood stars yet. How long can that last?

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

What were you like growing up, before all this?

I was just an athlete. I was born in Alabama and I moved to Mississippi for a while, and then to Florida. Then all through that section of time, I was just playing sports. I mean, baseball, football, soccer, martial arts... Anything physical that I could get into, I was into. It kept me out of a lot of trouble. Anytime I was not doing something, I'd go get into trouble, so they just kept pushing me into anything that would take up my time.

Then after high school I went to college and played a year in college football. I figured out that wasn't what I wanted to do, and that's kind of what I was working at my entire life. I wanted to go play college football. After that was over I didn't know what to do. I had no clue. So I went back home and I tried to go back to school, but that just didn't work for me. I wasn't the school book type and I just started working. I did every job you can possibly imagine from framing houses to telemarketing.

I worked in a puppy/kitty nursery. I've done just about everything that you can possibly imagine. Then I started working in the clubs, like dancing and stuff like that. In this big club I just had like a crew, and we would go and put on these big shows at these clubs, so that got really crazy for about a year.

After that I was like, I gotta get out of here. People are doing stupid things, drugs and drinking and I'm like I gotta out. So I decided like in my brilliance to go down to Miami, because I think that's gonna be smarter. Real quiet, sweet little beach town, you know? And it did, but I got seen on the street for modeling there. Someone came up to me and asked me if I wanted to have representation and I didn't know what the hell he was talking about. It sounded really shady and the guy was really shady so I didn't go with him, but it got me interested in just seeing what this modeling thing was. I went into the agency that he was talking about and they took me around the world.

Why did you get into trouble as a kid?

What kid doesn't get in trouble? Just normal trouble. Like in Florida you go around and they're always building a house and there's people not there, so you're inside playing around on the stuff that's not yours and breaking stuff. Just trouble. I wasn't stealing cars or anything like that. I was never that bad of a kid but it could have easily went there.

You mentioned drugs in the club scene. Were you ever tempted?

Yeah, I mean in just growing up I think that I've had my brush with it, but I've never been a drug user. No, definitely not.

What kind of relationship did you have with your dad?

Me and my dad, we have a great relationship now, but I think every kid that I've ever known, except for maybe one and that's my best friend, that's the hardest relationship for a guy, for a young guy trying to grow up, is trying to figure out that relationship and how to make it good because he's trying to not make the mistakes that maybe he made through you. I think that's counterintuitive. The kid's never going to learn anything if you don't let him fall down, if you keep trying to be like no, no, no, no, no, no, no, don't do that, don't do that. I think that's the only thing that me and my father didn't agree with. I wanted to touch the pot to know it's hot, because otherwise I just don't know if it's true.

Is G.I. Joe going to be your big franchise?

It's going to be, I guess, X-Men and Transformers and Mission Impossible is the only way I can kind of explain it. It's not as exactly as it effects driven. No, it's definitely effects driven. It's a huge $170 million movie. It's just a big kid sort of driven film.

Is that daunting for you to be the lead in it?

It's not only daunting, that type of a film in general, for a seasoned actor or an actor that had done one of those films before, lower on the call sheet. I was terrified of the movie. I didn't really feel ready for it. You don't know what you're reacting to and they're like, "Look right!" You're like [gasps]. Then they're like, "Look left!" And you don't know what's happening.

Did you have trouble saying any of the cheesy action lines with a straight face?

Every one of the lines, every single one. The one that was, and I don't think they actually made it into the movie, was "Action figures sold separately." Something like that. They wanted me to put it in the film.

Are you prepared for the fans' reaction to it?

It is going to be crazy. No. I don't think I could honestly say that I'm ready. If it does good. If it doesn't do good, then I'm totally ready. It's just going to be like it is now.

What if it made you a $20 million actor?

If I ever make it near that, then I'll flip over this table and like, I'll start break dancing right here. I promise. God, I can't even image making that much money. I'm nowhere near the A list, trust me.

What are you doing next?

I don't really have anything coming up. There's a bunch of things that I'm now starting, my producing career. My company, which is just a couple buddies that are my writing partners and we're just starting to write now.

What do you call it?

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

But until then, as an actor, what will we see you in after G.I. Joe?

I'm trying to figure out what movie. There's all these scripts out there that there's 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 going to do, but I just want to know what it is."

Like J.J. [Abrams] does which is really smart. He won't let anything out about anything which is kind of smart. They're doing it and they're doing it big so I don't know. It's one of those things where you go into the meetings and you're like okay. You've got to sign the confidential agreement and everything and then they sort of tell you what it is. You're like okay, all right, I understand what that character is. I think I would enjoy that in your version of that, so can I read a script? Then they're like, "Hmm, we'll call you." You're just like shit, because no one's making little movies anymore. It's just going to be big movies for a little while and maybe little small independents. These little 'tweeners like Fighting, they're just going to be less and less I think. I think so. Either way, I appreciate it.