Interview with Channing Tatum, star of 'Dear John'

I recently had a chance to sit down and chat with Channing Tatum during a round-table interview here in San Francisco, and here's what he had to say regarding his latest movie "Dear John," which co-stars Amanda Seyfried and is currently playing in theaters. Tatum also starred in "G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra."

The film tells story of John Tyree (Channing Tatum), a young soldier home on leave, and Savannah Curtis (Amanda Seyfried), the idealistic college student he falls in love with during her spring vacation. Over the next seven tumultuous years, the couple is separated by John's increasingly dangerous deployments.

Channing: I love the weather here. We just came from Chicago and I'm from Florida, so I was like 'I'm not having any of this.'

Question: What was your favorite scene in this movie?

Channing: The movie in general has two so different stories. I can't pick one, I have to pick one from each sort of storyline. Probably the hospital scene. I didn't really know how that scene was going to happen. You never really know how those scenes are going to play out. Richard [Jenkins] really sort of ripped my heart out in that scene. He's such a smart, specific actor that I think I owe that scene to him. It was a scary thing. I've never really done that before in a movie. Maybe a little here and there but nothing quite like that. Then the scene where I tickle her on the bed and we're playing around in my room, because it really symbolizes me and Amanda's relationship in general, and it reminds of that I have with my wife. You know, we always play, and it was really just fun to shoot. It was a good time that day.

Question: In the past couple of movies you play military men. How is it different in each movie? Did you hang out with soldiers?

Channing: "G.I. Joe" doesn't really count as a soldier movie. It's just a guy with a gun. I mean, it's "X-Men." I was not trying to embody the spirit of an American solider. There's ninjas and stuff in the movie, so I'm just like, "Yeah." But "Stop-Loss" was. We did a little boot camp, and they surround us with soldiers on this and on "Stop-Loss." Look, you never ever going to know what it's like to be a solider. I'll never know. I don't think anybody will, unless you sign up and go fight. You can read as much as you want on the Internet, you can listen to the news and you can do whatever really, but when it comes down to it, they're just normal people under extraordinary circumstances. It's heartbreaking that people can't understand them more, and I think that's why I like to play them. I wanted people to just look at two kids falling in love, and this happens. This happens every day.

Question: Did you find you had to read the book prior to filming?

Channing: I actually was on it before it was a script. It's the first time I've had that opportunity to be sort of on the ground floor of creating it into what it is now. I knew of Nicholas Sparks and "The Notebook," and what that does to my wife, so I really wanted to read it. Look, I love love stories, and I read it, and I fell in love with John. I just thought that he was everything that we should see right now, because I don't think there are enough movies that really paint soldiers in a good life. I think Hollywood takes bad situations and tries to sort of enterprise of bad things, and John is just a good guy who happens to be a solider that falls in love. We found a writer we fell in love with - Jamie Linden -  and went through all the different versions of the script, and then we went to find a director, and Lasse just came in and took it to an entire different level. And then we found Amanda, which changed it again. It's really fun to watch the creative process grow. So yeah, I knew the book really well.

Question: I was thinking more about the hospital scene, and it really stood out to me, even after the film was over. What do you draw out emotionally in order to make that scene so real?

Channing: You get terrified when you read the script and it says "and John breaks down." You know, an actor's worst enemy is himself, and if you can just get out of your way things will work out, but in a scene like that, you know it needs to be good, it needs to be powerful. I think everybody has their own things that they do. I don't have any tricks, I find my way into the scene however I can. We had done the scene a couple of times and it was good, it was emotional. It was getting to the place I liked it. And I think I really owe the scene to Richard Jenkins. He only lifted his hand twice the whole day we were doing it. I think he specifically did it on the ones that he felt like "this is the one."

Question: Do you have any upcoming projects you want to talk about? I know you have a "G.I. Joe" sequel too.

Channing: Yeah, they're writing it now, and they got the "Zombieland" writers, so yeah, they're fantastic. I do hope that they take the time and do it, because we had to do the first one so rushed because of the writers' strike and actors' strike and everything, so I don't think we got the best script that we possibly could have gotten out of it. I hope they take their time and do it right. I'm going to do a Steven Soderbergh movie, a cool little weird movie. He's so crazy, I love him. It's kind of a female Bourne or Bond. I just play an operative, a kind of fun little role. I'm starting a Web site called postthelove.com. I'm just trying to figure out what I want to do next. I might be working on a documentary called "Fire Jumpers."

Question: You've worked with all these great actors. What advice have any of them given to you?

Channing: Probably the one that sticks out in my mind the most is Chazz Palminteri on "A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints." It was kind of my first real acting role, you a legitimate character in a drama. I remember he took me under his wing a little bit, you know, when we were on set. And I remember asking him to come during this one scene because I wanted him there because I was just afraid everyone's going to hate my character, because I have a crazy character in that movie and he does some terrible things. And he's like, "No, no, no, you don't want people to need to like your character, they just need to understand him." And it just hit me like a ton of bricks. I was like, 'of course.' As long as you understand them, then you are doing your job. That as sort of changed how I read script, how I go through life.

Question: Like Amanda, you had roles in all different genre, and this one being on the drama side, how do you like this particular genre?

Channing: I think I like it more [than others] to be totally honest. I like "G.I. Joe," I mean they're fun, and even "Fighting." We tries to do something different with "Fighting," we tried "Midnight Cowboy" and "Hard Times" in a modern way. I don't know if we actually pulled that off or not. I think we might have gone a little sideways, but I still like the movie though, and doing an action part in the middle of a drama I wouldn't mind, but you do the "G.I. Joes" for fun and for people to go see your movie. People go see those movies. But yeah, I think probably drama if I had to pick one.

This last question was asked in regard to Channing's penis injury during the shooting of "The Eagle of the Ninth." He's telling the entire story...

Question: I have to ask you about one thing: the mishap that occurred. What happened to the person that did that? I'm just curious. Did they get fired?

Channing: No, I wouldn't let him get fired. I could not even try to explain the conditions we were in. Don't even go to Scotland and try filming in the winter. It just was the most miserable thing I've ever done in my life. And saying that, I love Scotland as a place, but just don't go to Highlands and shoot. You just don't do it. We're out there in cheap leather and it's just raining and you can't get away from the cold and the wet.

This particular day; so everybody's tired and we're just getting beat up. We're four weeks into that part of the shoot, so everybody is really tired. And we're having to lay in a river all day. And it's hypodermic water, so you can't be in it. I have two wet suits on underneath my costume, and still you couldn't be in it. It was by far the hardest thing and we had to be in it for 12 hours. So 12 hours, and they would be pouring warm water down your wet suit all day. Just to keep you warm so you can stay in the water. People were dropping left and right because there was a big battle scene, and this was towards the beginning of the battle.

It was just chaos, and cut on the last take of the day, walking back up to the cars and everybody's just beat, and here comes the guy that's been keeping us warm all day. I mean, he's having to run up 15 minutes to the top of the hill to run back down with this big bottle of water, and he's running down and he's like, 'Hey do you want warm water before you go up?', and I'm like, 'Yeah okay." And I pull down my wet suit, and what happened was he didn't get all the way down to the river to dilute the kettle water. And it was the most pain I've ever been in, but it wasn't his fault. It was just once second of not thinking. He's the one taking care of us all day. If the guy would have been totally incompetent I would have probably knocked his teeth out, but he wasn't. It wasn't his fault. It could've been bad, man. It could've been nerve-damaging. It's a crazy experience. But the funniest thing of the whole story was, they were rushing me to the hospital and I've never been in this much pain before. So I was in the back in the car and guess what song was on the radio? "My sex is on fire."

Comments

[mclaren]

nice interview! i like how channing keeps things in perspective that while he does 'serious' films, there's also a place for fun movies like gi joe. how about an interview with lee byung-hun from gi joe? i've been on a lee byung-hun kick since i started watching him in this action series called "iris" that he shot after gi joe. it's a great filler until the gi joe sequel comes out. here's an "iris" link that works for us americans:
http://www.dramafever.com/drama/124/iris/

btw, 'iris' is code for a super secret american govt organization. a more real gi joe, well as real as tv gets! haha!