Male Stripper to Movie Star: The Evolution of Channing Tatum
“I didn’t want to move or act like a rich man. I wanted to dance in a pair of jeans. I wanted to dance like the man in the streets.” – Gene Kelly
It’s hard to imagine — let alone remember — living in a world where it wasn’t a universally acknowledged truth that Channing Tatum used to be a stripper. Today, that particular chapter of his origin story seems as inextricable from the 35-year-old actor’s story as Ginger Rogers is from Fred Astaire’s career, or Scientology is from that of Tom Cruise, or Michael Fassbender’s penis is from that of Michael Fassbender. And yet, considering that the news only broke a few years ago, there’s a pretty good chance that you were alive and present for such a blithely ignorant time in our history.
Before the news of his past life was made public, Tatum was just another Hollywood lunk with a square chin, an easy charm, and a body that most men took as a personal insult. Somewhat famous but far from a household name, recognizable but difficult to place, he played characters with names like Zip, Jake, Leo, Caine, Mark, and Rowdy. Just Rowdy.
His best early performances each worked to underline a singular quality that couldn’t be replicated by the next vanilla talent in a casting agent’s Rolodex. His breakthrough turn in 2006’s Step Up showcased his history as a free-style street dancer, while his standout work in A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints — a Sundance coming-of-age drama from earlier that same year — hinted at an actor whose radiant sweetness was ready to be exploited by the violence indicated by his body (the perfect equation for a contemporary action star). His charm was easy to feel, even in endearingly lobotomized turns in films like the Amanda Bynes vehicle She’s the Man (also from 2006). Though it raised questions about his limitations — such as: “Is this guy really doing enough for his first name to sound that much like an action verb?”
(Or at the very least, a slang term. According to Urban Dictionary, a “Channing” is “a very cute boy who is really fun to be around. He sometimes acts like a five-year-old, but he probably treats girls the right way. As a very mature young man, he is talented in many areas. He is gifted and extremely loveable. This boy would have to be the highlight of every party.” Sample sentence: I wish I could find a Channing.)
But a trio of filmmakers were intrigued by the kid’s oafish sensitivity, and seemed eager to prove that the actor was more than the archetypes into which Hollywood had tried to fit him. Kimberly Peirce gave Tatum a choice role in the otherwise unremarkable time capsule Stop-Loss; Michael Mann did the same in the gangster dress-up playdate Public Enemies. And then there was Steven Soderbergh, who enlisted Tatum for some sharp supporting work in his director’s attempt to turn MMA star Gina Carano into an action heroine, Haywire. It wasn’t long before the dude had made enough people enough money that he could start making actual career choices. And in that regard, his deep dark secret couldn’t have become public at a better time.