Channing Matthew Tatum (born April 26, 1980) is an American actor. He began his career as a fashion model and now appears in film roles. He has appeared in a number of films, including
She's the Man (2006),
Step Up (2006),
Fighting (2009),
Public Enemies (2009),
G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra (2009), and
Dear John (2010).
Early life
Channing Tatum was born in
Cullman, Alabama, the son of Kay, an airline worker, and Glenn Tatum, who worked in construction.
[www.elle.com/Pop-Culture/Celebrity-Spotlight/Channing-Tatum] His ancestry includes Irish, French and Native American.
Tatum's family moved to
Mississippi when he was six, and he grew up in the
bayous near the
Mississippi River, where he enjoyed a rural existence.
Tatum was athletic while growing up, playing
football, soccer,
track,
baseball, and performing
martial arts; he has said that "girls were always
[1] biggest distraction in school.
As a child, he practiced
kung fu.
Tatum spent most of his teenage years in the
Tampa, Florida area and initially attended
Gaither High School before going to
Tampa Catholic High School. He graduated in 1998 and was voted most athletic. Afterward, Tatum was awarded a football scholarship to
Glenville State College in
Glenville, West Virginia, but he turned it down. He returned home and started working odd jobs.
US Weekly reported that around this time Tatum began working as an
exotic dancer at a local
nightclub, under the name "Chan Crawford."
In 2010, he told an Australian newspaper that he would like to make a movie about his experiences as a stripper, saying, "I've already got the director picked out. I'd like
Nicolas Refn, who did the movie Bronson, to do it because he's insane for it."
[www.smh.com.au/news/entertainment/film/channing-tatums-stripper-past/2010/01/18/1263663043846.html]
He later moved to Miami, where he was discovered on the street by a model talent scout.
Career
Early work
Tatum was first cast as a dancer in
Ricky Martin's "
She Bangs" music video,
after an audition in
Orlando, Florida; he was paid $400 for the job. His first experience was in the
fashion industry as a model, working for such noted clients such as
Armani and
Abercrombie & Fitch. He soon moved into television commercials, landing national spots for
Mountain Dew and
Pepsi in 2002. He subsequently signed with a modelling agency in
Miami, Page 305 (Page Parkes Modeling Agency), and appeared in
Vogue magazine. He soon appeared in campaigns for
Abercrombie & Fitch,
Nautica,
Dolce & Gabbana,
American Eagle Outfitters, and
Emporio Armani. He was picked as one of
Tear Sheet magazine's "50 Most Beautiful Faces" of October 2001.
Tatum also signed with
Beatrice Model agency in
Milan, Italy and
Ford Models in New York City.
Tatum has said that his modeling career has helped him with his life, specifying that "It's made my life, and my family's life, a lot easier, because I never knew what I wanted to do and now they don't really have to worry about me anymore. I've been able to explore life, and through exploring it I've found that I love art, I love writing, I love acting, I love all the things that make sense to me. And I've been given the chance to go out and see the world, and to see all the things out there. Not everyone gets that chance".
2004–2007
In 2004, Tatum started his acting career, appearing in an episode of the television series
CSI: Miami. His first feature film role was in 2005's high school drama,
Coach Carter, playing Jason Lyle, a basketball player opposite
Samuel L. Jackson; Tatum also appeared in rapper
Twista's "
Hope" music video, which accompanied the film. In the same year, Tatum had a role as a factory endorsed top motocross racer in
Supercross, and part of the supporting cast in
Havoc. Although Tatum has said that he loves modeling, he has taken a break from the profession to concentrate on his acting career, saying that he prefers making more mature films.
Tatum was originally scheduled to play
Genghis Khan in the film
Mongol,
[[2]] but was replaced by actor
Tadanobu Asano.He was eventually cast in the film
She's the Man, where he plays
Duke the love interest of Viola Hastings
Amanda Bynes's character. The film opened on March 17, 2006, and it was a modest success at the box office, grossing about $57 million worldwide.
That same year, in 2006, Tatum starred in
Step Up, a dance-themed romance, playing a rebellious
hip-hop dancer who must partner with a ballerina who is in training played by
Jenna Dewan which opened on August 11, 2006. The film earned a total of $21 million in its opening weekend and $114 million worldwide. Later that year, Tatum played in the 1980s-set drama
A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints starring
Robert Downey, Jr. and
Shia LaBeouf, in which he plays Antonio, a street youth in
Astoria, Queens who uses his fists to solve problems. Tatum has described the latter film as his "first dramatic role"; his performance received positive notices at the
2006 Sundance Film Festival, where the film premiered.
The acclaim continued when he received an
Independent Spirit Award nomination for "
Best Supporting Actor".
2008–present
In 2008, Tatum co-starred in director
Kimberly Peirce's film
Stop-Loss, about soldiers returning home from the
Iraq War, and in director
Stuart Townsend's film
Battle in Seattle, about the 1999 protest of the
World Trade Organization meeting in
Seattle. Tatum played in the indie film
The Trap, which directed by
Rita Wilson. The actor was chosen to play a role in the film
Poor Things, starring
Lindsay Lohan,
Shirley MacLaine,
Rosario Dawson, and
Olympia Dukakis, but had to turn down the role because of scheduling conflicts.
Tatum and
Dito Montiel, who worked together before on
A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints, reteamed on the action drama
Fighting for
Rogue Pictures. Tatum starred as Sean McArthur, a young man who scrapes up a living scalping tickets in New York City. Tatum next appeared in writer/director/producer
Michael Mann's 2009 crime drama
Public Enemies, playing the ill-fated 1930s American gangster
Pretty Boy Floyd. The same year, Tatum starred as
Duke in
G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra,
Paramount Pictures' live-action film based on the popular
Hasbro action figures. He also played a soldier in
Dear John, a
Screen Gems film based on a popular
Nicholas Sparks bestseller.
Tatum and
Dito Montiel will join forces again when Channing stars in 2010's action thriller
The Brotherhood of the Rose. Montiel will both write and direct the film. The story is a cat-and-mouse espionage tale about two orphans raised by a top CIA agent to become assassins. When their operations go awry, they find themselves on the run, caught in a conspiracy and hunted by the most dangerous spies in the world. The book was previously adapted as a two-part NBC miniseries in 1989 that starred David Morse, Peter Strauss, Connie Sellecca, and Robert Mitchum.
Tatum suffered a burn injury from an accident while filming
The Eagle of the Ninth in Scotland. A crew member poured boiling water down Tatum's wet-suit, having forgetting to dilute the boiling water with cold river-water: a technique used to keep actors warm during the shooting of a river-scene. Tatum attempted to pull the wetsuit away from his body, but the water poured down into the crotch of his wet-suit and severely burned his penis. Tatum reported the boiling water "pretty much burned the skin off the head of my dick" and that "it was the most painful thing I have ever experienced in my life." However, Tatum reports that "Now my penis is fantastic! One hundred percent recovered."
[Channing Tatum's Penis Injury: A Scalding Water Burn To His Crotch]
Along with friends
Reid Carolin, Adam Martingano, and Brett Rodriguez,
[www.imdb.com/name/nm2415524/] Tatum have started a production company called 33andOut Productions.
[www.33andout.com]
Personal life
In 2006, Tatum met
Jenna Dewan on the set of
Step Up. They began dating shortly after filming had finished.
The couple became engaged in early September 2008 in
Maui,
Hawaii.
On Saturday, July 11, 2009, they were married on the grounds of Church Estates Vineyards in Malibu, California.
On an interview with E!, Tatum revealed that he is openly bisexual. He also revealed that he had done several gay photo shoots with entertainment magazine
Out.
Filmography
Awards and nominations
