Actor Channing Tatum lensed by Mario Sorrenti for current digital issue of Vanity Fair February 2023 and promoting Magic Mike’s Last Dance Movie.
Channing talks about life, love, and learning to be a feminist on the latest issue Vanity Fair. Written by Jessica Pressler – As an athlete and a dancer, Tatum is used to contorting his body into exotic positions, and it doesn’t take long for him to find his rhythm.
“Oh, yeah,” he says. His thighs are taut. His massive hands are made for stuff like this. “That’s what I’m talking about. Yeah, yeah, yeah.”
I find myself starting to lose control. “Oh, God,” I say. “Oh, shit.” “Oh, yeah!” Tatum announces triumphantly. “We’re making a baby!”
“Oh, nooo,” I shriek. The hunk of clay I have been attempting to make into a vase slips from my grasp and flings itself dramatically off the pottery wheel, which continues to spin madly, splattering me with viscous brown liquid until the instructor at the Brooklyn studio where we’ve been taking a lesson comes over to gently remind me to take my foot off the pedal.
Tee-hee-hee. I hear a giggle from the next wheel over. Tatum is hunched like a giant over his tiny bud vase, his broad shoulders, encased in a white long-sleeve T-shirt with “The Power to Satisfy” written across the chest, shaking with laughter.
Listen Magic Mike XXL (2015) on Apple Music:
“It’s so funny, dude,” he manages eventually. “I wish there was a video component to this interview, so I could just press Play and see you just, like, riding clay. Like you’re just trying to hold on to it like it’s a bull-riding competition, and you keep getting thrown off.” Tee-hee-hee.
If this were any other movie star, I’d probably be mortified, but Tatum—whose laugh, a high-pitched succession of actual tee-hee-hees—seems so genuinely delighted that I end up feeling like I’ve given him a gift.
It helps, also, that he’s not a complete stranger. We first met back in 2011, when I interviewed him for GQ. An up-and-coming actor whom, going into it, I had categorized as a minor player of the Young Hollywood era: The hot guy in movies like Step Up and She’s the Man, he was starring in a Roman historical drama in which his character appeared in muscle-bound body armor.
Tatum’s ability to shift into regular-guy mode also enabled him to successfully cross genres. In the 2010s, he worked nonstop on a wide range of projects: iconic comedies like the 21 Jump Streetreboots; critically acclaimed dramas like Foxcatcher; and big-budget franchises like G.I. Joe. Not to mention his own Magic Mike, which spawned a 2015 sequel, Magic Mike XXL, a live show in Vegas with versions in London and Miami, and a reality show on HBO Max.
Sandra Bullock, his good friend and costar, calls him “a beautiful evolved goofball who brings joy wherever he goes.”
Vanity Fair (Jessica Pressler)
“I think we told ourselves a story when we were young, and we just kept telling ourselves that story, no matter how blatantly life was telling us that we were so different. But when you’re actually parents,” he goes on, “you really understand differences between the two of you. Because it is screaming at you all day long. How you parent differently, how you look at the world, how you go through the world.”
In the end, try as they might, they could no longer find the fun. “In the beginning, it was super scary and terrifying,” he says of their initial separation. “Your life just turns on its axis. This whole plan that you had literally just turns into sand and goes through your fingers and you’re just like, ‘Oh, shit. What now?’ ”
But, on the bright side, Tatum continues:
“It was probably exactly what I needed. I don’t think I would’ve ever done the work, I think, on myself in the way that I had to do the work on myself to really try to figure out what next. And really, it just started with my daughter. I just dropped everything and just focused on her. And it was truly the best possible thing that I ever could have done. Because in the alone time that I have with just me and her, we’ve become best friends.”
See what I mean? He even makes a divorce sound kind of great.
You can read the full thread vanityfair.com
Talent Channing Tatum
Photography Mario Sorrenti
Stylist George Cortina
Grooming, Jamie Taylor
Tailor, Yasmine Ezeli
Set Design, Philipp Haemmerle.
For details, go to vf.com/credits.
