Channing Tatum, who can be seen in a brief cameo as Pretty Boy Floyd in Public Enemies now and can be seen as Lt. Duke Hauser in G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra next month, is featured in the new issue of GQ magazine. Tatum, who just wed his longtime girlfriend Jenna Dewan here in SoCal last weekend, was photographed by Mario Testino for the GQ spread. In his interview, he talks about he went from a perfume spritzer at Dillard’s to a Hollywood heartthrob:
I’m not expecting a cell-phone message from Channing Tatum when I land in Montgomery, Alabama, on a sweet day in June. The plan was to hook up at his uncle Bruce’s ranch, forty-five minutes from the airport, each of us arriving separately. But Chan (”Nobody calls me Channing”), being at that stage of celebrity when he doesn’t mind spending time with a reporter, has taken it upon himself to redo the plans his publicist made. Even if that means sitting in the Montgomery airport, where he has flown from L.A., an extra hour until my flight gets in from New York City. “I hope it’s okay that I canceled your car so you can ride with me,” he says. “There’s only one bar in the airport, so you should be able to find me.” That’s easy. He’s the only person there. Well, aside from the bartender and a lovely woman in her forties with one arm who, much to his embarrassment, has just paid for his fourth Coors Light. (It is close to five o’clock Alabama time.) “Aw, man, you shouldn’t have done that,” says Chan, going over to her table, where she is sitting alone with her Subway sandwich. “But, um, thanks.” It’s hard to tell whether she knows he’s somebody or just thinks he’s cute. He has her all shy and giggling, though. His driver, from Touch of Class limo service, is waiting by the door. “This is Thomas,” says Chan. Thomas, who’s decked out in a pressed black suit and cap befitting the royal guard, and who speaks with a proper Scottish accent, tips his hat. “He just moved here from Scotland,” says Chan, clearly impressed. “It’s quite…different,” says Thomas. Chan slouches down in the backseat of the black town car. He has an iPhone in his hand and a Kindle poking out of his bag. What are you reading? “I got two books on this thing,” he says, “about the start and finish of the Roman Empire. I don’t have to read this stuff, but I love it.” (It’s in preparation, he says, for a role.) He’s wearing the standard young-guy-in-Hollywood uniform—ripped jeans hanging off his butt, sideways baseball hat, cotton button-down shirt—which, oddly, also turns out to be pretty close to the standard young-guy-in-rural-Alabama uniform. “You ready to get all country?” he asks. We’re headed thirty-three miles northeast, to what Chan calls his “favorite place on the planet, by far”: his uncle Bruce’s ranch. Three hundred acres in the middle of nowhere. Wetumpka, to be precise. It’s where his mama was raised. And though his formative years were spent in Tampa, Wetumpka is what Channing Tatum calls home. He escapes here every chance he gets, and that’s not bullshit. ” ‘Cause it’s real, you know? You’ll see.” But first, he needs to “take a pee” and pick up a couple of six-packs for his uncle Bruce. Thomas steers the town car into a Citgo station with a minimart. While Chan is in the loo, a few truckers buying chew at the cash register size up his ride. “Good-lookin’ black car sittin’ there,” says one. “Is that there yer limo-zeen?” says the other. Not mine, I say. It’s Channing Tatum’s. “Hmmph. We don’t see a whole lotta those round here. Who’d you say that was?” Channing Tatum. He’s an actor. Blank stares. You ever see A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints? Or…Step Up? Blank stares. He’s gonna be in G.I. Joe this summer. Ah, okay, him they’ve heard of.
The pretty interesting interview can be read in full HERE. I love that Channing has a Kindle but I cannot FOR THE LIFE OF ME call him Chan. Sorry. After the jump, check out a few more photos from Channing’s GQ magazine photospread …
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