Channing Tatum
Channing Tatum at the 71st Annual Peabody Awards Luncheon 2012.
Born	Channing Matthew Tatum (1980-04-26) April 26, 1980 (age 32) Cullman, Alabama, U.S.
Occupation	Actor, film producer, dancer, model
Years active	2000–present
Spouse	Jenna Dewan (2009–present)
Website
Channing Tatum Unwrapped

Channing Matthew Tatum (born April 26, 1980) is an American actor, film producer, dancer, and former model, best known for his roles in Step Up (2006), G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra (2009), Dear John (2010), The Vow (2012), and 21 Jump Street (2012). He has also appeared in films such as Coach Carter (2005), She's the Man (2006), A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints (2006), and Fighting (2009). While mostly known for his dramatic performances in Dear John and The Vow, he has since ventured into more comedic roles.

Early life[link]

Tatum was born and raised in Cullman, Alabama. His mother, Kay (née Faust), is an airline worker, and his father, Glenn Tatum, worked in construction.^[1][2][3] His ancestry includes Irish, French and Native American.^[4][5][6] Tatum's family moved to Mississippi when he was six, and he grew up in the bayous near the Mississippi River, where he lived in a rural setting.^[4][7]

Tatum was athletic while growing up, playing football, soccer, track, baseball, and performing martial arts; he has said that "girls were always [his] biggest distraction in school."^[4] As a child, he practiced wuzuquan kung fu^[8] under the lineage of 10th dan Grandmaster Chee Kim Thong.^[9] 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.^[10] He graduated in 1998 and was voted most athletic. Afterward, Tatum attended Glenville State College in Glenville, West Virginia on a football scholarship, but dropped out.^[11] He returned home and started working odd jobs. US Weekly reported that around this time Tatum began working as a stripper at a local nightclub, under the name "Chan Crawford."^[12] In 2010, he told an Australian newspaper that he would like to make a movie about his experiences as a stripper.^[13] He later moved to Miami, where he was discovered on the street by a model talent scout.^[14]

Career[link]

Early work[link]

In 2000, Tatum was first cast as a dancer in Miguel Royeca's workout movie. Ricky Martin's "She Bangs" music video,^[1] after an audition in Orlando, Florida; he was paid $400 for the job. His experience in the fashion industry began 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.^[14] He subsequently signed with a modelling agency in Miami, Page 305 (Page Parkes Modeling Agency), but later found success after being cast by Al David for Vogue magazine and soon after 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.^[4] 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".^[4]

2008–present[link]

Tatum (right) with Jonah Hill at the 2012 WonderCon convention in March 2012

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 was directed by Rita Wilson. He was chosen for a role in the film Poor Things, starring Lindsay Lohan, Shirley MacLaine, Rosario Dawson, and Olympia Dukakis, but had to turn it down because of scheduling conflicts.

Tatum and Dito Montiel, who worked together 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 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 was initially reluctant to take the role as he feared the movie would glorify war. However, he overcame his reluctance when he read the script.^[15] He also played a soldier in Dear John, a Screen Gems film based on a popular Nicholas Sparks bestseller. He later told he accepted the role to learn from Lasse Hallström because he did not go to acting school, his only way to improve is on set.^[16]

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.

Jenna Dewan, Deborah Scranton, Rwandan President Paul Kagame, documentary subject Jean Pierre Sagahutu, producer Reid Carolin and executive producer Tatum attend the premiere of Earth Made of Glass.

In an interview with Details magazine, Tatum said he wants to produce all the films he stars in, "I really don't want to be in any more movies that I don't produce. Unless it's with one of the 10 directors that I really want to work with, I don't have any interest in not being on the ground floor of creating it."^[17] He, his wife Jenna Dewan, and their production partner Reid Carolin signed a two-year production deal in 2010 with Relativity Media for any movies they may develop during that time.^[18] Along with friends Reid Carolin, Adam Martingano, Brett Rodriguez,^[19] and wife Jenna Dewan, Tatum has started production companies called 33andOut Productions^[20] and Iron Horse Entertainment.^[21] Their first production is a documentary called Earth Made of Glass that follows the Rwandan President Paul Kagame and genocide survivor Jean-Pierre Sagahutu. The film was selected to premiere at the 2010 Tribeca Film Festival.

In 2012, Tatum hosted Saturday Night Live^[22] and appears in four films. He co-stars in Steven Soderbergh's Haywire, The Vow with Rachel McAdams, and 21 Jump Street (the film adaptation of TV series of the same name) with Jonah Hill.^[23] He will also star in Magic Mike, a project he talked about back in 2010. In late April of 2011, Tatum's film about his 8-month experience as a male stripper in Florida began to take shape with Steven Soderbergh at the direction.^[24] Co-produced by him and Soderbergh, the film will star Tatum himself as Mike Martingano, one of the central performers at a Tampa, Florida male strip club who takes a younger dancer (Alex Pettyfer) under his wing in hopes of showing him how to hustle "on and off stage."^[24] The film's cast also include Matt Bomer, Joe Manganiello and Matthew McConaughey. According to the movie website Deadline, Magic Mike is "a story of friendship set in the world of male strippers."^[24]

Upcoming projects[link]

Originally scheduled for a release on June 29, 2012, G.I. Joe: Retaliation, sequel to 2009's G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra, was pushed back to March 2013 in order to convert it in 3D. Tatum will reprise his role as Duke in an ensemble cast that includes Dwayne Johnson and Bruce Willis.

He is also in preproduction for Foxcatcher with Steve Carell about the story of John du Pont, who suffered from paranoid schizophrenia and killed Olympic wrestler Dave Schultz.^[25] He will be in Steven Soderbergh's The Side Effects with Rooney Mara and Jude Law, a film about a woman who turns to prescription medication as a way of handling her anxiety concerning her husband's upcoming release from prison, set for release in 2013.^[26] Tatum is currently attached to the movie Peter Pan Begin.^[27]

Personal life[link]

In 2006, Tatum met actress Jenna Dewan on the set of Step Up. They began dating shortly after filming had finished.^[28] The couple became engaged in early September 2008 in Maui, Hawaii.^[2] On July 11, 2009, they were married on the grounds of Church Estates Vineyards, in Malibu, California.^[29] In an interview on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno he revealed that he is dyslexic.

Filmography[link]

Tatum at the 2012 WonderCon in March 2012.

Other appearances[link]

• Hosted Saturday Night Live on February 4, 2012

Awards and nominations[link]