Channing Tatum on thongs versus boxers and other profound matters

THE A-LISTER didn’t feel exploited when he started stripping at 19. Ruben V. Nepales

LOS ANGELES—When Channing Tatum is talking about a movie like “Magic Mike XXL,” the chat can quickly turn X-rated. Asked about being quoted that his name for his, um, “downstairs gentleman” is Gilbert, Channing broke into a wide grin and quipped, “I don’t really call my guy Gilbert. It was an interview and I was trying to be funny.”

And then it was off to a deep conversation about thongs versus boxers. The actor recalled the dilemma during the rehearsals for the sequel to the 2012 hit.

“Choreographers Allison Faulk and Teresa Espinosa would drop by the gym,” he recounted. “They would be like, ‘Don’t use this piece of music. Nowadays, male revues don’t use thongs; they use boxer briefs.’ I thought that was better. (Laughs)

“I was like, I don’t want to wear a thong. Most girls—not all girls—who are on a first date with a man and they get down the road and see the guy is wearing a thong, I am not sure if the girls are going to carry it on. It might be shocking.

“But my wife (actress Jenna Dewan) was like, ‘If you don’t put thongs in this movie, everyone will hate you.’ I was like, well, that solves that. In the beginning, when we were writing the movie, we were going to do a whole Internet viral thing of thong or no thong.”

Wardrobe adviser

Channing, married to Jenna since 2009 and with whom he has a daughter, sounded very much in love with his thong wardrobe adviser. “It’s really not hard for me to stay loyal to Jenna,” said one of the genuinely nice guys in the business. “She is unbelievably beautiful and she is everything that I need.

“You only stray when you are not having that connection. We try not to go two weeks without seeing each other. When we are on the set or traveling, that’s gotten harder with the kid in our life.

“I wish I could tell you, ‘Oh, I have to fight the women off with a stick.’ It’s not the truth. I am constantly with my wife.”

The former stripper in real life said that he once did his old dance routine for Jenna. “I have danced for her but it was more in the beginning of our relationship. When she found out that I had been a stripper, she was like, ‘Really, what’s that like? You are going to have to explain that. Do a demonstration.’ And I did it and then it was like OK, we did that.”

Channing said that there’s a difference between male and female stripping. “It probably needs to be explained by someone smarter and more elegant sounding than I am,” he admitted. “It’s funny that when we started looking at male stripping in the past, all of the caricatures that they used—policemen, firemen, doctors—were all authoritative figures.

ACTOR did not want to be as chiseled in “Magic Mike XXL.” But his idea was overruled, of course.

“It’s also interesting that in female stripping, they don’t take anybody up on the stage. The women are in control of the audience—they are on stage and just being looked at.”

Intense experience

Channing said that whether he was preparing for a drama like “Foxcatcher,” where he memorably played Olympian wrestler Mark Schultz or the title role in the two “Magic Mike” movies, the experience was just as intense.

“Every single film is so different,” he said. “If you are a wrestler in a movie, that changes you and takes a toll on you. Being a stripper and butt naked is way different than doing a scene where you are just walking from the bed to the shower.”

But he still had to work out intensively to be back in buff mode. He had suggested that Mike did not have to be as chiseled in Part 2. The actor’s idea was overruled, of course.

“It’s not fun working out,” Channing confessed. “I like being a little softer and, as my wife calls it, ‘cuddly.’ I like food— cookies, cakes and everything. I work really hard but I also play really hard. I enjoy my life now. I don’t worry about those pictures online or tabloids where they take pictures of you at the wrong moment or of me with a double chin making a weird face. (Laughs) I just do it all the time now.”

Meat eater

So what kind of food does Channing indulge in when he’s not counting calories? “We would probably get takeout,” he answered. “I wish that we could say that we love to cook for each other because we love different dishes. She is a vegetarian. I am more of a meat eater.”

“If it’s our night off or our night to be with each other, we would probably want to get a takeout or stop at Chipotle—just get something to take home and then we just lay around. And with a bottle of white wine. I also like bourbon. She likes beer, too. We’ll watch ‘Game of Thrones’ or just be with each other.”

Channing claimed that he didn’t feel exploited when he started stripping in Florida when he was 19. “I don’t think I felt being used. When I was 19, I don’t think I thought like that. I was just going out of my mind at 19 years old. I enjoyed the part about being on stage. But after a while, toward the end of a year of doing it, I didn’t like taking off my clothes.”

Bachelorette parties

He said that he had his share of performing at bachelorette parties during that phase in his young life. “I have danced at them.”

Any good stories that he can share about those gigs? “Nothing that I can tell here,” he replied with a smile. “I will tell you almost anything but…”

“Oh God, the best ones were the worst ones,” he added. “And the terrible ones. Like the first night that I actually stripped … because there was a beginning period where you basically help out, set up props and learn that world until you can create an act.

Shame campaign

“My sister didn’t want me to do it so bad that she was trying to shame me out of doing it. So she showed up the night that I was supposed to be on stage. I still went on. I started to take off my clothes. She was mortified. The worst thing that you can possibly feel is when one of the people who knows you so well and whom you love is going, don’t do this, please don’t do this and she is embarrassed. All her girlfriends came and it was just a horrible experience.

“She left, went to a bar around the corner until it was over.”

He confirmed, “Yeah, her girlfriends stayed.”

Missing McConaughey

On Matthew McConaughey who decided to sit out this sequel which also stars Matt Bomer and Joe Manganiello, Channing said, “Matthew was missed by all the guys who are in the movie. We called him during the shoot. We looked at him as sort of our team daddy and the heart of this group. It was unfortunate that we couldn’t have him in the movie.

“But I do think it was a very happy blessing in disguise because it really opened the film up for all these other guys to really unfold their characters. People like Joe, I just don’t know if he would have had the opportunity and the room to have people see what he is really capable of.”

(E-mail the columnist at [email protected]. Follow him at https://twitter.com/nepalesruben.)