Channing Tatum and Zoë Kravitz at ‘Blink Twice’ LA premiere | Image: Instagram/@zoeisabellakravitz
Before they even became a couple six years ago, Zoë Kravitz always saw the vision that Channing Tatum was the perfect match to play the psychopath lead in her directorial debut movie, “Blink Twice.”
“It was pretty crazy; I didn’t really know Zoë before she sent me the script. I had never met her before—I got a text from Riley Keough; she’s like, ‘Hey, my friend Zo wants to send you a script.’ I was like, ‘Great, I love Zo as an actress; I’d love to act with her.’ I didn’t know she wanted to make this thing,” Tatum shared during the film’s Los Angeles premiere on Thursday.
“Blink Twice” follows the story of billionaire Slater King (Tatum) as he meets cocktail waitress Frida (Naomi Ackie) at a fundraising gala. He invites her to join him and his friends on a dream vacation on his private island. Amid the glitz and glamour, Frida has to find a way to make it out of the party alive.
In the film’s trailer, the audience is introduced to a world almost similar to the highly acclaimed films “Midsommar” and “Get Out,” embodying the same degree of strangeness and horror. As the characters navigate the uncanny situation they are in, the viewers are forced to choose and root for the character they want to be the final girl.
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In an interview, Tatum described his role as both “exciting” and “terrifying,” as Slater offered up a new challenge for him, playing a character who’s nothing like him.
“Almost every dude I’ve ever played, I’ve had some sort of connection to them. There’s nothing really to love about Slater. There just isn’t; he’s a full psychopath,” he said.
The “Magic Mike” actor was also intrigued by the idea of doing something daring, and he found a passionate collaborator in his fiancée, Kravitz.
“We’ve talked about lots of different versions of Slater,” he shared. “The one thing that we both agreed upon is that we didn’t want to do the very stereotypical movie moment in a thriller where you reveal the bad guy.”
The psychological thriller film is also set to feature Adria Arjona, Simon Rex, Alia Shawkat, Haley Joel Osment, Christian Slater, and Geena Davis in the supporting cast.
“Blink Twice” opens in Philippine cinemas on August 21.
Meanwhile, Tatum and Kravitz began dating in 2021 and got engaged in October of last year.