Tatum and Seyfriend in Dear John.

If you know anything about Channing Tatum, it’s probably 100 percent muscle and is a recognizable face these days in any movie calling for musclehead with a heart of gold — bonus points for break dancing (see: A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints, G.I. Joe). This time around, it’s Dear John (read Molly Eichel’s review), in which, Tatum plays John — a soldier who unexpectedly falls in love with Savannah (Amanda Seyfried) while he is on leave and she is home on spring break.

When Tatum enters the Four Seasons hotel room, he’s wrapping up an iPod in his hands. “What’s up, everyone?” he says. He then greets every reporter in the room, shaking their hand and saying, “Hey. I’m Chan.” His hair is slicked back like a high school prep and he sports a goatee.

Playing a soldier is familiar territory for Tatum, who has already taken on the role in Stop-Loss, G.I. Joe and the upcoming Eagle of the Ninth, in which he plays a Roman Centurion. “I joke that I think I had a shaved head and thick neck from playing football,” he says. “But, I’d like to think that I respect what they do so much. I hope they see how much I value what they do.”

He rubs the conference table with his thumbs and explains that he doesn’t know half of what it’s like to be a soldier and he would never say that he does. He just tries to “wear the suit right and sling the gun right.”

Dear John takes place in the Spring of 2001 and considering John’s line of work, the dateline foreshadows 9/11. John, at that moment, is stationed in an undisclosed location, doing what peacetime Green Berets do, while Savannah is at college. So, where was Channing? “I was actually in New York,” he says. “I was taking the transit in from New Brunswick where I was staying on somebody’s couch. I was taking the train in and you come around this bend coming into New York and you could see the skyline — you could see all the way to the Trade Center. And one of them was smoking and some peoples’ phones were going off and no one was calling me. I don’t know why. No one cares,” he says, laughing. “But I really didn’t think anything of it and I kept walking and at some point, I think I was around Union Square, maybe a little farther down and everyone now came out of the buildings — literally everyone was coming out into the street.

“Cars were stopping and people were getting out and looking up, and just like in the movies, you make your way to a cafe that has a TV on and you just try to watch it to see what’s going on. Nobody’s cell phones were working — there were lines down the block at every pay phone. It was just the most surreal experience. People weren’t panicked, and I didn’t really see anyone crying and everyone really just didn’t know what to do, you know? Everyone was just sort of looking around at each other and it was definitely an out of body experience, for sure.”

War and national tragedy are heady material for a personal melodrama like Dear John. Could the choice possibly have been wife/Step Up co-star Jenna Dewan? She didn’t have sway, Tatum says, before launching into a syrupy love-monologue to Dewan. At the end, he leans into the tape recorders and says, “Baby, if you are listening, you had a hand in it and you’re the whole reason!”

Dear John opens in area theaters this Friday. Check citypaper.net/showtimes for info and tickets.

“Wear the suit right and sling the gun right.”: Q&A with Dear John’s Channing Tatum

This entry was posted on Thursday, February 4th, 2010 at 10:40 am and is filed under Interview, Movies. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.