Channing Tatum is fit to do his own stunts

When he was told that People magazine would put him on their cover as 2012’s Sexiest Man Alive, he thought that people were joking.  Channing Tatum grew up in a bayou in Mississippi and went to a military high school. He earned a college football scholarship, but he didn’t take it.

Tatum cruised from one job to another until he was discovered as a model while in Miami. The modeling stints later led to commercials and eventually acting roles. He eventually married Step Up co-star Jenna Dewan in 2009 and recently had a daughter Everly, born last May 31 in London.

One of the busiest actors around with three movies last year and six this year, he stars as Capitol policeman John Cale in Columbia Pictures’ White House Down, which is currently showing in theaters.  Cale was denied his dream job to protect President James Sawyer (Jamie Foxx).  In his first ever role as a father, Tatum tours his daughter around the White House, which unfortunately was attacked by a heavily armed paramilitary group. Suddenly, Cale had to save his daughter, the President, and the country.

Tatum was personally chosen by Independence Day director Roland Emmerich to play the role of ex-soldier and divorced father Cale.  Tatum disclosed, “Cale’s been trying to figure out his life for years, to get it together.  He doesn’t really have the tools to put it all into place. But his heart is good — he’s always wanted to be his daughter’s hero.  And now that he’s realizing that he can’t be that, due to mistakes he has made, he thinks, ‘Well, she idolizes the President — if I can’t be her hero, maybe I can help protect the guy who is.’”

He added, “At the start of the movie, he’s probably a better buddy than a father. He’s not a good role model or someone you want to go to for advice.  But if the stuff hits the fan, he’s the guy you want — he’s been through a lot of it.”

“That’s part of the hero’s journey in this movie,” said producer Harald Kloser.  “He has to accomplish something on the outside — saving the world — and something on the inside.  And the story on the inside is the emotional story with his daughter.”

Channing Tatum was the perfect actor for the role. He is not only “a guy who has an ease to him, a humor, confidence, even a little cockiness and swagger,” as screenwriter James Vanderbilt described him, but he is also the best match physically.  John Cale is a demanding action role, and Tatum was up to the task, performing his own stunts when possible.

“Look, what would you rather see: an actor’s face going through a window, or a stuntman who turns his head at the last moment?” Tatum asked.  Safety has to come first, of course, but Tatum wants to do what he can.  “It doesn’t hurt to go through the fake glass, it’s one of those stunts that’s safe for me to do, and it’s fun to do it, so let’s do it.”

“On the set, there was a first time that we were going to do a stunt, when he said, ‘Well, I want to do this myself,’” director Roland Emmerich remembered.  “I was surprised, but thinking about it, it makes sense.  Look at his dance movies — Step Up, Magic Mike.  Dancers are very good stunt people, because they have total control over their bodies.”

Overseeing the stunts and fight sequences in the film was stunt coordinator John Stoneham Jr.  “You always want the stunts to be a real thing and an art,” explained Stoneham.  “Our task on this show has been to keep the realism.  Channing’s got a really good eye for that — he would say, ‘Well, I wouldn’t do that, this move doesn’t make sense.’  He had a lot of input in a lot of the fights, and he had a lot of great ideas.”

Tatum’s expertise as a dancer and innate athletic ability made him a natural for stunt work.  “He has a certain skill level.  It’s his dancing background — I think gymnasts and dancers usually make good stunt people,” said Stoneham.  “They’re just body-aware, and they know where they are in the air.  He’s quick-learning, he’s fast, and action-wise, he makes it really easy for all of us.  We can frame the camera so that we can see his face because we know he can do it.  It’s great for the film.”

“His commitment is remarkable,” noted producer Bradley J. Fischer.  “He gave it his all.  I remember one day, the guy did a back flip onto the floor window of the White House roof with Jason Clarke collapsing on top of him — and he did it twice.  He’s a remarkable guy and an amazing actor.”

When collider.com asked Tatum if he ever imagined he would be in a big-budget action movie, he answered, “You never think you’re going to be in a love story, you never think you’re going to be in a comedy, you never think anything. I’ve said it before that movies are the highest stakes make-believe game in the world, and this is truly the highest stakes. It’s unreal how fast this project got going to begin with, and all the people that just jumped on immediately. This movie got its script sold like that and then it went into production like that (snaps fingers). I met Roland two or three days after he decided to take the movie. He had a similar movie, I think, that he was writing and this just sort of came along and he took it over. But I don’t think you can ever plan for anything like this, this is nuts. I’m getting to shoot javelins — not shoot them, but stop people from shooting them, I get shot at the whole way. It’s cool.”

As for the role, Tatum said he took it because “I think for me, I want to be a dad eventually, and we tried to sum it up like this: a guy that ends up saving the leader of the free world through the love of his daughter.  I think that was sort of what we hoped, not in a hard-handed or on-the-nose way, but in a roundabout way, that was the reason that he ended up in this situation. It was all because of his daughter, and he’s probably not the best husband or even dad, but he’s more of … I have friends that have dads that are better friends then they are dads, they’re more like buddies than they are actual parental advisors. So I think that’s more what John Cale is and this is the first time he’s really been able to love his daughter through what he’s good at, and that’s just dogged determination.”

Tatum proudly replied when asked if he did all his stunts, “All me, they’re still trying to talk me out of one stunt. I’m going to look at it and if I think I can do it; it’s just a fall, a 25- foot fall, but the way you have to fall is bad because you have to fall on your side or on your back and that’s always dangerous. The stunt guys to do the ‘pre,’ before the cameras go; I do generally all my stuff except for motorcycles and cars, that stuff I don’t know how to do as well as certain people do.”

“I like doing this stuff though, it’s kind of the whole reason that you want to do the movie. When you’re reading it, you’re like, ‘Oh, I get to dive out a window? Cool! I get to jump off a building? Great!’ So I love doing that stuff, it’s like the stuff we used to do in high school to be stupid and fun,” he concluded.

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