Channing Tatum has never been shy about the fact that he once worked as a stripper, and he told The New York Times T Magazine that he believes the experience helped him.
"Being a stripper exposed me to a lot of people I might never have met, and that has turned out to be a gift," Tatum said. "There are lots of characters I feel I can play as a result."
Tatum's next role is that of Olympic wrestler Mark Schultz in "Foxcatcher," and he says he spent days with Schultz to ensure he played the role as accurately as possible. "In a two-hour movie, I'm never going to be able to show everything about a person, but I tried to grasp the most poignant things and to imbue them into the film."
As with his stripper character in "Magic Mike" and the 2015 sequel, Tatum's body is a major part of his role. "I've always negotiated the world very physically, from football to tussling at the playground to taking my clothes off," he told the magazine. As a child, he struggled with A.D.H.D. and dyslexia and had a tough time in school, and still remembers how that made him feel.
"I have never considered myself a very smart person, for a lot of reasons," he said. "The system is broken. If we can streamline a multibillion-dollar company, we should be able to help kids who struggle the way I did."
"Foxcatcher" opens in theaters on Nov. 14.