"Dear, Dear Channing"

While most people manage to become an actor after years painstakingly studying their craft, Channing Tatum got into acting through another highly photogenic profession: modeling. However, soon enough, he managed to prove himself adept as an actor, getting roles in films such as Step Up, A Guide To Recognizing Your Saints, Fighting, Public Enemies, and G.I. Joe: The Rise Of Cobra.

Now, the 29 year-old is about to make his way into romantic drama, with a film adaptation of Nicholas Sparks's novel Dear John. In the film, Tatum plays John Tyree, a soldier who falls in love with a young girl, played by Amanda Seyfried, while the both of them on break. He talks about reading the original novel.

"I read the book first. I was on really early," he says, "I've been with the film almost 3 to 4 years. I'd seen The Notebook and I knew The Notebook worked and I'd seen other ones. My wife looks up to me at the exact moment every single time that they pass away in the bed and she makes me promise that we're going to go the same way. I mean, just bawling tears and it's like a button, and I'm like there's something that works in there."

"The books are genius," Tatum continues, "He has got a magic wand on the heartstrings. He just does. And it'd be stupid to ignore the book, I think. Now, how do you translate that to your character or to a film? Totally different, you know. You've got to figure that out and that's where it gets really convoluted and you can go really easily to the melodrama. Sometimes you need it and sometimes you need to run away from it. Thank God we have a great director. Lasse is really, really the key to this film."

We asked him whether he feels the attitudes of a soldier between their duty and their love life have changed in American society in a

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decade marred by two wars still going on in Iraq and Afghanistan.

"I think if anything's changed, it's more about the politics and the politicians," Channing believes, "I don't think anyone faults a soldier. If anything, I think it's gotten more pro-soldier. In my mind, at least, it has. I'm not a political person. When I start to get into it, it just upsets me."

"I feel so powerless when it comes to politics," he adds, "So I've just sort of decided to be non-political and very, very pro-soldier. I don't think anyone faults, they can't. I would love to talk to somebody that would fault a soldier for going and fighting for our country because I would have a lot to say to them, a lot. No, I don't. I don't think so."

Channing was asked how he felt about the transition from playing a soldier in G.I. Joe to playing one in Dear John.

"In all the movies, I'm in love with someone in my head," he says, "There's always love in a film somewhere. It doesn't matter even if it's an action movie. This is more of the quiet type of love film and a lot of sitting and talking. I went from G.I. Joe to this film and it was such a great change of pace."

"You're reacting to a tennis ball one moment and now you're sitting on a beach looking into a real person's eyes and talking about real things," Tatum continues, "Real emotions and great writing and great directing, and it was so easy to make the film. Not that the film was easy to make. Obviously, there was some pretty heavy stuff there."

Guiding Tatum through the "heavy stuff" was Swedish director Lasse Hallström who went from directing many of Abba's music videos to feature films like What's Eating Gilbert Grape?, The Cider House Rules, and Chocolat.

"Lasse is such a laid back, sweet guy," Channing says of him, "He's over there

"Dear, Dear Channing"

looking up YouTube videos just for fun in between takes. He used to direct all the Abba videos and he'd be like, 'Hey, do you want to see some of my early work?' He would show me all the Abba videos and I'm like 'Okay, Lasse. I've seen this one.'"

"The man is over there doing some weird dance or something and we're all playing around, and then that energy went on into the scene," he adds, "It didn't matter if it was an angry scene or a fun scene. I don't know. It just made the whole experience really, really simple and easy. But, you're right. This is the first time that I've done that love-story-type movie and I enjoyed it immensely. I want to do another one."

Channing says even if Hallström hadn't the helmed Dear John, he still would have done it.

"I never really like to be like, 'Oh, I have director approval,' because I wouldn't do it with anybody else or anything like that," Tatum says, "[Producers] Marty [Bowen] and Wyck [Godfrey] at Temple Hill, we have a great relationship and it would never get to a point where I'd be like 'No! I'm not doing it with this person.'"

"We all came together very early because we all have very, very similar minds," he continues, "That's why they brought it. We work very well together. We knew that we had a great script. We got the script there and we just had to pick the right person for it. I don't think it ever would have really been a huge issue.

One particular thing Channing says Hallström guided him through was to walk the fine line between drama and melodrama as a hallmark of Nicholas Sparks's novels typically involve doomed, tragic romances.

"Melodrama on the page is always good because you calibrate it in your head and you can just read it," Tatum believes, "But, seeing it in real life, acted out, is an entirely

"Dear, Dear Channing"

different thing. That's why I think Lasse was perfect for this. He has an allergic reaction to melodrama, but he likes to go and find it though. We would constantly find where the ceiling was just for fun. He's like 'Alright, let's just see where it's not.' He's like, 'I think we got it. Let's just see where it's not.' We would go and do the really bad version of it and sometimes it wouldn't be the bad version. Sometimes we'd find another little caveat to explore and he'd be like, "No, it was actually kind of good. Let's just do it one more time and see if that has anything different in it." You know, it was just playing. It's kind of nerve-wracking because he goes, "I'm going to give you the same freedom that I gave Leo [DiCaprio] on [What's Eating] Gilbert Grape and I'm like 'What?! You saying you want me to be mentally challenged? Like what do you want from me? Don't tell me that! I don't even know what I'm supposed to do with that.'"

"It terrifies you, but then also it makes you work harder and it makes you show up prepared and with a plan, not just show up and figure it out on the day," he continues, "That's what he's there for. You start the scene the way you want to start it and then he starts nudging you. I think it's just enough melodrama in there in certain parts, like 'I'll see you soon then.' That could be done so bad and I hope we didn't do it bad. I think we did it right at that level where it could teeter if you give too much on it. I don't know if I've ever had a coined phrase with anybody. I've had inside jokes and stuff with people but not like 'I'll see you soon then' type of thing. That's really sentimental and it can mean

"Dear, Dear Channing"

so many different things. It could mean 'Goodbye,' 'Hello,' 'I love you,' everything. That's a hard thing to do in a movie like that. I think Lasse did it very well."

One thing that Tatum says was easier for him to do was a scene of John diving off a pier and jumping into the ocean to retrieve Savannah's purse.

"Yeah, that stuff was fun," Channing says, "They almost didn't let me do it. I pitched a fit. I was not happy with it. It was a 10-foot drop. It wasn't that far, you know. The stunt guys were doing it. They went down and saw that there was nothing under the water. It was really deep and they weren't going to let me do it for insurance reasons, and I utterly pitched a fit and they let me do it once and that's the one that's in the movie."

"But, the underwater stuff was actually done in Miami," he adds, "They flew me down to Miami at 3 in the morning because they needed clear water and Charleston does not have clear water that you can see through. So I'm in Miami at 4:30 in the morning diving down out in the middle of the ocean. It wasn't even by the shore. They drove us way out there near this lighthouse that was out in the middle of nowhere in the water, and that was a little bit weird and scary but it was fun."

Another thing Tatum says he did himself that John does in the film is surf.

"A little bit," he says, "Yeah. I mean, I had to learn it for the film. I still surf a little bit but the water's too cold out here. I like to go where it's bathwater. I'm from Florida. I'm spoiled, man. The water is entirely too cold here and there's big sharks. They did film stuff with other people but I don't think they used any in the

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movie. Most of it is all me."

Channing discusses doing scenes with Richard Jenkins, who plays John's father in the film.

"He's fantastic," he says, "You can tap him for anything. I keep saying it. He can come off the bench and do a drama, a comedy, and a character, a small little weird character in a movie, and he will knock it out of the park every single time he steps up to the plate. I really owe that hospital scene to him. We tried it a bunch of different ways and it was all good, but we tried it once just reading it. Actually, we talked about it. The reason why I wrote him the letter was because I couldn't tell him. I couldn't figure out how to tell him."

"So we read it like that, that I just had to read it because I couldn't get it out any other way," Tatum adds, "And then, right at the end of the letter, his hand came up and it just destroyed me. It ripped me open. There's something about him and the nurturing way that he has with people in general, not just a young actor, that's heartbreaking. He wants you to be good and wants you to be better and tries to help you as much as possible. Seeing a strong man and a strong personality so weak and caring and loving, and then having somebody grab your head and say it's okay with that emotion was enough to break my heart.

One particular scene Tatum mentions is a scene when John gets a priceless coin of his father back from a museum and tosses it in the dirt.

"We talked about that a lot," he says, "At one point, I think in the book, he sells the entire collection. He doesn't keep anything. I bucked on that hard. I was like, 'He just sold his dad's entire collection that he worked his entire life on? Like

"Dear, Dear Channing"

what?' And then, we came up with saving that one thing. John doesn't care about museum pieces."

"He's not saying 'This coin cost $5,000 and I'm going to cherish it for life,'" Channing continues, "He's saying that this means my father and that it's going to lead me through life. I'm going to let this help me go through life and have that connection with it and that relationship with it that I didn't have with my father in a way. That's how I thought of it. He doesn't want to keep it in a nice case where he doesn't have a relationship with it. He wants it to be in his pocket with him. He didn't treat it with such reverence as his father did."

Channing discussed for us the last time he ever wrote or received a letter himself.

"I got a letter from a writer named Randall Wallace who wrote Braveheart," he says, "Braveheart is one of my favorite films and I have it framed. It's one of my favorite things that I own. He's a mentor of mine now. That's probably the last time I got a letter with a stamp and an actual envelope. It was really cool."

"But the last time I wrote a letter, I don't know if I've ever written a letter really and stamped it and sent it," Tatum adds, "I just don't know if I've ever done it. I feel like I've done it when I was younger, like really, really young, but I think my mom probably helped me. I write stories now or I'll write little notes and leave them around the house, but I don't think that I've ever written her a love letter, like 'let me count the ways' or anything like that. We do other little things.

Tatum adds that he himself has never received a "Dear John" letter of his own.

"I've always been broken up with in person, I guess," Channing says, "I made

"Dear, Dear Channing"

a joke yesterday and I remembered it right as I was making the joke. I got broken up with through a moving bus window. I think I was in 4th grade. I was both boyfriend and girlfriend with this other girl or going together or whatever you want to call it."

"I think we were talking," he continues, "And then her friend yells out the window after I got off the bus "Hey, so and so doesn't want to date you anymore or talk to you anymore" and you're like 'OK, I'll just move on.' That was the closest thing I think I've ever gotten to a Dear John letter."

As an actor steadily on the rise bouncing from smaller films like A Guide To Recognizing Your Saints and Battle In Seattle to larger, more mainstream films like Step Up and G.I. Joe. Channing explained to us his approach for picking his films.

"It's generally the characters," Tatum says, "I was terrified to do G.I. Joe" I had no idea how to do one of those movies. I was kind of scared. You know, if one of those doesn't work, it's a huge hit on your career. People are like, 'Well he couldn't make a $170 million movie work. I don't want him in my film.' And, those movies are strange in tone and I'd never done one before. I just really gave it up to Stephen [Sommers], but I like smaller films better. I don't know why. I think it's the intimacy and there's not this avalanche. It is an avalanche, but it's really myopic. It's really small. Dito [Montiel]and I, when we're running through the subways, trying to catch the subway just to get a shot real quick, and he's literally got the DP, it's just me and the DP, and we want to get a shot of me sitting on a subway bench, but with the train going by and it's not on the

"Dear, Dear Channing"

schedule."

"He knows there's a train over here and we just run over there and do that," he adds, "It's really fun. It's really intimate. And, you feel like you're really doing it. But, when you're on a crazy huge movie, they're fun too in their own way. People come up to me and are like "Yeah, I worked on Joe' and you're like "What? I'm sorry, man. I never met you. Hi." There are so many people working on it that it feels a little impersonal. But, character is really where it starts and ends for me. I want to start doing different characters. I've played 3 soldiers now and I think I'm done with the soldier thing for a while. I just went and played another soldier, but a Roman soldier at that and it's a different type of film. So I'm excited about it."

Tatum, then, elaborated on this upcoming film for us.

"It's The Eagle of the Ninth," Channing says, "It's like 1st century Kevin Macdonald, kind of like The Searchers." It's two guys going into the unknown to try to find something and to try to find out what happened, but really they're trying to find and fix parts of themselves. It's a really beautiful relationship story.

Channing says he also plans to work with director Dito Montiel on a third film together. The two have previously worked together on A Guided To Recognizing Your Saints and Fighting.

"It's definitely going to be guerilla," he says, "It's Saints-esque really. It's like the grown-up Saints. Where Saints focused in on the kids, it'll be flip-flopped. It'll be focused on adults this time with kids as well. Look, that guy's lived a crazy life and he's known a lot of crazy people and this will be a true story or pieces of it, and it'll be insane."

"[Robert] DeNiro, Ray Liotta, I don't know if Terrence Howard is going to be in it, I think he might, and

"Dear, Dear Channing"

a bunch of other people with some really strong personalities coming in," Tatum continues, "It's like a psycho cop New York thriller and it'll be Dito-esque again. With Fighting, we just tried to go and do something fun, and then this is him going back and swinging for the fence again into his crazy mind. It's an independent film, so he'll be allowed to do whatever he wants."