Channing Tatum (born Channing Matthew Tatum [1] on April 26,
1980 in Cullman, Alabama) is an American actor and former model.
After beginning his career as a fashion model, he has branched out into acting roles, appearing in the films Havoc (2005), Coach Carter (2005), Supercross (2005), She's the Man, then
Step Up, and A Guide to
Recognizing Your Saints, all of which were released in 2006.
Early life
Born in Cullman, a small city in Alabama, Tatum has
at least one sister. He has French, Irish and
Native American ancestry. His family moved to Mississippi when he was six, although he visits Alabama, where his mother's family still lives, every
summer. Tatum grew up in the bayous near the Mississippi
River, where he enjoyed a rural existence, including "All the rattlesnakes and alligators a boy could possibly chase,
fishing every day, Pop Warner football league, stuff like that".[2]
Tatum was athletic while growing up, playing football, soccer, track, baseball, and performing martial arts, although he says that "girls were
always [his] biggest distraction in school."[2] During the ninth grade, he "had an option either [to attend] a military school or a private school". He chose the private school, Tampa Catholic High School. He
graduated in 1998 and was voted most athletic. Afterward, Tatum won a football scholarship to Glenville State College in West Virginia, although he
soon lost interest in the sport and turned down the scholarship, citing his dislike of the demands of playing football.
Career
Channing Tatum's first experience was in the fashion industry as a model. He was then cast as
a dancer in Ricky Martin's "She Bangs" music video,
after an audition in Orlando, Florida; he was paid $400 for the job. He subsequently
signed with a modelling agency in Miami, Page 305 (Page Parkes Modeling Agency), and
appeared in Vogue magazine. He soon appeared in campaigns for Abercrombie & Fitch, Nautica,
Dolce & Gabbana, American Eagle
Outfitters, and Emporio Armani. Tatum has also starred in a few television
commercials for American Eagle Outfitters, Pepsi and Mountain
Dew, and was picked as one of Tear Sheet magazine's "50 Most Beautiful Faces" of October 2001.[2]
Tatum has said that his modeling career has helped him with his life, specifying that "It's made my life, and my family's
life, a lot easier, because I never knew what I wanted to do and now they don't really have to worry about me anymore. I've been
able to explore life, and through exploring it I've found that I love art, I love writing, I love acting, I love all the things
that make sense to me. And I've been given the chance to go out and see the world, and to see all the things out there. Not
everyone gets that chance".[2]
Tatum began his acting career in 2004, appearing in an episode of the television series CSI:
Miami. His first feature film role was in 2005's high school drama, Coach
Carter, playing Jason Lyle, a street smart basketball player opposite Samuel L.
Jackson; Tatum also appeared in Twista's "Hope" music video, which accompanied the film.
In the same year, Tatum had an uncredited bit role in War of the
Worlds when posing as a boy in a church, a factory endorsed top motocross racer in Supercross, and part of the supporting cast in Havoc.
Although Tatum has said that he loves modeling, he has taken a break from the profession to concentrate on his acting career,
saying that he prefers making more mature movies.
Tatum was originally scheduled to play Genghis Khan in the film Mongol, but was replaced by actor Tadanobu Asano. He also
auditioned for the role of Gambit in X-Men:
The Last Stand, but was not cast as the character was eventually removed from the film.[3] The film's producer, Lauren Shuler Donner, noticed Tatum and cast him
in the film She's the Man, where he plays the love interest of Amanda Bynes's character. The film opened on March 17, 2006.
Tatum's most recent roles are in Step Up, a dance-themed romance which opened
on August 11, 2006 and the 1980s-set drama A Guide to Recognizing Your
Saints, in which he plays Antonio, a street youth in Astoria, Queens. Tatum
has described the latter film as his "first dramatic role"; his performance received positive notices at the 2006 Sundance Film Festival, where the film premiered.[4] The acclaim continued when he received an Independent Spirit Award nomination for Best Supporting Male.[5]
Tatum's next film roles will be in director Kimberly Peirce's highly-anticipated
movie Stop-Loss, about a soldier returning home from the Iraq War and director Stuart Townsend's movie
Battle in Seattle, about the huge 1999 protest of the World Trade Organization
meeting in Seattle.
Channing Tatum will play in the indie film The Trap, which
is directed by Tom Hanks' wife Rita Wilson. The actor was chosen to play a role in the Lindsay Lohan, Shirley MacLaine, Rosario
Dawson, and Olympia Dukakis film 'Poor Things', but had to tun down the role because of scheduling conflicts. Channing will also
be playing a soldier in another New Line Cinema film which is based on a popular
Nicholas Sparks bestseller called Dear
John. He will be starring in Christopher McQuarrie's upcoming feature
project The Stanford Prison Experiment, will also star as a rogue psychic in David Bourla's movie Push and will star in Oliver Stone's next Vietnam
war drama, Pinkville, with veteran actor Bruce Willis.
Channing is also slated to play a renegade New York City cop who must infiltrate the underground world of free running, known
as le parkour, to bust a seemingly unstoppable gang of bank robbers in an untitled movie for
New Line Cinema. Le parkour is an extraordinarily
athletic discipline where a person utilizes their environment as a sort of jungle gym, traversing the landscape - urban or
otherwise - in the most efficient method possible.
Channing Tatum and Dito Montiel, the star and director of last year’s acclaimed independent feature A Guide to Recognizing
Your Saints, have signed to reteam on an action drama for Rogue Pictures. Kevin Misher will produce the as-yet-untitled film
through his Misher Films. Rogue co-presidents Andrew Karpen and Andrew Rona made the announcement today. Channing Tatum will star
as Sean Arthur, a young man who scrapes up a living scalping tickets in NYC.
Although little is known about the movie at this time, Channing Tatum will also be playing in an untitled buddy action film
with fellow dance movie alum Columbus Short of 'Stomp the Yard'.
Awards
Films
Footnotes
External links
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