No matter how much you love your job there are aspects of it that you don’t like. It’s just a fact of life that nothing is all sunshine and roses. Even most actors will, for one reason or another, take on roles that they don’t care for. Channing Tatum was recently on the Howard Stern show to talk about his upcoming film, ‘Magic Mike XXL’ and while he was there, Stern brought up Tatum’s movie, ‘G.I. Joe: Rise of Cobra.’
Tatum started laughing and eventually admitted that he didn’t care for the G.I. Joe movies. His exact words were “Look, I’ll be honest, I f*ing hate that movie.” Harsh words. Granted, a lot of people probably agree with his sentiment, but it still seems harsh coming from the star of the film. His comments make a lot more sense after he explained himself. First off, his involvement was due to a three-film contract he had signed with Paramount, so he didn’t have any choice in the matter, which can sour anyone on a project, even if they might otherwise want to be working on it. Next, he really wanted to be Snake Eyes, (because given the choice, who wouldn’t want to be a mysterious, badass ninja?) but Paramount told him he was going to be Duke. Finally, he also mentioned that he had been a huge fan of the G.I. Joe fans as a kid, and he really didn’t want to do a bad adaptation of something that he was such a big fan of. And according to Tatum, “the script just wasn’t any good.” In those circumstances, you could understand why an actor would be less than thrilled to play a role in the movie. Nobody wants to knowingly ruin their favorite childhood cartoon.
At the time, Tatum had no idea that the original script was written with Mark Wahlberg in mind. “Maybe I should have done my Wahlberg impression for the whole movie,” he joked. “The movie might’ve been better!”
Tatum did admit that ‘G.I. Joe’ “was really not all that bad,” and said that he “was super lucky to have been given that film” instead of a movie he had no interest in at all.
You can hear the entire exchange in the player below:
So, what do you think? Can you blame Tatum for hating the G.I. Joe movies? Do you appreciate his candor or should an actor try to use more tact when speaking about previous roles? Let us know your opinion in the comments.
