EXCLUSIVE: Channing Tatum is famous for starring in Magic Mike, a movie loosely based on his own life experiences before getting his big break.
Now, he’s playing a very different real life character in the biopic Roofman, telling the story of Jeffrey Manchester, an army veteran who escaped jail and lived in a Toys R Us.
Manchester started robbing fast food joints through their roof – earning him the nickname “roofman” in the press – after being unable afford a bike for his daughter’s birthday.
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Channing Tatum is playing Jeffrey Manchester in the new biopic Roofman, telling the story of an army veteran who escaped jail and lived in a Toys R Us. (Scott A Garfitt/Invision/AP)
Like Manchester, Tatum is a “girl dad” too – sharing 12-year-old daughter Everly with ex-wife Jenna Dewan – and admits it helped him relate with his character.
“I always think about like, if I had a boy first… I’m so happy that I had a girl first,” Tatum tells nine.com.au at the London Film Festival premiere of the film.
“I probably would not have been a very good [boy dad] because I’d have probably raised him a lot like my dad raised me, and it would have been pretty tough – I’m from the South.
“I learned so much about softness and about just going into their world, because I was like, ‘I don’t know how to raise a girl’.
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Like Manchester, Tatum is a “girl dad” too – sharing 12-year-old daughter Everly with ex-wife Jenna Dewan – and admits it helped him relate with his character. (Frazer Harrison/Getty Images)
Tatum’s co-star in the film, Kirsten Dunst praised his “vulnerability” in the role, as she plays love interest Leigh Wainscott (Gareth Cattermole/Getty Images f)
Dunst plays a Toys R Us employee who becomes Manchester’s girlfriend without realising he was an escapee. (Davi Russo/Paramount Pictures via AP)
“I have no point of reference – even my sister, she’s six years older [and] she’s who I went and got into street fights in the neighbourhood, cause she was tough, she wasn’t a girl’s girl [or] girly girl – and I just had no clue what that was.”
Tatum’s co-star in the film, Kirsten Dunst praised his “vulnerability” in the role.
She plays love interest Leigh Wainscott, a Toys R Us employee who becomes Manchester’s girlfriend without realising he was an escapee.
“He was very vulnerable with me, I could see in his eyes,” Dunst tells nine.com.au on the red carpet.
“We really had a wonderful time together … he really listened to me and I did to him, and I feel like that was captured because of Derek [Cianfrance],” she added crediting their director.
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Channing Tatum attended the premiere with his partner, Inka WIlliams. (Gareth Cattermole/Getty Images f)
Cianfrance had similar praise for the lead stars of his film.
“I’m so lucky, I was working with two of my favourite actors of all time and I got to have them on set,” he tells nine.com.au.
“I’m nothing without actors. I’m just the delusional person with ideas and dreams and my dreams are just tufts of smoke – actors get to actually help me live vicariously through my dreams.
“And when you have actors of their calibre on set, it’s just a gift, it’s the best gift you can have as a filmmaker.
Manchester started robbing fast food joints through their roof – earning him the nickname “roofman” in the press – after being unable afford a bike for his daughter (Davi Russo/Paramount Pictures via AP)
“I feel very, very lucky to be with them.”
The movie also stars Australian actor Ben Mendelsohn as well as Game of Thrones star Peter Dinklage.
Roofman is in cinemas across Australia on October 16.
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