Moviegoers around the world rejoice because next month, a Steven Soderbergh film hits the big screen for the first time since 2018 with “Magic Mike’s Last Dance.” And “Last Dance” also sees Channing Tatum return to arguably his most popular role, Florida-based stripper “Magic” Mike Lane. In short, it’s a good time to be a Tatum fan, a Soderbergh fan, or a movie fan in general.
And to kick off his press tour for “Last Dance,” IndieWire reports that Tatum stopped by Vanity Fair to participate in one of their lie-detector interviews. The premise is simple: strap a celebrity to a lie detector machine, ask them questions, and see if they’re telling the truth. Hilarity always ensues in these videos, but Tatum’s time in the interrogation room proved especially funny. How come? Well, it revolves around a pointed question about why he was killed off so early in the 2013 sequel “G.I. Joe: Retaliation” and Tatum’s blunt response to the query that he begged for his character to die in the first ten minutes.
“The first [2009’s “G.I. Joe: The Rise Of Cobra“] I passed on seven times, but they had an option on me, and I had to do the movie,” Tatum started. “So the second one, I obviously just didn’t want to do that one either.” Tatum was the lead in the 2009 film, but in the 2013 sequel, he’s killed early on, with Dwayne Johnson taking over the leading man position as Roadblock. But then Tatum explained why he wanted to get killed off in the sequel, and it’s a very funny and satisfying answer.
“Look, I’ll be honest. I fucking hate that movie. I hate that movie,” continued Tatum. “I was pushed into doing that movie. From “Coach Carter,” they signed me to a three-picture deal…They give you the contract and they go, ‘Three-picture deal, here you go.’ And as a young [actor], you’re like, ‘Oh my god, that sounds amazing, I’m doing that!’ Time goes by and you get other jobs and you’re building your quote and you have a dream job you want to do. And the studio calls up and they’re like, ‘Hey, we got a movie for you, we’re going to send it to you.’ And they send it to you, and it’s ‘G.I. Joe.’”
And even though Tatum grew up a fan of “G.I. Joe,” he couldn’t handle being the star in a movie with such a lousy script. Tatum went on: “And I love G.I. Joe: ‘Can I play Snake Eyes?’ And they’re like, ‘No, you’re not playing Snake Eyes, you’re playing G.I. Joe.’ The script wasn’t any good. And I didn’t want to do something that I was a fan of since I was a kid and watched every morning growing up — and didn’t want to do something that was, one, bad and, two, I just didn’t know if I wanted to be G.I. Joe.”
Needless to say, Tatum was relieved to exit the short-lived franchise at an expedited pace. And a good thing, too: the 2021 reboot of the series with Henry Golding, “Snake Eyes,” was a mild disaster. So, no more “G.I. Joe” movies any time soon.
Check out the rest of Channing Tatum’s lie-detector interview with Vanity Fair below. Not only is the “G.I. Joe” story hilarious, but watching Tatumchurn through these questions while being as unapologetically honest as possible is a real treat.
