After featuring in films that required him to play no more than just a smooth-talking hunk, heart-throb Channing Tatum — who started off as a stripper and slowly worked his way up the Hollywood ranks — has earned immense critical praise for his portrayal of wrestling champ Mark Schultz in the Bennett Miller-directed biopic Foxcatcher, also starring Steve Carell and Mark Ruffalo. A chat with Tatum on the January 30 release.

Wrestling is a tough sport. How did it feel playing a wrestler in Foxcatcher?
Wrestling, it’s an intimate thing, even though it’s super violent. You have to be comfortable being basically naked... and wrestling! It’s weird. From an outsider’s perspective, it looks very homosexual. I’ve gotten that a lot. And I always say, ‘Come on and try it out. You’ll see how non-homosexual that is’. And I don’t know what that’s like even. But I can’t imagine it’s very much like that. It’s too painful. It’s chess, but a violent chess.

In wrestling, there’s a lot being said to each other without talking. You’re in a quiet gym, and you just hear grunts and slams and slaps and breathing hard. You’re constantly baiting and trying to set up something that you want. Throughout Mark (Ruffalo, who plays Dave Schultz, an Olympic gold medal-winning wrestler and Tatum’s older brother) and my journey, finding these two men in us, we had to go through a lot of very humbling experiences. Mark and I were both just there for each other, throughout that learning process. We learned, on a very small level, what it really is to be there for someone on that level.

For that scene (the final wrestling scene between the two brothers), specifically, there were about 20 other pages before that scene, where we were talking and he was being a big brother and we could just throw it out because you see it all in that one scene. I think it really has to do with all the time and friendship that we created through wrestling.

The film is a powerful and probing examination of vulnerability. Can you talk about that?
I had the opportunity to be able to talk to Mark Schultz and spend some intimate time with him. That’s always interesting because we are telling a story and he has his entire life that we can’t fit in. You obviously can take the physical things of the way he walks or the little eccentricities that he has, but I think one of the biggest lessons that I learned on this film is, I think I came in with a plan, this thing that I had prepared, and after the first day I felt like I ruined it. I didn’t feel like I did anything right, and what I realised was that this wasn’t a bar that I was going to jump up and hit; you just keep digging and trying to find the truth in Mark and the film and what we were doing. I think the thing is you have to give yourself over to it, and let it come through.

Did you take any real-life references to get into the skin of this character? You were a stripper and have seen tough days yourself…
Personally, I like being pushed into corners. It forces you to be creative. Being a stripper exposed me to a lot of people I might never have met... and that has turned out to be a gift. There are lots of characters I feel I can play as a result. So, when people tell me they want to act, I’m like, ‘Okay, if you want to act, go see America. If you can afford gas money, go talk to people and see how they really live’.

How did it feel to essay a character that is inspired from real life? How did the process go for you?
I wanted to honour Dave to the best of my abilities. The only way I knew how to do that was to go out in the world and find out as much as I could about him. There’s a little bit of a reportage quality to the job at that point — you’re out in the world as a detective in a weird way. I became very close to Dave’s wife Nancy and other people who knew him well. For example, John Giura, Dave’s coach and one of his best friends. John not only coached me about the way Dave wrestled, but he also was my lodestone, somebody I could always ask if the way I did a scene felt like Dave. Knowing that this stuff is real gives it another level of gravity. Even if the movie is good, if you’re not honest to it, you’re failing somehow. I think all of us would just roll over and die if we felt like we had failed.

Does making a film like this determine the type of projects you’d like to do next?
I just think they’re all different muscles. Comedy doesn’t come easy for me. I’ve only done two movies (21 Jump Street and its sequel 22 Jump Street) that are really comedy-style films, and I had to work at them. They’re just as scary, in a way. I hate labeling these things comedy, love story, dark drama, or whatever. In Foxcatcher, the stakes are very, very high. I have to live with Mark Schultz in the world and hope that I did some amount of justice for him. I enjoyed going deeper than I’ve ever gone into a character, for sure. I can’t say that I want to do this forever. I think that I’ll just find the people that I want to work with, and then go do it with them.

With all the different kinds of films you’ve done, what personal satisfaction does a film like this give you?
I don’t know. It’s really the journey that you get to go on with the people you’re doing it with. You are playing someone else, but ultimately, it’s just a version of the person because you have to do it. I can’t put everything that Mark Schultz is in a 90-minute movie. I’m really just telling Bennett’s story. I don’t think we left a day feeling amazing or feeling like, ‘Oh, my god, we crushed that scene!’ You just don’t, on a movie like this. I think we did all right.

The satisfaction, after walking away from it, is knowing that you left it all out there and you gave all the colours you could possibly give, so that someone could paint a picture. This has been the most painful movie I have ever done. I never want to wrestle again.

Is Channing Tatum an overrated or underrated actor? 
Tell t2@abp.in