Returns to theaters with Dog, a comedy with Sandra Bullock and a new Magic Mike movie

by Jake Coyle for Elvocero

Channing Tatum hasn’t starred in a movie since 2017’s Logan Lucky. It’s a baffling pause for one of Hollywood’s top stars: an actor who has gracefully, sillyly, and sometimes shirtlessly redefined male cinematic stardom.

His five-year hiatus ended this week with the premiere of Dog, in which he plays Briggs, a U.S. Army Ranger, who takes a fallen soldier’s dog to his funeral. Then will follow the comedy The Lost City with Sandra Bullock.

But returning to the spotlight, he says he never really intended to disappear: “I didn’t walk away thinking, ‘I’m leaving here.'”

In recent years, Tatum premiered the traveling show Magic Mike Live and wrote a children’s book inspired by his eight-year-old daughter, Everly. In 2018, he and his wife Jenna Dewan, whom he met on the set of 2006’s Step Up, reported their separation after nine years. Meanwhile, Tatum had fleeting screen appearances, making a handful of cameos and voice dubbing.

“Time just vanished… Really, being a father dragged me down for almost four years. I got a little lost doing that,” he admitted.

“I performed for almost ten years and I needed to take a step back… My career was my whole life. It was all about what I was going to do with my career,” he said.

Tatum, 41, wanted the hairpiece to pay homage to a range of iconic hunks. “I definitely have a Fabio wig,” he says over breakfast one morning at a restaurant near his home in Los Angeles. “But my inspiration was the man himself that’s in our movie, Brad — from ‘Legends of the Fall.’” Yes, Brad (as in Pitt) makes a cameo in “The Lost City,” which opens in theaters on March 25. “I was like, ‘I want the “Legends of the Fall” wig,’” Tatum says as his face lights up. “I don’t even know if it was his hair. He was fucking gorgeous. And I was like, ‘Please make me that.’”

“The minute he came out of his dressing room, the wig took over his entire personality,” Bullock recalls, laughing. “We lost Channing for a moment. Someone has to have great physicality and comedic timing to take ownership of that in a genuine way rather than make fun of it. He embraced what it was, and it was pretty spectacular.”

Before he wore his hair like Pitt’s, Tatum had been following a similar career path. In the 2010s, he became one of the biggest movie stars on the planet. Tatum spent his late 20s and 30s churning out one box office hit after another — playing a romantic lead in “The Vow,” a comedic action hero in “21 Jump Street” and a stripper with abs of steel in “Magic Mike,” an autobiographical indie film based on Tatum’s early days as an exotic dancer that became a worldwide phenomenon. In addition to the 2015 sequel, “Magic Mike XXL,” the franchise has spawned an HBO Max reality series, “Finding Magic Mike,” and a cabaret show, “Magic Mike Live,” both of which were made through Tatum’s production company, Free Association.