Channing Tatum

Channing Tatum was born on April 26, 1980, in Cullman, Alabama, and grew up largely in the Tampa area after his family moved to Florida. He attended Glenville State College in West Virginia on a football scholarship but left before graduating. As a young man, he worked various jobs, including construction and selling mortgages, before briefly performing as a stripper in Florida. That experience later supplied the autobiographical basis for his film Magic Mike, although his first public entertainment work came as a dancer in Ricky Martin's 2000 music video “She Bangs.”

His film debut came in 2005, when he played Jason Lyle in the basketball drama Coach Carter, starring Samuel L. Jackson. The following year, he became widely known as Tyler Gage, a rebellious dancer opposite Jenna Dewan in Step Up. The film was a commercial success, and Tatum and Dewan married in 2009; they later separated and divorced in 2019. Their daughter Everly was born in 2013.

Tatum's career expanded through action, comedy, and drama. He starred with Dwayne Johnson in G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra (2009) and returned as Duke in G.I. Joe: Retaliation (2013). In 2012, he played undercover officer Jenko in 21 Jump Street, alongside Jonah Hill; their intentionally comic partnership continued in 22 Jump Street (2015). He also appeared in Steven Soderbergh's Side Effects (2013) and starred in the Coen brothers' Hail, Caesar! (2016), where he performed a much-discussed sailor dance sequence.

In Foxcatcher (2014), he portrayed Olympic wrestler Mark Schultz opposite Steve Carell's John du Pont and Mark Ruffalo's Dave Schultz. The role demonstrated a more restrained dramatic range and earned him widespread critical praise. Tatum then headlined the heist comedy Logan Lucky (2017), playing a West Virginia construction worker who plans a NASCAR robbery with his brother, played by Adam Driver.

In 2022, he starred in The Lost City with Sandra Bullock and co-directed Dog with his longtime collaborator Reid Carolin. Dog follows an Army Ranger escorting a military working dog to a funeral, combining road comedy with Tatum's veteran perspective.

He played the mutant Gambit in a brief but notable appearance during Deadpool & Wolverine (2024), a role he had pursued for years after earlier development plans for a standalone film collapsed. He produced Magic Mike's Last Dance.