Magic Mike tells the story of an entrepreneur named Mike (Channing Tatum), who is a man of many talents and seemingly endless charm. When heâs not roofing houses, detailing cars and designing his own furniture, heâs headlining an all-male revue in Tampa thatâs run by club owner Dallas (Matthew McConaughey) and features Ken (Matt Bomer), Big Dick Richie (Joe Manganiello), Tarzan (Kevin Nash) and Tito (Adam Rodriguez). He sees potential in a 19-year-old co-worker who he calls the Kid (Alex Pettyfer) and takes him under his wing to teach him how to make easy money while taking full advantage of the lifestyle, but quickly realizes that heâs really looking for something more for his own life. For more on the film, here's twelve clips.
At the filmâs press day, co-stars Channing Tatum (whoâs also one of the filmâs producers), Matthew McConaughey, Matt Bomer (White Collar) and Joe Manganiello (True Blood) talked about their lack of wardrobe, why male strip clubs are different than female strip clubs, how nervous they all were for their big dance numbers, what surprised them about making this film, and their favorite costumes. Channing Tatum also talked about how he, himself, ended up stripping at 18 and why he decided to stop. Check out what they had to say after the jump.
Question:Â Channing and Matthew, did you have any reservations about the lack of clothes in this, and what did your wives think about your wardrobe?
CHANNING TATUM: My wife married a stripper, so she knew what she was getting into and she made that a prerequisite for the marriage. I just respect [the cast] for jumping into the thong with both feet and out onto the stage because Iâve done it before, and it was still nerve-wracking for me. I canât imagine what they had to go through. [Matt] Bomer had to go first. I felt so bad for that. I was like, âMaybe I should go first.â Everybody just committed. Every single person just went for it. I wish we had time in the movie to show everybodyâs dance because everybody worked so hard on them. Itâs a humbling thing to get up, there where youâre left with very little to the imagination, in front of almost 300 people. Itâs very, very nerve-wracking.
MATTHEW McCONAUGHEY:Â As far as trusting wardrobe, it is one of the larger leaps of faith to trust a thong.
TATUM:Â Sometimes they completely betray you.
McCONAUGHEY: It weighs what a dollar bill weighs. It weighs nothing. At the end of the performance, thatâs the only protection I had. The first time, putting it on, youâre going, âWhat is every possible angle I could be in?â I had to check to see if everything was covered. You donât understand how it is, but for the most part, it is. I had to put on the thong, and then walk around and try to have normal conversations. Youâve gotta talk about football or what you ate last night. You lean against a wall and youâre just like, âNo, Iâm just hanging out, man,â to get comfortable with it. The first time you put it on, your body contorts. You have to straighten up and put your shoulders back and your hips out. It is somewhat unnatural. Channing would be there, just talking about whatâs going on in the scene with Soderbergh, and he was in his red thong, just working it out. Thereâs nothing weird about Kevin Nash in a thong, talking to you about Picassoâs Cubism period.
If you made a movie about female strippers that had men reacting as excitedly as the women do in this movie, it would be a very different thing. What is it about those two experiences that allows us to see this as fun, as opposed to being sleazy?
TATUM:Â I just think weâre trying to do our part to objectify men, for the first time, in movies.
JOE MANGANIELLO:Â If youâre a smart, single guy, youâre going to go see this on a Friday or a Saturday night âcause guess whoâs going to be in the theater.
TATUM: And if youâre really smart, youâll wear a firemanâs outfit. You just might go home with a few numbers or, even better, someone.
MANGANIELLO:Â And donât forget your axe.
Did any of the ladies playing the club patrons take their roles a little too seriously and get a little too enthusiastic?
MATT BOMER: Yeah, I think those were all happy accidents, when that happened. It was part of the world. If they wanted to lick you in certain places or touch you or whatever, it was welcomed. It was just part of the world we were creating.
TATUM: Youâve gotta commit. It very much informed our performance. They were there for awhile and they became our friends. Youâd get off stage and theyâd be like, âThat was a really good one! That part where you did that thing, that was great!â
McCONAUGHEY: They were crazy during the dances, and then, afterwards, they would become very motherly and want to take care of us. Theyâd be like, âThat was good! You done good today!â
TATUM: [The women got] so bad with Matthew that I was like, âMan, did I not bring it?!â They didnât run at the stage like that [for me]. The women lost their minds, and we didnât instruct them to. If anything, we were instructing them to do that with the other dancers. We were like, âCome on, girls! Liven up! Youâve gotta give it!â And we didnât have to do that with Matthew. He brought them right in. As Dallas says, âYouâve gotta bring âem in! Youâve gotta connect to every single one of them!â
Matthew, were you nervous for your big dance number?
McCONAUGHEY: I was very nervous, yeah. Before going out on the stage to dance, even if youâre not taking your clothes off for everyone, is really kind of nerve-wracking. But then, knowing youâve got to strip down, itâs very nerve-wracking. Then, after doing it once, I wanted to get up there to do it again. That was a lot of fun! When I first talked to Steven [Soderbergh], he called to offer the role of Dallas to me, and he pitched the story and told me who this guy was. I was laughing really hard on the phone and said, âYes.â I said, âCan you give me one line, just so I can hang up the phone and walk away and have my imagination go somewhere?â He said, âThis guy, Dallas, is pretty connected to the UFOs.â So, that was a great launchpad. That was a pretty roofless bit of direction on the phone, at the beginning. I knew that I was just going to be able to fly. It was really fun to play someone so committed, in many ways.
Would you say that Dallas is a bit delusional?
McCONAUGHEY: Dallas is absolutely not delusional. Dallas is working his ass off to be the messiah of the male revue universe. As he says, âThe moon is merely a chip shot away. Weâre going lunar!â He doesnât just want to take over the male revue on planet earth. He wants to control the solar system.
TATUM:Â Dubai is next.
McCONAUGHEY: Dubai is a start. Heâll start with 4,000 square feet of primetime real estate in South Beach, and then heâll move to Dubai. Like he said, heâs going to simulcast. Heâs a big thinker, that Dallas. So no, heâs not delusional. At least, not in his mind, whatsoever.
Channing, what was it like to dress up as Marilyn Monroe? Are you ready for a cameo on Smash?
TATUM: I donât think theyâd want me on their show. That would just be a bad idea, but I would do it. Dressing up as Marilyn, I did that to a buddy of mine, on his birthday. He was eating at a restaurant, and I walked in as Marilyn and basically sang him âHappy Birthdayâ and embarrassed the hell out of him. So, we just decided to put it in this movie for fun.
What was it like to work on a movie that really challenges the ideas of what it means to be a man?
MANGANIELLO: Big Dick Richie doesnât have bigger dreams. He knows what his big dream is.
TATUM:Â Itâs less about the male dream than it is about the female dream with Big Dick Richie.
MANGANIELLO: This is the best place for him. Itâs about club life. Itâs about being trapped in this life. Itâs a very attractive, shiny place to be. People get stuck in it and years go back. The Kevin Nash character is the perfect example. Heâs the Keith Richards of male strippers. Heâs figured out the chemistry. Heâs a lifer. Heâs in his 50s and heâs still there. Heâs going to OD, every other day. But, thatâs it. You go in there as this fresh-faced kid, probably underage, and you wake up 20 years later going, âWhat the hell did I do?â Thatâs what at the heart of it.
TATUM: To build upon that, I think everybody either knows somebody or has experienced it themselves, whether they did or didnât graduate college, where youâre like, âOkay, what do I do now?â You have the dreams that you want, and then you have to do other jobs until you can get to that dream. Mike, and a lot of these guys, just fell into this thing and it was fun, and then years just ticked on, as the party was happening. All of a sudden, itâs seven years later and youâre like, âWow, I donât really have very much to show for it. Iâm not any closer to my dream.â At some point, the party just got in the way and became your life. I think thatâs happened to a lot of people. They just get sidetracked.
What surprised you about making this movie and playing these characters?
BOMER: I think this whole experience opened all of us up, in some way. I remember being at my sisterâs wedding reception, a month after we wrapped. Iâd had a few drinks and, all of a sudden, I was doing body rolls on the dance floor. I realized, âMatt, itâs time to let go. You canât take this with you. Itâs already been captured on film.â
MANGANIELLO: I think the sense of humor about it is what surprised me a lot. At a female strip club, things are very serious. You get that archetypical guy in the trench coat, whoâs like a serial killer with dollar bills. You donât really get that, at the male strip clubs. Itâs really hard to take yourself seriously with an American flag thong on that has a strategically placed sparkler. Thereâs a whole level to it thatâs just about fun. Thatâs really the one big thing that I took away. The hardest thing about shooting this movie was biting the inside of my mouth, trying not to laugh when McConaughey was in a yellow spandex halter top with bike shorts, grinding on Alex Pettyferâs hips in the mirror. I mean, come on, man!
BOMER: It was also an exercise in complete commitment. I remember when Steven said to us, early on, âJump off the cliff and Iâll catch you,â and heâs the kind of director that you believe when he says something like that to you. We were all completely terrified, but itâs not the kind of movie you can only commit 75% to. You have to go all the way, or youâre going to be in real trouble.
When you were up there doing your performances, were you competitive with each other?
McCONAUGHEY:Â On the competition side, we all got to see Channing dance for the first time, so it was obvious that the best you could do was get second place.
MANGANIELLO: Chanâs in a dancing movie. Weâre in a dry-humping movie.
TATUM: With most movies, when youâre done with your scene, you go home. Youâre like, âThatâs it! Iâm good! Iâm gonna go home for the day.â Thatâs not what happened with everybody [on this movie]. You wanted to see them do their routine and do it well. Every time that anybody came off stage, you went back and high-fived them and told them what really worked. You were just like, âYou murdered that!â It really became a very weird, strange team. I want to do strip competitions. Can we enter some strip-off competitions?
Did you have a favorite costume, and did you take any costumes home with you?
TATUM: I loved all my costumes. I have all mine.
McCONAUGHEY: I kept all of mine. As soon as we found the leather pants, on the first day with the costume designer, we were like, âOkay, thatâs Dallasâ staple.â
MANGANIELLO:Â Iâve had many requests for the fireman suit.
BOMER: I liked them all, too. The Ken doll was really fun. But, I really liked all the group numbers we got to do, as well. Ken was kind of a hippie, so the only thing I took home was the tigerâs eye necklace.
MANGANIELLO:Â When I die, I want my memoriam at the Oscars to be me as the gold man.
This is a movie about entertainers caught in the struggle between art and commerce. How do you feel you relate to that theme?
TATUM:Â I feel very undervalued, especially this year.
BOMER: I think you work on the roles that draw you in, and the stories you want to tell. If youâre lucky enough to get to work with a director like Steven, all the better. But, this was one of those movies where I felt like it was the best of both worlds.
MANGANIELLO: This was filmed as this little indie movie expose. We all signed on to work with who we got to work with, on the script that we got to work on, and in the world that we got to work in. The big shock to me was when all the studio executives were coming to filming, every day. I was like, âWait a minute, everyone is gonna see what I just did to that girl?!â We all came into it with this great spirit. The fact that itâs snowballed into what itâs snowballed into is exactly what you hope for. You work on a project to make the artist happy. Hopefully, you end up making the filmmaker happy, too.
What was more challenging, getting into character, putting on the wardrobe or learning the routines?
TATUM: They were all pretty equal. It wasnât so much hard. The routines, you really wanted to do them well and perform them well, but it wasnât hard. They were all fun and hilarious. I remember the first day they were like, âAll right guys, youâve learned these routines, so itâs time to get naked now, boys. Itâs gotta happen, sooner or later.â Everybody just went out and did it, and you were like, âOkay, nevermind. This is not going to be as hard as I thought it was going to be. This is going to be pretty easy!â Everybody just went nuts.
Channing, why did you stop stripping?
TATUM: I was undervalued, so I stopped stripping. No. Look, I was 18 years old. I had worked three jobs and stripping was just one of them. I really enjoyed performing. It was probably my first performing job, ever. I really liked to dance, obviously, but I didnât really love taking the clothes off, at the end. The world, in itself, was just a very dark world. I donât think we even scratch the surface of really how dark that place can get and how slippery of a slope it can actually be. This was probably the most palatable version of this movie. Otherwise, you wouldnât want to see it twice. Youâd just be like, âOkay, I feel dirty now.â I think we blade ran that topic. When I got out, I kept working in the clubs, but I went with some of my boys that dance as well and we just put on shows at this one nightclub. We would put on these crazy shows in the back that we didnât get naked in.
Do you miss anything about your time as a stripper?
TATUM:Â I donât miss anything about that world!
Channing, this movie is based on your own life. What do you have to say to the two male strippers in Florida that claim you didnât give them the credit that you should have?
TATUM: I was waiting for somebody to bring this up! Look, there is nothing thatâs factual in this whole movie, other than the fact that I was an 18-year-old kid that went into this world. I dropped out of college and playing football, and was living on my sisterâs couch. Thereâs not one character that I took from my real life. This is just the world that I went into and that I had a perspective on, and we created everything from a fictional place. Those guys have been trying to make money off of me since I got into this business. London was one of the guys that sold the video that [Steven Soderbergh] saw and liked, and then we made a movie of it. Theyâre very interesting people. I donât want to say anything bad about them âcause theyâre part of the reason why I think this world is so interesting. Theyâre very interesting, intriguing, bizarre characters. Iâm thankful for weird people out there âcause theyâre some of the most creative people.
Matthew, you have more movies coming out this year than Channing does. Do you feel like this is your year?
McCONAUGHEY: I made five movies in a row, last year. I went back to back to back to back to back. It was my most creative, constructive and fun working year that Iâve ever had. I did not have one single day, in all five films, where I was not excited to get out of bed in the morning and go to work. I didnât have one hour of complacency, in any of the work I did, in five films. Iâm happy to be able to say that because thatâs not always been the case. Itâs fortunate to be able to say that. And I got to work with a lot of very interesting directors on some very interesting stories. They were all characters that didnât really pander or placate to any laws, government, parental guidance, or what have you. They were very committed characters, and thatâs really, really fun. Itâs boundless, how far you can go. Itâs almost four-dimensional. With Dallas, in this role, the verbiage of his mind just flowed.
Click here for all our previous Magic Mike coverage which includes more interviews, clips, posters and images.