Channing Tatum on Finally Playing Gambit & How Ryan Reynolds Made It Happpen (Exclusive)

Channing Tatum spoke to “Extra’s” Melvin Robert at the L.A. premiere of “Blink Twice” after he posed on the red carpet with fiancée Zoë Kravitz, who co-wrote and directed the movie.

Tatum raved about collaborating with Zoë, saying, “I’ve said it before, like, there’s, I think a lot of people either they lead from their feelings or their heart or their intuition, or they lead from their brain and they’re very intellectual and they can kind of piece things apart, almost like a design or like a like a chessboard or something. But she’s the first person that I’ve ever worked with that has completely balanced in both. She has unbelievable power from both places.”

He went on, “And it kind of creates another thing and she’s just wickedly creative and she’s got taste, man, and just, like knows what’s cool to her, and that’s what I think a lot of directors don’t even get a chance to do anymore. You just want to get the yes to make a movie and you’re like, ‘I’ll make whatever you want to make.’ She, fortunately, doesn’t have to do that because she is who she is and she’s got the clout.”

Sharing how it was on set when she gave him a note, he revealed, “Look, if she gives anybody a note, you listen. Like, it doesn’t matter who you are. I don’t care who, whatever. She just holds that energy. She’s like, ‘I’m going to give you the real. I’m going to give you what I’m seeing.’ But it always was a dialogue, and that’s why you appreciate it, in a way, as a creator and also as a partner. I need to have her perspective now.”

Tatum added, “I was actually looking forward to being on a movie. Everybody was like ‘You sure you wanna do that?’ I’m like, ‘No, that’s our comfort spot.’ Creating is our comfort zone. I don’t know, it’s all the rest… We’ve been living inside of this movie since our relationship started, so we don’t actually know what we’re going to be after this whole thing. We gotta just create something else, I guess.”

The star also dished on finally getting to play Gambit in a surprise “Deadpool & Wolverine” cameo, and praised Ryan Reynolds for believing in him.

Melvin said, “You have said that nobody in this business has been more supportive of you than Ryan Reynolds.”

Channing explained, “A lot of people want to help and they just don’t have the ability, but I’m telling you, I don’t think anybody’s done what Ryan did for me. I mean, I think he just knew. He knew what it was when he was trying to get Deadpool going for like 10 years, and he finally got it going and it finally turned into his, like, iconic sort of thing. You know, ge’s got that understanding, and he’s just a classy, classy man.”

He added, “He’s the one that, like, argued to get Gambit into the actual movie. Marvel didn’t really know what to do with Gambit. He’s sort of this weird kind of gray area. Is he a hero? Is he a thief? He’s got a weird dialect that no one else has a dialect in the X-Men universe, very few.”

Tatum said of Reynolds, “I think he was just like, ‘No, man, you need to have your moment to be able to see what you can do with it.’ He just believed, and I appreciate it. Even if I got to dress up like my favorite superhero for one scene, I’m down.”