Jenna Dewan Tatum: 'I Never Thought I Was Going to Be an Actress'

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Jenna Dewan Tatum never had any plans to go into acting, but "one audition" changed everything.

"I never thought I was going to be an actress," the 35-year-old No Tomorrow star tells Women's Wears Daily in a new interview published on Wednesday. "I went on one audition and then everything happened."


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The former backup dancer was encouraged to pursue acting by a manager who saw her dance with 'NSYNC at the 2002 GRAMMYs. The motivation led to Jenna landing her first major break in the 2006 dance flick, Step Up, with her now husband, Channing Tatum.

Over the last decade, Jenna has appeared in dozens of film and television projects including Supergirl, Witches of East End, and American Horror Story, yet transitioning to the world of red carpet fashion wasn’t easy for the Florida native.

"Dancers wear lots of makeup," she explains of her evolving fashion sense. "We're flamboyant personalities. So that translated into my style in the beginning because that was who I was."


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These days, Jenna owes her fierce fashion looks to Brad Goreski, who first styled her for the 2013 Oscars when she was eight months pregnant with daughter Everly.

"I thought it was so neat that our child was going to be experiencing this really magical Hollywood moment," she says, revealing a mini fashion emergency on the Oscars' stage.

"I started to feel like I was going to pass out because my dress was so tight," she says with a laugh. "I was like, 'No. No. No. This cannot happen. I can not pass out on live TV.'"

Thankfully, Jenna was able to avert what could've been a scary situation by unzipping her Rachel Roy gown and calming herself down backstage. After the fashion snafu, Jenna was able to get back into the Oscars celebration, and even "went to a few parties."

"I was a bit of a rock star that night," she recalls. "I was on an Oscars high."


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