'Magic Mike's Last Dance': Channing Tatum Says Salma Hayek Came In and 'Saved Our Movie' (Exclusive)

Tatum and Hayek star in the third installment of the 'Magic Mike' franchise, out Feb. 10.

It's time for things to take a level in sultry and Magic Mike's Last Dance is here to show everyone how. The third installment of the stripper franchise is seemingly the final entry starring Channing Tatum and includes a new star in Salma Hayek

Last Dance follows Tatum's "Magic" Mike Lane, who meets and subsequently shows off his special skillset to a wealthy socialite, played by Hayek. In the trailer released in November, Mike gives Hayek's unnamed socialite a noteworthy lap dance, which inspires her to ask the dancer to join her in London with an offer he can't refuse -- the means to create his own bigger-than-life show.

"You came along and gave me this unexpected, magical moment that made me remember who I really was," Hayek says in the trailer as Tatum strips off his shirt and undresses her. "I want every woman that walks into this theater to feel that a woman can have whatever she wants, whenever she wants."

"I know we've seen him dance, I know we all know how great he is. But I think he's going to blow people's minds," Hayek told ET's Nischelle Turner of her co-star.

When ET visited the stars on the set of the film, Tatum noted that making the films was vastly different from living the real life they were inspired by. "Movies are hard, [they're] crazy. The movie's gonna take on its own life like the show has its own life and you kind of just have to respect that journey for both of these artistic ventures," he told ET. "What I loved was bringing the guys into the movie world."

While Tatum has brought a lot of new faces into the movie world throughout the three film entries, Last Dance sees Hayek stepping into the world of stripping and dancing. And it's an adventure that has gotten a little tricky -- even with professionals at work. 

"I remember in one rehearsal he nearly dropped me upside down, head hitting the floor," Hayek recalled to her co-star's denials. 

"It didn't happen, so I don't know what you're talking about," Tatum countered as Hayek recounts their dancing mishaps in which she had to "bend my legs [but] I didn't bend them in rehearsal."

"Yeah, you didn't bend them, but I saved that queen," the Magic Mike franchise star asserted. "The queen's crown didn't hit the ground!"

"But it came this close, and then he reprimanded me," Hayek added. "We laughed and then he said, 'OK, let's review what we have learned from this experience.' It's hard to remember what you're supposed to do when you're upside down!"

A few mishaps aside, the chemistry between Tatum and Hayek leaps off the screen, which the former says is a credit to the latter being "a force."

"That was the one want for how we are in this story," the actor explained. "I just really wanted the strongest possible [woman] and she came in [and] actually controlled the whole thing. She came and saved our movie because we had a bunch of men that were trying to tell a story about a woman."

"Oh yeah, I went in and, you know what, [it was the] first time I feel like I was really heard, respected and invited," Hayek recalled. "It was actually very interesting because we would get together and have many very different opinions. It was very interesting to see three different men have such different perspectives. [Although] sometimes they seem like the perspectives of Martians."v

While Tatum admits that Last Dance is most likely his final work in the franchise, he shared that it's also likely that the story of Magic Mike is "just gonna keep going," he added. "I can't tell you there isn't gonna be another [film]."

But that doesn't mean he isn't happy to take his leave of the films. "I think that at some point, he was like, 'Oh, I'm glad this is the last one 'cause I don't have to get into this shape again,'" Hayek said, to which Tatum joked that he truly doesn't believe he can.

"The day they said wrap, he went crazy! We're going to the wrap party in the cars and he [was in] the other car shoving the pizza [in his mouth]," she shared. "Like the Cookie Monster, but it was the Pizza Monster. He was so happy."

"I was rubbing it on my face. I was just like, 'Ahhh,'" Tatum confirmed with a laugh.

Tatum said the secret to getting in shape for the film was eating vegetables.

"I got my diet sorted out for the very first time of my life at like, whatever age," he shared.  "But I have a guru now, she's like a vegetable guru."

Hayek observed, "I've never heard so much diet talk in any movie, and I've worked with a lot of girls. They were either talking the diet or in between takes, they were doing pushups, all of them, like my goodness, for me that's like the worst, that's a punishment, and they were like, so excited. They were just so happy all the time exercising in between takes nonstop."

Magic Mike's Last Dance hits theaters on Feb. 10. 

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