Channing Tatum recalls his bad boy past with Shia LaBeouf.
Channing Tatum covers the latest issue of GQ magazine, and in the candid interview, the Magic Mike star recalls shooting the 2006 film A Guide to Recognizing your Saints with controversial Transformers star Shia LaBeouf.
Tatum recalls a particular night when the two bonded over some illegal activities -- notably, kicking in a store window after a night of drinking and acting like "eighties hoodlums."
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The coming-of-age drama focuses on LaBeouf's character Dito growing up in Astoria, New York during the 1980s, where he runs with a rough crowd. As his friends end up dead, on drugs, or in prison, he comes to believe he's been saved by their fate by various so-called saints.
"Me and Shia, I think we had just met that day. We were, like, 'What shall we go out and do?' We were drinking. And I think our initial thing was 'Alright, let's go out and try and get in a fight' This was just young dumb idiot actors thinking that that's going to bond us. Because we'll shed blood together blah blah blah," he recalls. "We were just running and being hoodlums and throwing trash bags down streets and just being stupid. We were trying to be like eighties hoodlums. And I think as we were running I kicked this thing, not thinking that it would ever shatter. And everything just went raining down. And I was like 'oh sh**.' And then we just took off running."
In hindsight, Channing admits that the two were just typical actors "trying too hard."
"We all split up. I think Shia even punched a cop car -- we weren't even sure if the cop was in the car, he punched the window of a cop car. It was pandemonium. It was just one of those nights that the volume just keeps getting turned up, turned up, turned up. And we all split up. We all just ran in opposite directions. I didn't hide under a car, I dove in some trash bags: 'I'm sitting here for a little while.' In hindsight it's the funniest thing in the world -- just typical actors trying too hard. It’s only fun because we didn't get caught…that I can have perspective on it now and know it was stupid. I don't think we were thinking."
His advice for LaBeouf now?
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"I've never seen him since then," he admits. "The kid's an incredible actor…I just wish that he would just act. Just act, man!"