Yeah, Channing Tatum is totally going to get an Oscar nomination this year. It is The Year of Charming Potato. I’m not saying he’s going to win an Oscar (he might, though), but he’s definitely going to make the short list. He’s playing his Oscar campaign pretty well too. I remember when Channing used to give crazy interviews, in that he would take a journalist home to Alabama and make the journalist get stupid-drunk while they, like, went skinny-dipping. Channing is playing it cooler for his Oscar campaign, but perhaps that’s the result of the increasingly prestigious coverage he’s been getting. The NYT was shocked that a high school jock has done so well. And now The Hollywood Reporter is a little bit shocked that Channing is one of the last great movie stars. You can read the full THR piece here, and here are some highlights:

His 17-month-old daughter, Everly: “I don’t know if I’m going to spank my child or not.”

Whether he and Jenna will have more kids: “I don’t think very, very soon but it really depends if Jenna’s show [Lifetime’s Witches of East End] gets picked up for a third season. Then we would probably wait.” (Lifetime said Tuesday that it will not renew the show.) The two are pondering a move to Ojai, Calif., and selling their home in the Hollywood Hills. If Jenna agrees to relocate, “I would be immensely happy. I just love the country.”

He’s struggling with work-life balance: “There’s not enough hours in the day. I can’t schedule my life and give my daughter all the time that I want to give her and also my wife and all the creative stuff. You can’t really physically be fully present — mentally, spiritually. And that’s my struggle: putting things in perspective [and] being there for everything.”

Anger & fear: “I was having a lot of anger in me. ‘I hate this industry,’ or whatever. Because it was frustrating. When things aren’t easy, you go, ‘Oh, I don’t need this.’ And I think [Jenna] made me realize that that was really just me being afraid.” Afraid of what? “Of not getting what you want. When you feel someone else is in control of your life, of your destiny or your future, that can be very scary.”

The Magic Mike sequel is about a (real) stripper convention: “I have no idea why it’s called a convention. The ‘convention’ was not strippers peddling stripper technology or anything like that. It was just a big show with 50 to 70 strippers and 2,000 to 3,000 women. It was crazy. They attacked me every night.” One time, while giving a woman a lap dance, “The lady goes, ‘Oh my God! Look at you! You remind me of my nephew!’ — and then grabs me. It hit me like a hand grenade. It was like tick, tick, tick, boom: She’s grabbing my butt and saying, ‘You remind me of my nephew.’ ”

How much did he make as a stripper? “Not as much as you think. On a good night, 150 bucks. On a bad night, 70 bucks — even 50 at times.”

His drug-user past: “I wouldn’t say I was losing myself in drugs because I wasn’t doing anything habitually. Just experimenting. Experimenting, I would say. Never the big ones — crack or heroin. I never OD’d or anything. Never.” What about cocaine? “Maybe a couple times, but that was later. Drinking was probably the biggest [thing]. I didn’t look at drinking as a problem. It wasn’t at that point, and I still don’t think it’s a problem. But at that time in my life, it was, ‘Let’s go out and have a great time.’ ”

He takes back what he said about being a “functioning alcoholic”: “It was something said that wasn’t meant to be factual. It was said in context with the glutton side of myself. I’m constantly a flip-and-flop of extremes. I take care of it, to an extent — and then I kind of knock it all down and destroy the sand castle. All I meant was that I do things in extreme.”

[From The Hollywood Reporter]

I lol’d at the stripper convention quotes and the idea that strippers would meet to peddle stripper technology. God, why isn’t that a real thing?! Anyway, THR piece is really long and it’s mostly about Foxcatcher and Channing’s Rise to Power. I learned some stuff about Foxcatcher – I didn’t know Channing had passed on his role years ago because he thought the script was boring, and director Bennett Miller was considering Heath Ledger for the role. I also learned that Steve Carell respects the Potato. As we all do! All hail Charming Potato!

Photos courtesy of THR.