magic mike xxl
Channing and the gang talk steak, spray tans ’n’ sequels.
DIRECTOR GREGORY JACOBS
STARRING CHANNING TATUM, MATT BOMER, JOE MANGANIELLO, JADA PINKETT SMITH, ELIZABETH BANKS
ETA 3 JULY
An entire floor of The London West Hollywood hotel has been dedicated to the Magic Mike XXL junket, the territory staked by buzzing PRs and posters on tripods: Channing Tatum’s title character, half naked, with the playful tease COMING SOON emblazoned upon his crotch. Inside a suite, perched upon a pink chaise longue with gold trim, is the man himself, though the famous six-pack is now packed away under a pin-stripe waistcoat and blue-shirt combo.
“Hi, I’m Chan,” he says with a firm handshake. No sooner has he sat back down than he’s joined by co-stars Joe Manganiello and Matt Bomer, reprising their characters Big Dick Richie and Ken. Scooching either side of Tatum, their bulked-up manliness makes the chaise longue creak. Director Gregory Jacobs, heavyset with a salt ’n’ pepper beard, plonks into an adjacent armchair.
Given that 2012’s Magic Mike caught the zeitgeist and made $167m worldwide, it’s easy to forget it was an on-the-fly indie, directed, edited and shot by Steven Soderbergh for a paltry $7m. Tatum was neither the megastar nor respected actor he is today, and patriarchal Hollywood wasn’t catering for female audiences as they are now. Who knew if guys would embrace male strippers? A tale based on Tatum’s own pre-Hollywood experiences as an erotic dancer seemed a risqué business...
“It’s been a bunch of men in Hollywood making men-movies for so long,” sighs Tatum in a rare moment of seriousness; for the best part of the interview, he’s quick to banter with his colleagues, their bromance spilling over from the screen. “It’s crazy because women have been going to movies forever.” Magic Mike, it could be argued, started the conversations that reached fever pitch with 50 Shades Of Grey and a supersized sequel was inevitable given its numbers and critical plaudits. What’s more, the idea was ready-made. “We wanted to put the convention in the first movie but it was too big of a set-piece, so that was the obvious choice for the second one,” says Tatum. He’s referring to the stripping convention that closes Magic Mike XXL, with Mike and the boys – aware they’re approaching a certain age – choosing to bow out with a blowout. The preceding action, again based on Tatum’s own experiences, comprises a circuitous road trip to Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, and the various colourful characters they meet en route.
So the plot was mapped out but there were two major bumps in the road before the production could get started. One, Soderbergh retired from directing theatrical features in early 2013; two,
Matthew McConaughey, so memorable as crotch-thrusting impresario Dallas, couldn’t or wouldn’t return. Some reports cited a schedule clash with Gus Van Sant’s The Sea Of Trees, others claimed playing a bawdy character seemed less attractive after his Best Actor Oscar for Dallas Buyers Club.
“When it became clear that Steven wasn’t going to do it, I was the obvious choice,” says Jacobs, who produced the first movie and has worked with Soderbergh as a producer, line producer and first assistant director ever since 1993’s King Of The Hill. This time out they’d flip the relationship – Soderbergh was happy to return as DoP and editor but Jacobs would now call the shots. “I really wanted to direct,” Jacobs continues. “I hadn’t directed a movie in years [ since Wind Chill, 2007] and I love the guys, love the characters. I felt I knew how to tell the story.”
Having no desire to simply repeat the tone and themes of the first film, Jacobs sought to bring humour and heart. If Magic Mike had been all about trying to escape the world, XXL would see Mike return to it, accept it, and realise all that was good about it.
“The road-trip aspect opened up a lot of possibilities,” Jacobs points out. “There’s a great history of road movies, whether it’s The Last Detail or Priscilla [The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen Of The Desert] or The Blues Brothers. This one’s definitely not as dark as the first. There’s an emotional through-line. The heart of the movie is about Mike and the guys, and him realising what his true friendships are, and who he is.” Tatum steps in. “Greg crushed it,” he says. “It’s rare for a sequel, because everyone knows sequels sometimes suck. We made a whole movie [22 Jump Street] about how sequels suck. But this is the same look and characters with a completely different feel and heart. You really do just love these guys by the end.”
Tatum’s wingmen are nodding. “Greg did an incredible job,” says Manganiello. “He is the hug guy. He always has a big grin and a bear hug for you.” Bomer cuts in: “And that’s how this movie feels. At the end, there will be people who have tears in their eyes. Really.”
OK, that’s one worry soothed. But how about that McConaughey-sized hole, and why did it appear? Jacobs clears his throat. “It’s a number of things,” he says. “There was an availability issue; we wanted to start at a certain point so we could be out in the summer. And, look, Dallas was a great character but Matthew was trying to figure out where we were going to go with him, and we were, too. It was nothing antagonistic. Matthew’s a great guy.”
So post-Oscar image concerns or increased salary demands didn’t come into play? Apparently not, Jacobs pointing out that he and Tatum spent days at McConaughey’s house in Austin to see if they could find a legitimate reason for Dallas’ return. “Things ended up exactly how they were meant to end up,” shrugs Jacobs. “Dallas not being around is part of the catalyst, and I couldn’t be happier with the real estate it freed up for the other guys – and the new characters coming in.”
Of the new characters, several are female, with Jacobs and co-writers Tatum and Reid Carolin all agreeing that it was vital to get some strong women into the action. No one will discuss these roles in detail – Tatum asks, “Why do you want to know what’s inside the present before you open it?” – but it is established, after considerable prodding, that Andie McDowell plays a well-to-do Southern housewife and Amber Heard a photographer. But the main female player is Jada Pinkett Smith, and Total Film met her earlier in the day.
“It was incredible!” she laughs, her many gold bangles jangling and her ponytail swishing as her entire frame rocks. “Let me tell you, I did not miss one dance routine! I found the best seat in the house. I had a ball. Delicious. My girlfriends were like, ‘Girl, I need to come on that set!’” And did Will pop down to also strut his stuff? “I think he struts enough in his own films! Will is such a jokester, so his striptease is not sexy at all. Just know that. Funny is absolutely sexy, but a jokey striptease [ grimaces].”
Pinkett Smith makes for raucous, infectious company but there’s a deadly serious side to her, too. Taking on the role of an MC that was written for a man before Tatum suggested giving the film an oestrogen boost, she revelled in being allowed to build her own character from the
“Stripping is going to exist. It’s all about the attitude and the approach”
ground up. And then there was an important message that she wanted to sell…
She leans forward. “Stripping is going to exist. It’s all about the attitude and approach. Take it out of the shadows, bring it into the light. Make it about exultation, not degradation. That’s what my character’s whole get-down is about – to create a space where men and women can bask in sensual, sexual energy.”
Would it be different if it were female strippers? When men strip, it’s a story, when women do, they’re judged... “We have to deal with our attitudes towards sex and women,” she nods. “Male sexuality is more acceptable. A man can have it his way; if a woman wants it her way, she’s a whore. That’s what has to be corrected. Women need their sexual freedom. And women can’t judge other women, either, because we’ll be quick to go, ‘She’s a slut!’ We have to stop that.”
All this subtext swirls like motes in the spotlights of Magic Mike XXL but the movie is, first and foremost, a piece of (adult) entertainment, and the boys just want to have fun. Asked how they got themselves into shape and how they made themselves feel hot for the dance routines, they set to bantering.
Channing Tatum: It really only depends on how fat you got in between. I get super-fat between parts so I have to work extra hard. [ Points at
Manganiello] He’s probably the person who gets closest to holding it all the year round.
Joe Manganiello: That’s what you get for being a werewolf for five years [ in True Blood]. You never know when they’re going to say ‘Get your clothes off!’ Gym, three times a day. Protein, protein, protein. If you like steak, you’re fine.
CT : I like steak but I also like other things. Cookies, cheeseburgers, beer… [ Pause] Before I go on stage, I listen to George Michael. That’s what I did the first time, and that’s what I did this time.
Matt Bomer: And it worked both times.
CT : Thanks buddy. [ Looks at Total Film] Can you write that down?
MB: I rely heavily on very gauzy filters. Spray tan. [ Serious
for second] Getting in shape is a process. It’s hard and long.
CT : [ Sniggering like a schoolboy] Oh, that just happened…
Of the 28-day, multiplelocation shoot, just a couple of days were set aside to nail the dance routines, though they were choreographed and rehearsed for two months beforehand and Jacobs and Soderbergh had their camera moves designed. As for the finale at Myrtle Beach, it was shot in front of a thousand local ladies who didn’t need to be told how to act. “It was some of the most deafening sound I’ve ever heard!” grins Jacobs. “We could have shot 24 hours straight with them and they would still have been into it. It was joyous. And to have the energy for the guys to play off...”
Tatum has the final word, and he’s keen to stress why the crowd went batshit crazy. “Even when I was doing it in 1999 or 2000, it felt like we were still stuck in the ’80s. ‘God, we’re still doing firemen?’ Women just laughed at it. I thought, ‘Do they want something sexy and we’re not giving it to them and they don’t care to tell us because they don’t think we’ll listen?’ We’ve been telling women for so many years what they should think is sexy, and it’s really what men at that time thought was masculine. Thirty years later, we should ask them what they want and do our best to give that exact thing to them.”