Channing Tatum quotes:

I was not good in school. I could never read very fast or very well. I got tested for learning disabilities, for dyslexia. Then I got put on Ritalin and Dexedrine. I took those starting in the eighth grade. As soon as they pumped that drug into me, it would focus me right in.

I read so slow. If I have a script, I'm going to read it five times slower than any other actor, but I'll be able to tell you everything in it. It kills me that there are standardized tests geared towards just one kind of child.

I think that the divorce rate's over 50% for a reason. I don't think people are taking enough time now to really see if they can make it work and live together.

I still want to write Clint Eastwood a letter saying, 'I'm sorry, I'm sorry for all us wimp actors. You're the truth.' I guarantee he's not the person you want to fight, even now! You look at him, and you don't want to mess with him. He would still take you down.

I think all jocks have a sensitive side. It's just, will they show it to anybody? Will they let their guard down and stop being tough and the cool jock guy around their friends, or just relax? I don't know if it's best to say opening up, but just relax and really say what you're actually thinking, and not what you think people want to hear.

With dancing, you have to know spatial movement with somebody. It is steps. It's literally steps and knowing how close to be or how far away. You have to have the beat in the right place with the camera.

Soccer was the first sport that my parents put me in, and ultimately, all the parents kind of came over to my mom and were, 'We think Channing would be better at football.... We love him, he's really great, but he's kind of hurting our children.' I was just a little wild.

Everyone always talks about the speed of New York, and I still walk slow around New York, and everyone is walking faster than me all the time, and I notice it every time we go out.

A Guide To Recognizing Your Saints' was the first real actor-actor part I did, and I hope I to do more. Action movies are fun, but I'd be happy not to do them if there are better roles.

With sculpting, nothing is cloudy or mystical. It's just about this object, and if you're trying to depict reality, and you do it well, then the outcome is the truth.

The records that I like, they have life and warmth and soul in them. Like the slap back on Scotty Moore's guitar on 'Mystery Train.' You're not gonna get that in a computer. You're gonna want a live room, you're gonna wanna bounce the tape, you're gonna want real musicians, in a room, vibin' off of each other.

I can't do the same movies all my life. I'm conscious of that. But it's a trade-off. 'Dear John' allowed me to do movies I've wanted to do. You learn to balance it out. I'm still learning. Only now am I getting to do the kinds of movies that I have wanted to do. So it's a steady climb. You don't jump into a Soderbergh film.

Someone who doesn't take herself too seriously and can be a goofball. Because everyone's a nerd inside, I don't care how cool you are.

I can completely lose myself into just absolutely satisfying things - a really amazing cheeseburger, a pizza, good fries, a beer. I enjoy being comfortable and eating whatever the hell I like. It's a big thing for me, just having the freedom to be able to do that.

My parents couldn't handle my energy so they enrolled me in every sport the school was offering. I didn't resent it because I loved sports and picked them up easily.

The Vow,' I didn't know if people were going to want to see it, but we felt good about it. We we're like, 'Alright, either way, I liked the movie for what it was,' and I think we knew exactly what we were trying to do.

It's just weird that for some people, art is a luxury. My parents had no artistic outlet. Some people pass down music to their kids, but I couldn't tell you what my mom's or dad's favorite song is. So when I started going out into the world, I was drawn to people who knew about movies, art, even fashion.

I have the flying dream a lot where I'm jumping off a building and just flying around.

Jim Thorpe is someone I've always loved. He was an Olympic athlete, you know, and a football player from back in the day. I'd love to play him. And then there's a guy called Iceman who was a top hit man for the mob. I would love to play him. Actually, it's sort of in the works, so I hope it goes through.

I think we all suffer from guilt at some point in our lives, but for the most part, I never really regret, and I try to always remain positive.

I really get inspired by songs. Like, if I hear a thug 'Want to kill ya' song, I'm ready to go out and get crazy. Or if you hear this really sexual, sensual slow song, I want to go have sex. I'm very animalistic when it comes to stuff like that. Very basic emotions.

I'm a fat kid on the inside. I love food so much, and I fluctuate about 25 to 30 pounds between movies. I feel like I have to do a chess movie that requires very little movement at some point, just so I can eat pizza and play chess on the beach all day.

It's embarrassing to tell you how much my friends make fun of me. Seriously, when you have a doll made of your face, it's ridiculous how creative your friends can get... pictures, videos, little animated cartoons that they've made.

I think we all suffer from guilt at some point in our lives, but for the most part I never really regret, and I try to always remain positive. Yes, I think that those issues are very interesting to play in a character, and they're prominent issues in life, and I think people can relate to them.

I just love cake, confetti cake, to be specific. It has little colored candies inside the cake, and then you get the confetti icing, which is really hard to find sometimes. It's really hard to explain to people, because it's not icing with sprinkles on top. It's icing that actually has candies inside of it. It's Funfetti icing.

I've never studied the classics, but I'd like to. My teacher offered to show me how the Greeks were able to sculpt someone perfectly. From there, you can go off and experiment - sort of like jazz. Once you learn to play anything, you can break the form and go and do something even bigger.

You have the dreams that you want, and then you have to do other jobs until you can get to that dream.

There are so many things I want to do. Like, I want to get an artist, a musician, a photographer, and a bunch of dancers that I know and just travel across Africa and just film it and just see what happens. Do and learn as much as I possibly can. Luckily, I have a lot more time.

In wrestling, there is no retreat. No way to slow things down. In wrestling, you advance and advance, and being tired is just a lie to make the other guy think he can relax. It's so hard - harder than anything I've ever done.

I've always negotiated the world very physically, from football to tussling at the playground to taking my clothes off.

No one's calling me for lawyer roles. I still have a lot to do to prove myself.

I've always had way too much energy so I'm always looking for new things to do to channel that energy.

I was in college that first semester, and I was like, 'Wow, this isn't who I am. This isn't what I want to do.' I was like, 'Oh God, I'm going to have to go out and make something of myself, and I have no clue what that is.'

I don't think there's a date minimum or maximum. I don't get the whole 'All right, you've got to wait three days to call after the date.' If I got a number from a girl, I'd call that night. There's no science to it for me. You just do what it is that you feel like doing.

I grew up in Florida, where if you weren't comfortable dancing, you weren't going to get any girls.

I had an all right high school, even though I hated school. I wasn't massively popular, but I was okay. But I wouldn't want to do it again.

I'm not pretty. The truth is I didn't think I could be a model at all. I was looking at some of the guys on the walls at Irene Marie and I thought to myself 'Jesus Christ. I can't do this. I don't look anything like these guys'.

It's really hard for men to tell other men 'I love you' without putting a 'man' at the end of it. Like, 'I love you... man.' You just can't look at another man and say, 'I love you.'

Girls were always my biggest distraction in school.

I don't like doing action movies. They're not that interesting... it's fun to do the physical element but the really fun stuff, like running into exploding buildings, they won't let you do. There's too much money riding on you not getting hurt. But yes, there's something exhilarating in just sitting on a beach with somebody having a real conversation. There's something exhilarating about being open and honest.

I think the action movies in the 80s and 90s were different. It was a testosterone age. Steven Seagal, Jean-Claude Van Damme and Sylvester Stallone - they fuelled my childhood. But now I don't think I'd like to do just action, I don't enjoy that.

I really get inspired by songs. Like, if I hear a thug "Want to kill ya" song, I'm ready to go out and get crazy. Or if you hear this really sexual, sensual slow song, I want to go have sex. I'm very animalistic when it comes to stuff like that. Very basic emotions.

I talk different, I walk different, everything. I don't have one single bad memory [there]. Not one. It was my sanctuary. I hated school, wasn't good in school, and me and my dad butted heads about that. But nothing mattered when I went home to Alabama.

Life is too short to miss out on the beautiful things like a double cheeseburger.

Truthfully, this is how I approach my workout: I want to be the best athlete I can possibly be. If I can out-perform some of the better athletes then I'm happy. When I look at the NFL or the NBA, these guys look how I want to look - it's useable, functional muscle.

I grew up watching 'Braveheart' and 'Gladiator.' Those are my 'Star Wars.' They have values and traits about them that I wish I had.

I would like magical palm tree that had a lot of shade with instead of coconuts there's just peanut butter jelly sandwiches with cheetos underneath. And my wife that is always happy and possibly naked.

I don't know if I'm very complicated at all. I wish I was. I wish I was one of these deep, intricate people. But I just love having fun really.

Daniel Day-Lewis and Sean Penn to me are the two best actors of all time. I'm just glad to have the pleasure to be in an era that they're acting while I'm acting. They're probably the best actors in my mind.

I've been on so many movies. Generally, I haven't gotten to be on the ground level. As of two years ago, in 'Dear John,' I got to really be on the ground floor. I wasn't a producer. I felt like I put the work in, and I did have a lot of sway on what got fixed, reshoots, so on and so forth. It felt really good.

Well, the first and only time I went hunting, I shot a deer, and it mortified me. I just couldn't do it again. But I know a lot about guns, so I go to the gun range and stuff like that with friends sometimes.

I went hunting, I shot a deer, and it mortified me. I just couldn't do it again.

I believe in love. I believe in good stories. I play really hard on the weekends because I like to have those stories. My wife and I go off and do craziness all the time. We're just like, 'What can we go get into this weekend?' Then we have other ones where we just sit and do nothing and then we have work that we do. It's all memories.

As much as you can love someone, is as much as you can hate someone. It goes in equal and opposite directions. Like if you love someone so much and they hurt you so bad, then that is as equal as to how much you can have rage for them.

I sort of became infatuated with soldiers. I got to know some of them and got a little perturbed with Hollywood making a spectacle out of them and making them look like they have screwed up somehow.

If you're with someone you don't exactly trust then you have to watch yourself and that's the hardest thing for an actor not to do, and not listen to yourself as you're talking.

I consider myself a decent athlete but when I started to train martial arts like Kung Fu, I realised it had nothing to do with how athletic you are. It's all mental. It's what you know, how you use it and your mental toughness and composure. It's incredible.

I've always loved movies but everyone loves movies, so I never conceived of the fact that I could actually be in them. In high school I had some friends in the drama department, but they were just doing plays, and I was like, "Eh, I don't really think that that's me." So I just played sports. Then, a bunch of years later, I'm acting.

I like smaller films better. I don't know why. I think it's the intimacy and there's not this avalanche. It is an avalanche, but it's really myopic. It's really small.

Everyone's a nerd inside. I don't care how cool you are.

I've never protected the president [in real life], but I have been a new dad, and I can tell you that being a new dad is pretty terrifying. I'm pretty sure that something about the president makes the stakes a little higher, but to me as a new father, nothing is more important or scary than protecting a daughter.

If you look at any of the greats, from people like Paul Newman and Robert Redford to, you know, Brad Pitt - to get any of the kinds of roles like the ones that they've gotten, or just to be a part of any of the kinds of movies they've made, would be the end-all for me.

I would love to sing. I would love to do a musical, but I wouldn't say that that singing is my strong suit.

I was an 80's/90's baby so you went to the movie theater every weekend and there was one on, whether it was Stallone, Van Damme, Seagal or Schwarzenegger himself.

But I'm not a tough guy or a street fighter for real. I'm just an actor.

Sometimes a thong completely betrays you.

I know I will never wear sandals now anywhere. I got in a fight in the back of a grocery store when I was really young, like 14 or something. And I remember my feet were so torn up afterwards because I lost my sandals in the middle of the fight. My toenail was missing. It just sucked.

I'm not a fighter. I'm not a tough guy at all. I walk away from fights.

Waxing was an interesting experience. Not quite as painful as I expected.

I'm thankful for weird people out there 'cause they're some of the most creative people.

In all the movies I'm in love with someone in my head. There's always love in a film somewhere. It doesn't matter even if it's an action movie.

It's a hard thing for me to wrap my mind around the C word: celebrity. Rock stars are celebrities because they're larger than life. As an actor, you have to play the everyman and the everygirl. If you start treating people in the real world like assistants, that's not a good look. But my friends keep me grounded.

I don't know what you're going through life doing if you're not really trying to collect some really great memories.

In the beginning, I would find a character I understood. That was my focus. Not now - but you basically get offered the exact same thing you just did. Which I find hilarious. I did 'The Vow,' and then I had every love story you can imagine thrown at me. And now I'm getting offers for comedies.

I did not go to military school. I had an option either a military school or a private school. I don't know how to get that out of the information that's out there.

I had a bad stutter when I was really young. I couldn't get a sentence out. Like, 'D-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-ad.' And that turned into a mumble.

But I stuttered as a kid. I went to classes to help it, and it just went away around fourth grade, when I became more aware of how others spoke, I think. But also, growing up in the South, a mumble is a way of speaking.

I'm not a political person. When I start to get into it, it just upsets me. I feel so powerless when it comes to politics. So I've just decided to be non-political and very, very pro-soldier.

I used to work at a puppy nursery.

If my Dad doesn't like you, you will know. My Mom is just too innocent to ever lie. She doesn't even cuss.

m just going to be a good friend to my kid. One thing I definitely want to change is that whole 'I don't want you to make the same mistakes' mentality. My dad didn't have much money growing up; he didn't have much of an education. He forced that on me, and I didn't want it.

My dad was a roofer when I was young. I believe he owned his own roofing company in Florida. And then he fell through a roof, broke his back. Permanently. I mean, he's not paralyzed or anything, but he's had to deal with pain for all of his life since then.

My bar for being successful is being able to do movies that really mean something to me and being able to make a living off of that.

I get one shot at life, and I can say that I've lived a crazy one, and I've pushed the limit almost at every turn, and I'm super proud of that.

I believe Obama is a lot of fun when he's not trying to keep our economy together.

I had people in my life who were insane and negative, but they taught me how not to be, how I didn't want to end up.

Someday you'll miss her like she missed you. Someday you'll need her like she needed you. Someday you'll love her and she won't love you.

If it wasn't for her literally doing my homework for me, I would not have even graduated high school. Guaranteed . . . My mom always said, 'Luck is nothing but preparation and opportunity.' I think because I've had that history of not really being great in school, I probably try to overcompensate. That's why I try to read so many books. Just so I don't feel . . . uneducated.

I learned to appreciate repetition. That's why I can dance. It's how I learned to act. I have a high tolerance for repetition.

I've loved Kevin McDonald's movies for a while and it was an amazing experience because he really wanted to do something different. It was by far one of the hardest things I've ever done, to wake up every single day and know that you're going to be freezing cold and wet, every single day, 10 times a day, and there's no getting away from it.

For a time, it would work well. then it worked less and my pain was more. I would go through wild bouts of depression, horrible comedowns. I understand why kids kill themselves. I absolutely do. You feel terrible. You feel soul-less. "I'll never do it to my child".

Fighting for men back then, I think, was just more a way of life, especially if you were a soldier obviously.

Just relax and really say what you're actually thinking, and not what you think people want to hear.

Playing a character that allows me to play around with some of the feelings I have inside of myself and explore them - and maybe put them to rest a little bit, or at least come to terms with them - feels successful to me. I think it's about believing in what you do.

I don't ever get the great looking lawyer roles because I've got a thick neck from playing football.

I don't want any sports anymore, except fighting which is the only sport I really watch - whether it's boxing or UFC. I don't know why. I think maybe it's an aspiration I didn't get the chance to explore more, but I don't think my father expected anything from me, I think it's more what I put on myself.

American audiences love period pieces. America doesn't have a lot of old things. It's a new country so I think we're a little bit fascinated by that.

I'm not a comedian. I can play off of people, but I'm not that guy. I don't want people being like, 'Yeah, he should have stuck with drama.' It would not be my choice to have critics mumbling that.

I've always said that movies are a direct mirror of the director.

I love the supporting characters because you get to do more, to be totally honest. It's been sort of a theme with me. In Son of No One, I think I might have seven lines in the entire movie because everything is happening to my character.

I see caring for somebody as a creative outlet. I like drawing little faces and writing little stories and hiding them in places. I don't think it's that hard to be thoughtful, especially when you do care about the person.

I did kung fu from when I was nine to 13. You have to be really careful but you want to be able to make it look eventually as though it's just a part of you. So, you train over and over and over again.

There are so many dramatic actors where I would give all of my anything to have their careers, but I don't think I can try to follow anyone.

Any teen gets into a little trouble here and there. It's not hard to find trouble when you're looking for it as a kid.

I learned to dance at quinceañeras - big [15th] birthday parties for Spanish girls. It was always funny to bring the white guy out [on the floor] and let him look like a fool.

I have a theory that as nice and sweet as you can be equates to how dangerous you can be.

I was terrified to do 'G.I. Joe.' I had no idea how to do one of those movies. I was kind of scared. You know, if one of those doesn't work, it's a huge hit on your career. People are like, 'Well he couldn't make a $170 million movie work. I don't want him in my film.

I think some of the scariest people I've met in my life have been some of the sweetest.

The film is a direct mirror of the director. If your director doesn't know how to dress, there will be an aesthetic of the film that won't come through - whether it's in the costumes if he doesn't know exactly what he wants or the look of the film.

I do get nervous to act, it kind of depends on what it is really.

I've lived almost, like, four completely different lives. (Stripping) was just one section - one little small section, if that - but it was a very interesting and turbulent but kind of wild ride and I'm not ashamed of it all. I think it's hilarious and I learned a lot about human nature.

I really like doing action. It's one of those things where I negotiate the world physically, I think, more than mentally. I enjoy running and jumping.

All of my films I've made have had an element of physicality and action but I really enjoy the drama of it because it's where I feel I'm really doing something.

I wanted to be able to tell my grandkids one day, "Hey, your grandpa ran into a burning building and survived."

My parents let me find my way and that's how they supported me the entire way.

Actually I have a tradition that I always steal my last costume on the last day of filming.

I want a career and the thing is you really have to love acting. I didn't just fall into it and it wasn't just something I was good at. I've had to really work at this. I've had to fall on my face time and time again. You get 'no' 99 per cent of the time and a 'yes' just once.

No, I was never that kind of guy. I believed in true romance; one-night stands are always going to leave you feeling cold and empty. I was always looking for the real thing, romance, and all that. I love being married. I never liked the idea of going to bars and chasing girls. Some guys might enjoy that, but I always wanted to find that one special woman, which I did when I met Jenna.

The director sets the tone, and if someone's ruling it with an iron fist, people are quiet and the days go long in my experience, when there's a very serious tone, the days just drag. When there's someone who, in between takes, is joking or laughing the days go quick.