Channing Tatum breaks down his naked toy-store sprint — and why Kirsten Dunst is the heart of ‘Roofman’
Denton Davidson
Channing Tatum has shot action movies, danced in breakaway pants, and performed stunts that would terrify most actors — but nothing prepared him for the day he met Peter Dinklage for the first time while running naked through a Toys "R" Us.
“That was very, very real,” Tatum says, equal parts proud and mortified. In Derek Cianfrance’s Roofman, he plays Jeffrey Manchester — a man who escaped prison and secretly lived inside a toy store for months. It’s an outrageous image, one that perfectly captures the film’s peculiar blend of slapstick, heartbreak, and drama. What made it even more chaotic was the total lack of planning around how to film it.
“I was sure Derek had a plan for how we were going to shoot it so you’re not seeing everything flopping around,” he says. “He just didn’t. He was like, ‘We’ll figure it out.’ And I’m standing there going — what do you mean we’ll figure it out?”
Cianfrance wanted to shoot the scene in a single take. That meant no cuts, no hiding places, and a maximum chance of unintended reveals. “It became clear it was going to be kind of a miracle if we didn’t see something,” Tatum admits.
“There were takes we just had to throw away,” he says, laughing. “In the edit, Derek calls me like, ‘So… what do you want me to do with it?’ I’m like, what is it?! And he goes, ‘Your, uh … situation.’ He offered to blur it out or CG it. I told him, ‘Don’t CG it — I don’t want it to look like I have nothing. Just make it … not distracting.’”
But the moment he met Dinklage — mid-streak, mid-mortification — Tatum relaxed. “Peter made that day so much easier,” Tatum says. “He’s just such a pro. He’ll crack a joke at the perfect time. You don’t feel judged. You just feel like everything’s going to be fine.”
It’s a scene that undoubtedly sparks conversation, but it’s not representative of the film’s soul — or Tatum’s work in it.
A four-hour walk that changed everything
Tatum and Cianfrance first met nearly 20 years ago, when the director offered him Blue Valentine. “I read the script and thought, ‘God, this is the saddest thing I’ve ever read,’” he says. “I hadn’t lived a life like that yet, so I didn’t believe I could do it.” The two didn’t collaborate then, but they reconnected decades later when Cianfrance suggested a walk in Prospect Park.
“He didn’t mention the movie once,” Tatum says. “We just talked about everything — life, art, family. Then six or seven months later he tells me he wrote a script for me. I read it in one sitting. That never happens for me.”
What surprised him most was how deeply he understood Jeffrey Manchester, a real man but not a public figure. “I never met him,” Tatum says. “I only had three photos. I knew he was wiry, so I started losing weight. And the more I did, the more I understood this emptiness he had — this hole he couldn’t fill.” Tatum connected instantly to Manchester’s misguided belief that performing or providing equaled love. “I relate to that,” he says. “I feel like I need to perform for the people I love.”
Loneliness, fatherhood, and the ache beneath the comedy
A surprising amount of Roofman was filmed with Tatum completely alone.
“I underestimated how lonely acting can be when there’s no one in the scene with you,” he admits. “I was in that hideout while the movie was happening around me. Anytime another actor showed up on the call sheet, I got excited.”
That loneliness dovetailed with a painful truth he learned from Manchester himself. In one of their final phone conversations before filming, Tatum asked what the man hoped for after prison. “He told me he wanted to adopt,” Tatum says. “He said, ‘I’d love a chance to be a dad again. I really screwed that up.’ It told me everything I needed to know.”
As a father, Tatum connected instantly. “Having a daughter softened me. Made me see myself differently. So Jeff’s longing — that need for family he couldn’t quite get right — it hit me hard.”
One of the young actresses on who plays Leigh's daughter, Kennedy Moyer, became a lifeline during the shoot. “If I needed to get emotional, I’d just look at her and start bawling,” he says. “I missed my daughter so much.”
How Kirsten Dunst grounded the film
Tatum lights up when he talks about Kirsten Dunst, who plays Leigh, the woman whose love changes Jeff’s life. “She’s the heart of the movie,” he says. “I was nervous to act with her because she’s never been bad in anything. She’s an icon.”
Cianfrance, ever the emotional puppeteer, kept them apart deliberately. "We never spoke before filming. Not even one phone call,” Tatum recalls. “The first time we connected was walking into Red Lobster for the first take. Derek wanted my nerves on camera.” It worked — Tatum says roughly 70 percent of that first take made it into the finished film.
But once they locked eyes, everything clicked. “She’s so warm,” he says. “She just wants to take care of you — by standing in her own power and who she is as a human. I couldn’t have done this movie without her.”
“It’s hard to make a movie,” Tatum says. “It’s almost impossible to make a good movie. And I really am proud of this one. We really killed ourselves on this one.”
Roofman is now available on digital from Paramount Pictures.
