First Look: Channing Tatum discusses the movie that scalded his privates
Image Credit: Keith BernsteinBy now you’ve surely heard about Channing Tatum’s scalded penis. In the current issue of Details, Tatum revealed an unfortunate incident that occurred while shooting the upcoming Roman epic movie The Eagle of the Ninth. The actor was filming a scene in the hypothermic waters of Scotland, which were so cold that one of the crew members had to repeatedly pour a mixture of boiling water and river water down Tatum’s suit. Long story short, the assistant forgot to add the cold water one time, thereby drenching Tatum’s nether regions with hot water and sending the actor to the hospital with a “shriveled, burned penis.”
Oh, the things actors will endure for the sake of the film! EW chatted with Tatum last week about the movie in question, The Eagle of the Ninth, which Focus Features will release this fall. “It’s almost like an old western, like The Searchers,” Tatum said, while pointing out that the film’s still very much an epic in the tradition of Gladiator and Braveheart. “Are you going to get big, huge battles and things you’d expect in an epic? Yeah, absolutely. But it’s smarter than just a big epic. It’s more of a personal, relationship story about these two guys that have to go on this journey together.”
Tatum plays Marcus Aquila, a Roman army officer in 140 A.D. whose father was the commander of the legendary Ninth Legion — a unit of soldiers that mysteriously disappeared 20 years earlier in the mountains of present-day Scotland while trying to conquer the region’s various Celtic tribes. For Aquila, the legion’s presumed defeat has brought considerable shame to the family, so he decides to embark on a quest into those northern tribal lands in hopes of learning exactly what happened to his dad. Accompanying Aquila is his British slave Esca, played by Jamie Bell (King Kong, Billy Elliot). “They’re really just two broken, lonely people,” said Tatum. “They welcome death, and then they find a reason to live and a purpose and honor through this journey.”
The Eagle of the Ninth is directed by Scottish filmmaker and documentarian Kevin Macdonald (The Last King of Scotland, Touching the Void), so naturally the movie was shot in Scotland for maximum authenticity. And with authenticity comes extreme weather conditions. “Scotland might have been one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever seen, but it hated us,” Tatum confessed. “I have never imagined conditions like this. You’d look around the set and all you could see would be two inches in front of you. It was raining every single day, and Jamie and I would be on the back of a horse, freezing and soaked to the bone. When you see us cold and tired and shivering in the movie, none of that’s acting!” (For more on Eagle of the Ninth and another exclusive shot from the movie, check out the new issue of EW on stands Friday.)
And so, PopWatchers, who among you is excited by the prospect of seeing a consistently wet Channing Tatum?