“I drank a lot of beers and ate a lot of pizza” – Channing Tatum on prepping for Logan Lucky

August 16, 2017 - 3:53 PM IST

Director Steven Soderbergh and actor Channing Tatum reunite after Magic Mike and its sequel for Logan Lucky releasing pan India on August 25 by PVR Pictures. The Logan Lucky script represents a remarkable effort by first-time screenwriter Rebecca Blunt, who like the characters in her script, grew up in West Virginia.

“I drank a lot of beers and ate a lot of pizza” – Channing Tatum on prepping for Logan Lucky

Blunt, to her own admission wrote the character of Jimmy Logan keeping Channing Tatum in mind. "I see Jimmy as an alternative version of Chan’s own story. Chan’s from a small southern town, I believe he won a football scholarship to play in Florida but ended up blowing out his knee before the season started, so he became a stripper. I thought of Logan Lucky as, ‘what if Chan hadn’t become a male stripper and had gone back home?’ I ran into Chan and his partner Reid at a bowling alley and mentioned the idea to them — at the time I called it Hillbilly Heist — and Chan said, ‘That sounds great!’" she says

And it was at Blunt's recommendation that Tatum prepared for the role by immersing himself in Appalachian subculture, including watching the jaw-dropping 2009 documentary The Wild and Wonderful Whites of West Virginia. “I also drank a lot of beers and ate a lot of pizza, just because I could,” jokes Tatum, who bulked up considerably for the part. “It’s a ‘character choice.’”