I spoke with Channing Tatum about his new movie “The Eagle.” Here’s an inside look at the filming. Read the previous post for a review of the movie.
After researching, I found out that while filming “The Eagle,” Mr. Tatum was severely burned by scalding hot water. Often during cold water scenes actors will wear a wet suit underneath their wardrobe, and the crew will pour warm water into their wet suits to keep them warm during shooting. Before the hot water is dumped into a wet suit it should be diluted so that the water doesn’t burn their bare skin. Unfortunately, the crew member responsible for Tatum’s wet suit was on a long shift and forgot to dilute the water.
Rico: Hi Channing. How are you doing?
Tatum: Good, Sir. How are you?
R: Good, so a lot of the readers would like to know how bad the injury you got in Scotland was and how long you were out of shooting because of it?
T: I was out for one day. For the lack of better words we wrapped it up and jumped back in the fight. You know, we were doing the last, final fight scene in the river that day. But it was by far the most painful thing I’ve ever been through, so it was pretty nuts.
R: Yea.
T: I mean, it was a total accident though. No one got fired I didn’t want anything like that to happen. I Just wanted to get on with the movie and finish strong.
R: Yea, at least you were nice about it.
T: Yeah, no I mean, look if he were to be a bad guy or incompetent, something for sure would have happened. But it was him having to run 15 minutes up hill to heat up the water bottle in the truck and then he had to carry it all the way down the river. I’m not even kidding. It was like a 15 minute hike. He was doing that for 13 hours and we all get tired. That’s why we called it an accident.
R: You have played soldiers in the future, present and past. How much tougher do you think a roman soldier is compared to a soldier like in “Dear John” or “G.I. Joe?”
T: Oh man, I think they are entirely two different things. I don’t know if you can totally quantify them against each other. They just fought so differently; they’re both entirely tough and gritty in their own different ways. Soldiers now don’t fight with swords; they don’t have to go on great campaigns and live outsidefor three years. I think they are equally tough, just entirely in different ways.