Channing Tatum had an unforgettable cameo in Seth Rogen’s 2013 comedy This Is the End. But Rogen once claimed that Tatum perhaps immersed himself too deeply in his role as the gimp.
Seth Rogen’s This Is the End featured actors like Emma Watson, Jonah Hill and Danny McBride playing exaggerated versions of themselves. Rogen had plenty of ideas he wanted to add to his project, including a scene where McBride had his own gimp. Rogen shared that he found inspiration for the idea from some of his own favorite movies.
“We had this scene in the movie where we kick Danny out of the house and then we always thought it’d be funny if later when we leave we encounter him again and he’s kind of like assembled this group of cannibal misfits,” Rogen once explained to MTV News. “Kind of like in Mad Max or something. He’s large [and] humongous now. And in the script he always had like a gimp. Like a sexual gimp on the end of a leash. We’re big Pulp Fiction fans. This is where it came from.”
At first, they didn’t plan on getting anyone famous for the part. But since the potential gimp’s face would be concealed, Rogen wondered if it would’ve been possible to cast a famous face after all.
“Because he had to wear a mask in the script. It was like he’s in a dominatrix mask. Even though it’s a Luchador mask in the movie, but then we started thinking, ‘Oh maybe we could get a famous person to do it,’” Rogen remembered.
Since Rogen already had some familiarity with Tatum, Rogen would offer him the part.
According to Rogen, Tatum was more than eager to tackle the role of the gimp. So much so that when he arrived on set, he was already wearing his own gimp outfit for the movie.
“It was like there was zero trepidation, he just did it. And then he showed up. And it was crazy. He was ready to rock. He was wearing literally an orange thong, G-string and football pads,” Rogen recalled.
The Magic Mike star’s enthusiasm for the comedy project led him to getting too into his gimp character. Eventually, Rogen had to edit some of Tatum’s performance out of the raunchy comedy.
“And we shot it over two nights so it was like two nights, twelve hours each night, where he’s on his hands and knees, scurrying around in the dirt,” Rogen said. “And we had to tone it down. That’s actually one of the scenes we had to tone down the most because he went so into it, like spreading his ass open. There was a scene… there was a part where Danny’s throwing animal crackers into his butt and Channing’s just too comfortable with his body, I think.”
But the scenes in question proved to be too much for audiences when Rogen first screened the movie.
“When we tested the movie we actually found a limit where people were like it’s too much of Channing Tatum’s body. Like there is an amount of Channing’s ass,” he said.
The Dear John star asserted that he wasn’t at his most clear-minded when Rogen offered him the part.
“I probably had too much to drink the night that I got the email at like, three in the morning. I think they were already filming. I don’t know why I even picked it up and then I read the email and it was from Seth Rogen,” Tatum said in a resurfaced interview with Conan.
In hindsight, Tatum joked that it might not have been the best choice to do the movie. Especially considering Rogen’s description of Tatum’s role as the gimp.
“It said, ‘Hey, I hope this isn’t insulting but we had this idea on set for a cameo. It involves you, Danny McBride and Mexican wrestling masks and a leash.’ I think I must have been on Ambien or drunk or something, and I was just like, ‘Yeah, I’ll do it, no problem,’ and then ultimately had to actually go and do it,” Tatum added. “It was a terrible idea, probably.”