In the footage we've seen so far from G.I. Joe, Channing Tatum and Marlon Wayans look like they're having a great time flying around the streets of Paris in their modified armor, allowing them to fly at low heights and run 60 mph and all kinds of things that the real-life G.I. Joes can't do.
But what's it like to wear the suit in real life, without all the special effects? "You don’t wanna know. You absolutely don’t wanna know," Tatum told me at an interview earlier this week. "We called it ‘The Devil’s Condom.’ It was the worst. You could not be in it without losing sensation in your legs or your arms, and if you weren’t moving around you were numb and miserable, and I will never get in another one again."
Tatum, who was doing the interview with director Dito Montiel to promote this weekend's Fighting, also said that he consulted Montiel before signing on to such a gigantic movie. And he's not the only actor from A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints who did that. "I remember calling Dito and going, “Can I do this? I don’t know if I can do this!” And apparently Shia [LeBeouf] called him with the same question [before doing Transformers] and was like, “Dude, can I do this?” We kind of needed permission in a way for some reason."
And what was Montiel's answer? Remembers Tatum, "He’s like, “Hell yeah! Do that shit! We’ll always go and do our little movies. Don’t miss out on that opportunity!”
Check back later today for the rest of our chat with Montiel and Tatum, about appeasing the censors for Fighting, their trip to a hardcore punk club together, and their take on Midnight Cowboy.
