Channing Tatum talks playing escaped felon in ‘Roofman’

Channing Tatum sat down for an interview with Entertainment Weekly where he opened up about his role in the upcoming movie, Roofman.

He takes on the part of real-life felon, Jeffrey Manchester, while Kirsten Dunst portrays a divorced mother who falls for him.

The movie also stars Peter Dinklage, Juno Temple, LaKeith Stanfield, Uzo Aduba, and Ben Mendelsohn.

About the misconceptions he had about the role, Tatum remarked, “It was absolutely exhausting. When I read this, I was like, ‘Oh, this isn't an action movie. I'm not going to be exhausted by the end of the day.’ I've had to hit the ground every day on a movie before and your body hurts. But this was a spiritual marathon on some level.”

Referring to director Derek Cianfrance, he said, "Derek really wanted me to break through the roof. Lots of times in movies, you're trying to shave off every little unnecessary moment, so you can put in more story or action. Derek loves those in-between moments of like, ‘Oh, I can't get this roof shingle off.’ It's the struggle of the thing. He doesn't want it to be nice and neat and carefully pre-planned, where it doesn't look hard.”

He added, “I get there and I think I'm just dropping down to the ground or whatever, and he's like, ‘Yeah, I was thinking that you would just fall through this roof.’ And I'm like, ‘Oh, okay. Can I fall on [something] so I don't have to do a 10-foot fall?’”

Gushing over the director further, the actor said, “There were no small scenes. Every scene was very, very, very important. Usually, there's connective tissue where you're like, ‘Okay, he's just coming home and he's going to put down his keys, sit down and watch TV.’ It feels very straightforward. There was nothing straightforward about any scene that we did. There was always a real exploration and finding of what the scene could be. That was really satisfying. At the end of the day, we knew we went everywhere that we possibly could.”

Roofman is set to release in theaters on October 10, 2025.

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