Channing Tatum paused daughter’s teacher chat to answer prison Call

Channing Tatum spent time speaking with a prisoner at a super-maximum security prison to prepare for his new movie.

Tatum stars in Roofman as real-life convict Jeffrey Manchester — a criminal who gained notoriety for robbing 45 McDonald’s restaurants and famously evading capture by secretly living inside a Toys “R” Us store.

Currently serving a 40-year sentence at Central Prison in Raleigh, North Carolina, Manchester continued to reach out to Tatum and director Derek Cianfrance, determined to share his stranger-than-fiction story.

On Saturday, Sept. 6, Tatum spoke with PEOPLE/EW at the Shutterstock Studio during the Toronto International Film Festival about his new role.

"It's a wild thing when you can't call somebody and they call you from a supermax prison and you have 15 minutes with them," Tatum said.

"You basically have to pick up almost wherever you are," he added. "I was talking to my daughter's teacher one time, and literally Jeffrey Manchester is calling and you're just like, ‘One second, prison's calling.’ And then you just go have this 15-minute conversation and that's it. He's gone, and you don't know when he's going to call back or what time."

Roofman, featuring Ben Mendelsohn, LaKeith Stanfield, Juno Temple, Uzo Aduba, Peter Dinklage, and more, arrives in theatres on Oct. 10.

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