Channing Tatum was well prepared for his role as a father in Josephine as he has a 12 year old daughter of his own.
Josephine follows an eight-year-old child who witnesses a brutal sexual assault in a park, and how her parents deal with the traumatic situation.
Tatum shared an incident from his daughter’s infancy that helped him capitalize on his role as Damien.
“I have a 12-year-old, and I was a 12-year-old at one point in my life. Luckily, I didn’t experience this event with my 12-year-old self,” he said. “But I remember being called to school with my daughter when she was in kindergarten because my daughter got into a fight.”
When he reached the school, the principal pulled him aside to tell him she was proud of his daughter Evie for defending a friend from a violent boy.
“She says, ‘Hey, I have to tell you that I’m proud of Evie.’ My daughter’s name is Evie. ‘I’m proud of Evie. I can’t say that there because that’s not allowed, we’re not allowed to fight at school,” he said.
“Apparently there was a boy who was being very physical with them, and she told the teacher. The teacher scolded the boy, and then the boy ended up doing something to her best friend, and the spider monkey tackled this kid to the ground and bit his ear,” The Vow star recalled.
“I’m in the office and I’m like, ‘F**k yeah.’… I took her out for ice cream right afterward,” he said, before referencing a scene in Josephine.
“That conversation I had with Josephine under the bridge is a conversation I had with my daughter. You’ll never get in trouble with me if you protect yourself, if someone does something you don’t like… don’t fuck with my daughter. She listened and she wouldn’t be fooled,” Tatum said.
Josephine already premiered to great success at the Sundance Film Festival, where it won the Grand Jury Prize and Audience Award.
