Channing Tatum Turned Down Ryan Gosling’s ‘Blue Valentine’ Part: ‘Terrified’

Channing Tatum could have portrayed one of Ryan Gosling’s most iconic characters.

Tatum now stars in director Derek Cianfrance’s Roofman, but the actor previously turned down an offer from the filmmaker to star in the 2010 drama Blue Valentine. That film chronicled an intense love story from beginning to end, with Gosling and Michelle Williams in the lead roles.

Tatum, 45, said he declined the role because he was “absolutely terrified” of it.

“As I was just reminded, it was about 20 years ago that I did kind of one of my first real, I guess, acting roles, and Derek saw it and, and he believed in me, I think way before I ever believed in myself,” Tatum said while accepting the Toronto International Film Festival Tribute Performer Award at the TIFF Tribute Awards on Sunday, Sept. 7.

“And that was why I think I couldn’t go on that journey. I just … I was just scared,” he continued onstage inside Toronto’s Fairmont Royal York. “I was absolutely terrified of that role specifically, and I didn’t go.”

After seeing Tatum in the 2006 drama A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints — which also stars Robert Downey Jr., Rosario Dawson and Shia LaBeouf — Cianfrance, 51, asked him to take the lead part in what would ultimately become Blue Valentine, according to a recent Variety feature.

The Place Beyond the Pines director told the outlet that after seeing him in the film, he considered Tatum to be a Marlon Brando heir of sorts. “He’s got this physicality — this body that can tell stories,” Cianfrance said of the Magic Mike star.

Tatum, meanwhile, did not initially remember turning down the filmmaker’s offer — perhaps because he didn’t want to, he told Variety. “I think I blocked it out because I probably, on some level, regret it,” he said. Looking “back on that moment,” Tatum added, “I was scared of it, because I hadn’t really lived it.” 

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Blue Valentine tells the story of a married couple — Dean and Cindy — that unravels throughout the course of the movie, which is told in a nonlinear fashion. Williams, 44, nabbed a Best Actress Oscar nomination for her role, and Gosling “killed” his part, Tatum told CBC News over the weekend at TIFF.

In the same interview, Tatum revealed that another reason why he turned down the intense role was because he “hadn’t been in a relationship like that at that time.”

“I didn’t think I could do it. I was just starting to act,” he told CBC News, adding that as he and Cianfrance began working together on Roofman, the director “reminded me of that.”

“I was like, ‘Yeah, I know.’ I definitely … I wish I would have done it. But I think Ryan killed that,” added Tatum. “So I don’t spiritually think that one was mine.”

Roofman stars Tatum as real-life convict Jeffrey Manchester, who became notorious for robbing 45 McDonald’s restaurants and once evaded capture by secretly living in a Toys “R” Us store. It follows Manchester’s six-month stint hiding inside the store, including his falling in love with a divorced mom (Kirsten Dunst).

Per a synopsis, the movie — which also stars Peter Dinklage, Juno Temple and LaKeith Stanfield — sees the escaped convict as his “double life begins to unravel, setting off a compelling and suspenseful game of cat and mouse as his past closes in.” 

Roofman is in theaters Oct. 10.