Jimmy Kimmel is off this week because his baby son needs heart surgery. All week, big name stars and musicians have been filling in for him. Last night it was Channing Tatum’s turn. What’s happened the last month in Hollywood has turned into a white-knuckle situation as we wait for Who’s Next, right? Because it just might be one of our favourites.
Please let it not be Channing Tatum. We love Channing Tatum, right? I’ve said it before, many times, how nice Channing Tatum is. He is SO nice. Not just “nice for a celebrity”. Nice for a real human being. I think that’s why I flubbed my line and dropped my cue cards yesterday interviewing Taika Waititi. Because he’s a real human being. This is how conditioned I am to the way f-cked up celebrities behave. Someone shows up and is decent and suddenly the world is unbalanced.
The point is – Channing Tatum isn’t that person who has one face for other people and another for civilians. He’s courteous, he’s kind. He tries hard. He works hard. You could tell that he wasn’t at Kimmel to half ass it for a couple of hours. They produced a dance routine that, frankly, is way better than what Jimmy Fallon’s done at award shows. And, of course, he only danced because he put it out there himself because, well, that’s not only what we expect from him but he’s not exactly known for monologues and clever puns. He’s smarter than people give him credit for, than what I for a long time gave him credit for, but he’s also not above going along with the joke. And, above all else, making sure that on his watch, Kimmel’s show is as entertaining as possible – which requires him to move his hips and shake his ass.
I don’t have to watch the rest of the episode to know that I would have loved it. I love him. Roxane Gay loves him. And I need to believe that Roxane wouldn’t be wrong.
