Channing Tatum on Going to Dark Places to Play a “Psychopath” in ‘Blink Twice’

Channing Tatum said his preparations for his role in Blink Twice differed from anything he’s done before.

The 21 Jump Street star recently opened up in an interview with Total Film about starring in his fiancée Zoë Kravitz’s directorial debut. He plays tech billionaire Slater King in the mystery thriller.

“It’s the first time I’ve ever played anyone [like this],” Tatum explained. “Every character I play, I usually have some sort of love for or a connection to.”

However, it was much different with this character. “I don’t think I’ll ever tell anybody what I had to create inside my head to play this person,” the Fly Me to the Moon actor added. “He’s a psychopath.”

Blink Twice follows Slater, who meets cocktail waitress Frida (Naomi Ackie) at his fundraising gala and invites her to join him and his friends on a dream vacation on his private island. But Frida begins to question her reality when strange things start happening on the island.

Kravitz also told the magazine the characters being trapped in an unfamiliar place only added to the intense drama throughout the film.

“It was really more about power dynamics,” The Batman actress explained. “And trying to create a situation where the characters were isolated. That, in my mind, is the scariest situation you could be in — whether you’re trapped in the back of a car, in a closet, or in a dark room at a party. À la Lord of the Flies, I was trying to find an environment where the characters had to stay and deal with the crumbling of the power dynamics.”

Blink Twice hits theaters Aug. 23.