NEED TO KNOW
Channing Tatum’s hearing might be permanently damaged thanks to his friend and former costar Mark Ruffalo, but there’s no hard feelings.
The Roofman actor, 45, joked about Ruffalo rupturing his eardrum while filming their 2014 drama Foxcatcher during the Oct. 2 episode of Hot Ones. Ruffalo first revealed that he caused Tatum’s injury during his own 2023 appearance on Hot Ones.
“Mark didn’t mean to f—— pop my ear drum, he just slapped me,” Tatum told Hot Ones host Sean Evans. “I was like, ‘You got to slap me. Like, I don’t want to just get like, you know — slap the s— out of me. … Just like really do it so we can move on.’ ”
In Foxcatcher, Tatum and Ruffalo play brothers Mark and David Schultz, respectively. The movie is based on the real-life story of U.S. Olympic wrestler David’s murder at the hands of team sponsor John du Pont (played by Steve Carell), of the famed du Pont family. Carell’s performance earned him an Oscar nomination for Best Actor, while Ruffalo was up for Best Supporting Actor.
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Ruffalo, 57, ended up cutting Tatum’s ear in addition to causing the popped eardrum.
“It’s still not the same,” Tatum admitted. “But I love that it’s from Mark, because he’s like the most beautiful human you could ever meet in the world.”
In Ruffalo’s earlier retelling of the incident, he similarly recalled Tatum asking him to “slap the s— out of him.”
“It was easy to do because he’d beaten the s— out of me so many times,” joked Ruffalo. “He like has 30 pounds on me, so when it came time to smack the s— out of him, I was like, ‘Came from Alabama.’ “
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Also during his Hot Ones appearance, Tatum opened up moving through anxiety in his pursuit of success. “I deal with massive anxiety and all you can do is sort of face things and however you face them — whatever that metaphorical punch in the face is to that thing that you’re afraid of is — just do it,” said Tatum. “No matter if you got to head butt it, punch it. Whatever. Just just get it on.”
Tatum’s Roofman is now playing in theaters.
