Channing Tatum divulges details of failed ‘Thor’ audition
Channing Tatum will soon be making his debut in the Marvel universe, but his superhero career has been a long time coming. The star has recently admitted that he completely bombed an audition to play Thor.
The actor, who will be playing Gambit in Deadpool and Wolverine, has previously tried his hand at entering the franchise. He told Variety that he auditioned to play Thor, God of Thunder, in Kenneth Branagh’s 2011 movie.
It was Branagh’s name, and not the text, that pulled him in. “I didn’t really want to be Thor,” Tatum admitted. “But I wanted to audition in front of Kenneth Branagh.”
It only took one take for Branagh to critique Tatum. “After I did one take, [Branagh] was like, ‘You’re not allowed to move. Put your hands on this chair.’” he shared. “And I froze. He nailed my crutch. I spent the next five years really trying to learn stillness.”
After the failure, the role was given to Chris Hemsworth. The bad news kept coming for Tatum, who spent years attempting to make a Gambit movie, and was left “traumatised” when the process took many years and was ultimately scrapped when Disney bought Fox.
“I shut off my Marvel machine,” he lamented in 2022. “I haven’t been able to see any of the movies. I loved that character. It was just too sad. It was like losing a friend because I was so ready to play him.”
However, Hemsworth and Tatum are finally joining forces in the superhero universe for Avengers: Doomsday. The new project is set to hit cinemas on December 18th, 2026.
Tatum has been busy in areas less fantastical, too. Recently released thriller Blink Twice saw him play an evil tech-bro. He is set to star in 2025’s Roofman, a project that required significant weight loss from the star.
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