Channing Tatum Almost Quit Acting In 2018

Channing Tatum is a superstar actor whose career includes tons of memorable movies — but maybe you’ve noticed that you haven’t seen him in much over the past few years.

As it turns out, his not-unnoticeable absence from the silver screen has been very intentional.

In a recent interview with Variety, Tatum opened up about why he stepped away from acting for a bit — and how he almost put it aside entirely.

Tatum said that he considered giving up acting in 2018, shortly after his split from Jenna Dewan.

“Do I want to act anymore?” he recalled feeling at that time. “Was I going to direct? Do I want to be in the industry anymore? I got lucky. I won a creative lottery ticket. I made a little bit of money, so I could take a step back and figure out what life is.”

“I really took time off. I sculpted. I took pictures. I wrote my own stuff, not like a script or anything. Just creating on different levels. I wanted to take a breather.”

Tatum also cited a crushing work schedule that included 22 Jump Street from 2014 and 2015’s commercial flop Jupiter Ascending as a reason for taking time off. “I took four movies back to back without any time off,” he said. “I wasn’t as good as I wanted to be in those last two movies because I didn’t have the energy.”