Channing Tatum is the cover boy for the August issue of GQ magazine. I just read the whole piece on GQ’s site and spent some time ogling the pictures. I’ve come away with a couple of opinions about Channing “Chan” Tatum. First: he seems like a really nice, but not an altogether bright guy. Pretty but dumb, but sweet about it. Kind of like the male version of Jessica Simpson. Second: He really is a good ol’ boy from the South – he makes the GQ interviewer come down to his uncle’s home in Alabama for the piece, and hilarity ensues. He asks the reporter questions like “You ready to get all country?” and “You want to get on a bull?” and “We’re probably gonna shoot some guns when we get to Uncle Bruce’s. You ever shoot before?” He reminds me a lot of guys I went to high school with – the guys who would get to miss school when huntin’ season started.

Still, Channing seems to have a relatively blessed life – this past weekend he married his long-time girlfriend/fiance Jenna Dewan in Malibu. He seems genuinely humble and down to earth. And he’s starring in what will probably be a huge summer hit – G.I. Joe. Here are some highlights from an otherwise uninteresting interview:

How his career got started: “I got crazy lucky. Like, sometimes I think I won the lottery or something. At times it feels like the bottom’s gonna fall out. Just ’cause I don’t really know how I got here. But I just keep moving forward, and it just keeps getting better and better.”

What Channing is reading: “I got two books on [Kindle]… [one] about the start and finish of the Roman Empire. I don’t have to read this stuff, but I love it.”

Future home-building plans: Channing points out a spot on his uncle‘s property where he he says “I’m a-gonna build mine right about there. Nothin’ big. Just enough for him and Jenna to come and relax, and for Jenna’s folks to visit. Ride horses, four-wheelers. It’s bigger than the tub at the Soho Grand.” To which Chan’s uncle replies “The who?”

On hunting: “I have a motto: You don’t kill anything you ain’t gonna eat.”

Dieting for a role/photo shoot: “I have a special meal plan that I’m on. It’s pretty much just chicken and broccoli and brown rice. Four times a day. And egg whites. Just to get lean. I got a job coming up, too, that I’m starting in August, that I’m starting to train for. It’s called The Eagle of the Ninth. It’s a Kevin Macdonald film. He did The Last King of Scotland.”

Work ethic: “My mom always said, ‘Luck is nothing but preparation and opportunity.’ I think because I’ve had that history of not really being great in school, I probably try to overcompensate. That’s why I try to read so many books. Just so I don’t feel…uneducated.”

On ‘G.I. Joe’: “This is, like, my first step out into the whole commercial realm. I hope it does okay.”

[From GQ]

In the full interview there are funny little asides from members of Channing’s family, especially when they start talking about Los Angeles. At the time of the interview, Channing and Jenna hadn’t gotten married yet, and there was some consternation amongst Channing’s relatives that they would arrive in LA for the wedding “like the Clampetts”. One cousin even remarked that her daddy had never even “seen a homosexual”. But all in all, they seem really nice and sweet. Be nice to Channing. He really is the male version of Jessica Simpson. Beating up on him is like punching a boy kitten.