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Channing Tatum is just wingin’ it. Sure, he’s a talented dancer (I’m sweating just remembering Magic Mike’s Last Dance), actor, producer, and director with more than a few awards under his belt, but when it comes to his daughter Everly “Evie” Tatum, who he shares with ex-wife Jenna Dewan, none of that matters. He knows he isn’t a child expert, but he’s doing the best he can as a parent — just like us. His little girl — who turned 10 today! — is lovingly referred to as a “weirdo” by her dad, who just beams every time he mentions her. SheKnows caught up with Tatum over Skype, who is promoting the third installment of his children’s book series called The One and Only Sparkella and the Big Lie. We asked the The Lost City star our burning parenting questions, chatting about boundaries, books, and being “buddies” with his daughter. Throughout it all, one thing was clear: his love for Evie.
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Even through the screen, you could see Tatum’s entire face light up with every anecdote about his free-spirited, “contrarian” child — and the teeny crush we’ve been nursing since his Step Up days may have gotten just a little bit bigger seeing that devotion firsthand. Tatum’s best-selling Sparkella children’s book series may be inspired by his daughter, but there’s no denying Tatum has a spark, too, in his role as dad. He’s just a regular guy with a big heart for his little girl and a passion to help dads (and parents everywhere) meet their kids where they are. His words will melt your heart, guaranteed.
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Keep reading to learn more about the heartfelt, real-life story that inspired his latest book, his special nightly routine with Evie, and what his daughter really thinks about her dad’s movies.
Note: This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
‘The One and Only Sparkella and the Big Lie’ covers some big themes – wanting to seem cooler, stealing, lying. Why are these important for kids and parents to talk about?
“If you have kids, or if you are one, you go through so many massive life-changing lessons in just one day. At a fever pitch, where you’re leaning lessons. It’s pretty intense, I think. And what we’ve tried to do with these books is just grab one lesson that is simplistic enough to tell. And Sparkella and her dad can kinda digest it and go through it.”
What was your inspiration behind this book?
“I wasn’t really sure what to do for the third book. I just was a little stumped. I was like, man, I love the first book, it was so just naturalistic when it came out. The second book was harder, but I think we got there in the end as a natural progression to the first one. And I really was kinda like, oh god, I don’t know what to do. I don’t want to write something bad! And then Cody Horn, my partner in Sparkella, she had a teacher as a friend. And we were just talking to her about kids of this age and what they go through. She said that around 5, kids start to really kind of experiment with lying, and really have some of their first big lies then. And I remembered immediately a time Evie had that was really similar to Sparkella in the story. She had stolen something and one – I think she stole two things – but one I think she just picked it up and then kind of just didn’t give it back. It wasn’t like she had a plan, she was like, ‘I just picked it up. And then I didn’t know how to give it back ‘cause I didn’t want her to think I took it and now I have taken it.’ She just didn’t know what to do.
The other one, she stole a little car from school, but she was so eaten up by it. She called me in her room one night, and she used to hustle me. So, I thought she was just hustling me to stay up later. And she was in pieces, man. She was crying, she was literally sick to her stomach. Thought that I was going to call the police on her. And she wouldn’t tell me for the longest time, and I’m like, ‘Evie, just tell me.’ And she’s like, ‘You’re gonna be mad, you’re not gonna forgive me.’ And then finally she just told me and it was like this big release. And I think she did learn the lesson [that] apologizing and coming clean is so much easier than you think it’s going to be. And also, it’s way better than carrying it around with you for days. I can’t remember exactly what mine was, but I remember having a similar experience with something that was just eating a hole in my stomach.
It really did teach her a big lesson and even for the dads or parents in general that read the book. She was so nervous that I was going to be mad at her. This was her first big, big thing. And I don’t know if it was right; I’m not a child psychologist or a teacher or anything like that. But I do know that it became easier. I watched the weight lift off of her and she looked visibly better in her face. And it became easier for her to tell me other things later.”
Evie is almost 10 – what is she interested in right now?
“We ride our bikes and stuff together. But she’s obsessed with Irish Celtic dancing right now. So we’re going to competitions and traveling and doing this whole thing. It’s intense. She’s very good at it. She just saw it and was like, I want to do that. That right there. And we were like, ‘What? Irish Celtic dancing of all the dancing? OK, whatever, weirdo.’ Cause she’s so weird, she likes Japanimation, manga, and Irish Celtic dancing. She’s very eclectic.”
What are some things you like to do together?
“We do art almost every single night. We’ll eat dinner at the table and then we’ll pull out all the art stuff and like put on a show – she gets one show a day – and we’ll just do art while we watch a show and then it’s bedtime. That’s kind of our routine.
We’ve watched everything. Recently we’ve been on a kick of Japanimation, Spirited Away we just watched again for like the billionth time, Howl’s Moving Castle.”
Has Evie seen any of your movies? What does she think?
“She’s watched Smallfoot. She hasn’t seen very much of anything else I’ve done. Nothing else, really I think, one: that she’d be interested in; and two: it’s not really for her. She’d just be like, ‘Nope, this is weird.’ I think [Jenna Dewan and I] showed her Step Up like when she was really young, and she was just like, ‘OK.’ Not impressed.”
What are your thoughts on Evie (and kids in general) on social media?
“She’s not on social media right now. I haven’t done all the studying, but it just feels wrong to me. I don’t want to sit here and judge anybody that lets their kids on social media, ’cause I’m like the last person to get on a soapbox and tell you what you shoud do. I think you should just make a gut call, and I really like that the most that [Evie] does is tutorials on kids YouTube about drawing and Minecraft.
I don’t think she really gets what [social media] is. She likes to see little videos every once in a while. Like we’re playing around and learning bo staff. And I’ll look up some videos on Instagram just because they’re shorter and they’re a little bit more simple to bite off a small piece. But she never asks me to have my phone to look on Instagram.
I’m sure it’s coming. She’s turning 10, she’s going into 5th grade. You know, I’m sure her friends are on it. But, she’s a weirdo. She’s a very contrarian type child. She always goes against the grain. She’s just now getting into pop music, like Taylor Swift and stuff. [H]er friends have been listening to it forever and she was just kinda like, ‘Eh, I don’t get it.’ And when she hears like one of us cuss or, you know, say a bad word, she’s like, ‘Dad!’ or she hears it in a song, she’s like, ‘Really?’ It’s funny. She’s cool.”
How has parenting changed for you over the last 10 years?
“You go through so many phases, right? And like the baby phase, where, man, you’re just trying to get through the day. Not have any big accidents, diapers, and the whole thing. And then you potty train and they kind of get out of that and change a little bit and kind of become a little more like kids.
I think it’s definitely changed me for the better … softened me. I think I’ve had to really learn – I always thought I was going to be the fun parent, and getting my kid into probably more trouble than I got her out of, I guess. But it’s kinda been the opposite. I had to learn really quickly, OK, we need boundaries because she’s gonna be all over the place unless I do that. And just to be softer in doing that.
I think if I had a boy, I might not have been as soft. I think that my dad was very, very hard on me. And I don’t know if I would have known exactly how to be soft with a boy. I think my learning curve would have probably been longer. And I think with a girl I just knew I had to be softer. Like, kind of whatever programming in my head that’s like, ‘She’s a girl. Be soft.’”
What is one thing you’re really proud of as a dad?
“I’m really proud that my daughter loves to hang out with me, and we’re just buddies. She would be with me all day if she could. And we just hang out all the time. Because I know that that’s not going to be always — that is definitely going to go away at some point. I even said that to her the other day. I was like, ‘Evie, I’m going to need a lot of therapy after … there’s going to be a moment when you’re like, ‘Can you drop me and so-and-so off at the mall and like come back in like a couple hours?’, and I’m going to die a small death that day. And she’s like, ‘I’ll never do that.’ Like, ‘It’s OK baby, you will and it’s going to be fine. You’re definitely not going to want to hang out with me all the time forever. So I think that the fact we have a good enough relationship, and through the years, even through work, just the ups and downs of life, we’ve been able to stay really close.”
Why is it so important to embrace silliness as a parent?
“I think they instinctually see you as the authority figure. And I think they will listen to you almost more and relate to you more if you are as silly as they can be sometimes. [T]hey’re like, ‘Oh, they’re just like me. So, like, they’re not so different.’ I think we can be so consumed with the hardness of life, you know, and life can be difficult at times. If we can put that – at least in my experience – into a compartment for the time being, and just be with her, I always just get innately more silly. I meet her where she is.
[M]aybe all kids aren’t silly. But I think, more than just silly, it’s meeting them where they are. Telling them it’s OK to be free, whatever version that looks like for you.”
What can you tell me about the upcoming Sparkella movie?
“We have a script, it’s really good. The first draft was killer. We’re doing another pass, and we’re going to try to find a director. You never know. These things takes so many ups and downs and lefts and rights and turns along the way. Making a movie’s a long journey, and it also depends on what director we get what movie that we get, in a way. So, one director could want to make it a musical, one director could not, you know? What do they feel, and what do they see, and what do we all see collectively together?
I love kids’ movies as animated films, but I think we have a lot of them. And I miss the kids’ movies when I was growing up, like Honey, I Shrunk the Kids and Bedknobs and Broomsticks and The NeverEnding Story and Labryinth. Movies that are real-life sort of people and characters in these fantastical worlds. And I think we’re going to try to go in that direction a little bit.”
The One and Only Sparkella and the Big Lie
The One and Only Sparkella and the Big Lie is out now! This is the third book in the New York Times bestselling Sparkella series. This one follows Sparkella as she prepares for a playdate with a cool kid in school named Wyatt. But when she’s embarrassed about her “un-cool” toys, she steals a toy from her friend Tam — then lies about it. With a little help from her dad, Sparkella will learn the importance of honesty and taking responsibility when you make a mistake.
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