Channing Tatum will forever be haunted by his awkward first meeting with Matt Damon: 'I still think about it'
Channing Tatum might be burning it up on the dance floor now as Magic Mike in Magic Mike's Last Dance, but he has two left feet when it comes to meeting his idols.
The actor revealed that he's still cringing over his awkward first encounter with Matt Damon when he was shooting Steven Soderbergh's film Haywire in 2011. As Tatum tells it, he and the director were having a drink at a hotel bar in Albuquerque, N.M., when the star of The Martian joined them.
While he attempted to play it cool on the outside, Tatum told PEOPLE he was "just beside myself" seeing Damon in real life. "I'm such a fan, and still am," he recalled. "I sat down next to him, and I was like, 'Hey, man. Where are you from?' — and I was like, 'I just asked Matt Damon where he's from.'"
Jamie McCarthy/Getty for Deadline; Matt Winkelmeyer/Getty for ABA Matt Damon and Channing Tatum
The casual conversation starter sent Tatum into a downward spiral as he processed that he was chatting with someone who — alongside Mark Wahlberg and Ben Affleck — is widely considered unofficial Boston royalty.
"Everyone on the planet knows where Matt Damon is from, and he obviously knows that I know where Matt Damon is from, and I almost didn't recover," he said. "I don't think I said anything for the next maybe two hours or so, and I still think about it today. Every once in a while, I'll just have a cold sweat and feel like, 'I can't believe....'"
Tatum explained that in general he tries to avoid meeting "famous people or meet the people that I admire or even like their work" because he can sometimes panic. But he noted that Damon was "such a good guy" about the entire thing and tried his best to put the 21 Jump Street star at ease.
"He knew I was freaking out and just didn't even acknowledge it. Because he's such a personable guy," Tatum said. "He just took care of me in that moment and answered me. It was like nothing ever happened. He was just like, 'Oh, I'm from Boston. Where are you from?' and I was like, 'I'm from Florida.' In my head I just kept screaming: 'I'm sorry. I'm sorry!'"
While the moment has gone on to haunt him for more than a decade, Tatum said he wasn't sure if Damon even remembers meeting him. Thankfully, he added, "We're friendly now, and I can kind of, sort of keep it together today."
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