The actor made an appearance on Thursday's 'The Kelly Clarkson Show.'
Channing Tatum is getting real about the struggles of getting in shape.
The 41-year-old actor is giving fans another Magic Mike movie, but couldn't help joke about why it took so long to get a third one done. Tatum stopped by The Kelly Clarkson Show on Thursday, where Kelly Clarkson showed a shirtless photo of the actor on the screen.
"That might be the reason why I didn't want to do a third one because I have to look like that," Tatum joked. When asked if he works out all the time, he explained that "it's hard."
"Even if you do work out, to be in that kind of shape? It's not natural," he continued, before Clarkson asked, "Do you have to eat really well?"
"'Well' is not even, that's not even healthy. You have to starve yourself. I don't think when you’re that lean it's actually healthy for you," he continued, before expressing how it's a struggle and is impressed by people who stay in shape. "Truly I don't know how people that work a nine to five actually stay in shape because it's my full-time job and I can barely do it. But you work out twice a day, you have to eat completely right at a certain time. It's a specific thing."
He added that he fluctuated in weight, "a lot more when I was younger, but now I can't get it off as easy."
"I fluctuate, like, 15 pounds and I used to fluctuate 35," Tatum shared. "Why when it takes, like, two months to get really lean but in, like, three days you can lose it? It's, like, gone!"
The Voice judge then asked what he misses most when he's on a strict diet, to which he replied salt.
"When you need to get really close to the day where you have to be butt naked onscreen, salt just goes," he said. "Everything just tastes like, I don't know, water. It's nothing."
Magic Mike was first released in 2012, with its sequel, Magic Mike XXL, premiering in 2015. A third was officially announced last year. Tatum previously admitted that he wasn't sure he'd want to make a third film, telling Jimmy Kimmel earlier this month, "I was like, 'We kind of did a lot in the first two movies.'"
He did, however, share his two requirements for making a third installment. "One, I wanted to make the Super Bowl of stripper movies. The first movie we had to stay honest to what that world is and the dancing's not all that cool in the world, and we pushed it a little bit, but I really want to have professional, like, the best dancers in the world going off in this one," he explained. "And secondly, I wanted to have a female central character."
Without naming who would be playing this role, Tatum did reveal, "She might dance a little bit."
While an actress hasn't been announced as part of the film, Sandra Bullock joked to ET about why she wouldn't be busting out her dance moves for her Lost City co-star.
"He's doing a lot of asking for me to come on board with my skills in the stripping world, which they're world renowned," Bullock joked. "I don't know if I wanna do it and take the attention away. Channing needs that moment, and if I step onstage, you know what's gonna happen, it's like, all eyes are gonna be on this. It's all gonna be on mama."
She continued, "Not really, but in my world, that's what would happen. All eyes would just shift off of Channing and onto me, and they would stay."
Tatum also spoke with ET earlier this month, where he teased the third film, and if Matthew McConaughey would return. Hear what he shared in the video below.
RELATED CONTENT:
