You saw her as Sasha, the girl who didn't have a wealthy upbringing, but could dance her butt off in
Take the Lead. Now, Jenna Dewan stars as Nora, the lead character in Disney's
Step Up, who does have the advantaged background this time and has one chance at the elite performing art school to fulfill her dream as a ballet dancer. However, she needs to find a new partner for her senior showcase, which also happens to be the biggest performance of her life. When Tyler (Channing Tatum), a troubled yet gifted street dancer is caught vandalizing the school, he's forced to do community service and sparks fly as he catches Nora's attention.
Tyler takes the fall for his friends in the film during their random crime spree. While Tatum hasn't done anything like that in real life, he says he has done other things that he's taken full responsibility for, even though he didn't act alone. "We caught the house on fire once. For some stupid reason, we thought it was fun to pour gasoline in the garage and light it and ride our skateboards through it. I don't know, I think we had just watched 'Back to the Future' or something, and we wanted to walk through the fire. We were like, 'Yeah!' And then, yeah, caught the house on fire a little bit. Didn't wreck the place or anything."
Was he left holding the bag? "Because my dad's a strict guy, and I still wanted to hang out with my buddies. [laughs] They'd have never been allowed over again. So I took the rap for that one. But there's other things that I've been like, 'I'm out of here! Bye! Good luck!' he admitted to ComingSoon.net.
Tatum could also relate to the street dancing aspects of his character Tyler. Out of the entire cast, he was the only one not professionally trained, and in fact, had never even taken a class before. Dewan loved his style of dance and said it didn't matter that he had never been formally taught. "He's such a good dancer on his own. He really has so much natural talent and he had done it in clubs and street dancing and stuff, so when it came to the partnering and the more technical side of dance, [director] Anne [Fletcher] was basically teaching the choreography but if we would do in session, something that just didn't feel right or I would be like 'You know, if you move your body this way or put your hand here, it will help.' So, I'd help every now and then but he actually picked it up really quickly and it wasn't something that was hard for him. It was pretty fun and we got along great," she said about her co-star.
Even though it looks like Tatum had no problems with his dancing skills, he sees it a different way. "Nerve racking. Nerves. You know, they are so many different levels of it. For example, I had to learn how to count music. I didn't know how to count music at all. And [my chorographer] Jamal kind of found a way in for me. He'd like to make sounds. He would make sounds like, [demonstrates via human beat box]. And I remembered what I would do for those things. And once you start getting it into your body and into your mind... And it's two things learning something. Your body has to learn something and your mind has to learn something, and you've got to connect the two sometimes… And then they throw you out in front of people, and you're like, [nervously] 'You all are going to be here while I'm doing this?' And it's kind of like, 'Whoa…' I don't know, that's nerve racking to me. It kind of makes me pinch myself every day that I did a dancing movie.
Meanwhile, Dewan has been dancing since she was a child. Her talents were noticed by the music industry and she performed in videos for P. Diddy and Janet Jackson. While one might think it would be awesome to dance music videos, the gifted actress enjoys the film aspect more and is happy to make the transition to the big screen. "Music videos are notoriously long, not fun, grueling. You are known there as a dancer and it's kind of sad because dancers, in a lot of ways, are under-appreciated and kind of under-respected when it comes to that, so they don't necessarily treat you in a nice way when you do a music video. Me, I was fortunate enough to work with Janet [Jackson] who treats her dancers amazing so I didn't have that bad experience but, on a movie, it's just so much more in depth and you're there for three months versus two days. You're in front of a camera, but it's more about the character and the scene and not so much about nailing a dance step. Even in our dance performances I would want to do the steps right but it was more about making the partnership and the connection and the story of Tyler and Nora together which is different than a video as well. But, it helps. Coming from a dance background definitely helped me move into acting because you are more comfortable in front of the camera, you understand movement. A lot of actors that are dancers, I think you can tell. They have a certain way that they hold themselves. There are a lot of things that helped but it is very different."
You can see Dewan and Tatum's moves in
Step Up, opening on Friday, August 11. Click
here to read an interview with director Anne Fletcher.