The Magic Mike XXL cast is getting intimate.
Matt Bomer, Channing Tatum and Joe Manganiello share the cover of Entertainment Weekly's June 26 issue. The shirtless stars wear jeans (over their designer underwear), which is a tad more modest than what they wear onscreen.
According to Bomer, constant nudity really bonds a cast. "I think anytime you want to form a rock solid ensemble, make everybody get naked. Instant trust happens," he tells the magazine. Tatum—whose personal experiences as a stripper inspired 2012's Magic Mike—echoes his co-star's sentiments. "I'll forever be able to see them across the room and be like 'You!'" he says, pointing across the table to one the actors. "If ever s--t goes down, I know who's willing to go hard—no pun intended."
Bomer says that support helps when they get in shape for nude scenes. "We're accountability partners. If anything we're the ones being like, 'Let's go to the gym.'" He adds that they help each other in other ways, too. "We stay and watch each other's numbers even when we're not working. We're cheering."
"I actually vicariously dance through Channing," Kevin Nash jokes.
Not everyone is returning for the sequel (Riley Keough, Matthew McConaughey, Olivia Munn, Alex Pettyfer), but the sexy sequel does introduce a few new characters (Donald Glover, Jada Pinkett Smith, Michael Strahan, tWitch).
According to Tatum, it's a miracle that they even made the first film with Steven Soderbergh. "We just won the lottery," he says of its surprise success. "Like, we had no idea. We truly honestly had no idea. I don't know we could have seen it."
Magic Mike was made for just $7 million and earned $167.2 million at the box office. "I remember Warner Bros. bought it and announced they were going to release it as their Fourth of July movie," Manganiello says. "That's when it hit me. I was like, 'Oh my God! What we just did to these girls? Everyone is going to see this.'"
Whereas the first film was a little dark, director Gregory Jacobs promises that Magic Mike XXL has far more laughs. "We didn't want to repeat ourselves. Having this opportunity to go on a road trip enabled us to literally go in a different direction tonally," he tells Entertainment Weekly. "We could be funnier."