Channing Tatum: "I Know I'm Not the Best Actor"

Unlike most leading men, Channing Tatum has his ego in check.

In the February issue of Details, the 31-year-old actor defends his decision to appear in so many chick flicks, explaining that "you gotta do the Dear Johns. You gotta do The Vow."

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"I'm conscious about why I did those parts, those movies," Tatum explains. "I wanted to learn from Rachel [McAdams] on The Vow. I wanted to learn from Lasse Hallstrom on Dear John -- he did The Cider House Rules and What's Eating Gilbert Grape. I didn't go to acting school, so my knowledge of story, filmmaking and character comes from just being on set and doing it."

Going forward, Tatum hopes to be in full control of his career.

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"I really don't want to be in any more movies that I don't produce," he says. "Unless it's with one of the 10 directors that I really want to work with, I don't have any interest in not being on the ground floor of creating it."

That's exactly what Tatum did when he teamed up with director Steven Soderbergh to create his next project, Magic Mike. The film -- which costars Alex Pettyfer and Matthew McConaughey -- is loosely based off the eight months Tatum spent as an exotic dancer in Florida.

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"To clarify, it's not really my story," Tatum, who owns his own production company, Iron Horse Entertainment, tells Details. "It's really about that world: the people and the decisions you have to make. It's not as dark as you might think. Soderbergh really had a clear vision as far as not making it overly sexual, overly dark."