The new teaser trailer for Foxcatcher is pretty tremendous — as eerie and unnerving as the movie itself, which picked up a well-deserved Best Director trophy at Cannes and follows Channing Tatum as wrestler Mark Schultz, an unhappy brute who’s living in the shadow of his older brother until he finds a wealthy sponsor, mentor, and friend in the creepy heir John du Pont (Steve Carell). At Cannes, we wrote that “the miserable Mark has an inclination for self-harm — he’ll punch his own face over and over, or smash a mirror with his forehead — and Tatum is so committed to those scenes that he left the audience fearful not just for Mark’s well-being, but for his own.†And boy, does that new trailer capture exactly that.
Tatum told journalists at the festival that when he filmed scenes like those, it’s almost as though he went into a fugue state, and the injuries he found that he’d inflicted on himself were quite real. “I feel weird talking about it,†Tatum said. “I don’t remember anything of it, but I was sore afterwards. Your adrenaline’s going so much at the time it’s more of something you realize later.†In fact, the mirror hit you see at the end of the trailer was a much harder head-butt than the stunt men had recommended. “That was maybe not advisable,†Tatum said. “I went through the wall on the other side. You get jacked up and you don’t really think, Oh, I’m just gonna hit it hard enough to break the mirror. I missed a stud by about four inches. The cut on my head, that was real.â€
Take a look at the moment he’s referring to in this mesmerizing GIF loop, and you’ll never doubt Tatum’s commitment to his roles again. (You may need an Advil afterwards, though.)
