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Channing Tatum has revealed the toll directing Blink Twice took on his fiancée, Zoe Kravitz.
The Big Little Lies star’s directorial debut is inspired by the late sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein and stars Naomi Ackie as a young woman who is invited to join a tech billionaire, played by Tatum, on his private island.
Ahead of the films release, Amazon MGM Studios issued a trigger warning to viewers about “upsetting scenes” that take place during the #MeToo thriller, which Tatum said Kravitz “poured every ounce” of her energy into.
Sharing a picture of Kravitz asleep in his lap to Instagram, Tatum said: ‘This little sweet. She[’s] so tired bro. Every time I wondered if she’d break, she just kept going and going. Always on the dig for truth.”
He continued: “She pour[e]d every single ounce of herself into this film. I’m proud to stand 10 toes down for her, this film, and everyone in it. Forever. Knowing what it took to make it. No one will ever know.”
Thanking his fiancée, the Magic Mike star added: “Thank you for finding me and seeing me. I got you forever. Me and you back to back against it all. I’ll never blink. Let’s go.”
When Kravitz initially announced Blink Twice in 2022, it was titled Pussy Island.
At the time, she defended her refusal to censor the title, telling The Wall Street Journal: “It represents this time where it would be acceptable for a group of men to call a place that, and the illusion that we’re out of that time now.”
Earlier this month, Kravitz revealed she had conceded to changing the title after the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) said it wouldn’t advertise a film called Pussy Island.
“It was made very clear to me that ‘pussy’ is a word that we, our society, are not ready to embrace yet,” Kravitz told Entertainment Weekly.
“There were a lot of roadblocks along the way, whether it be the MPAA not wanting to put it on a poster, or a billboard, or a kiosk; movie theatres not wanting to put it on a ticket.”
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Kravitz said that she later discovered “interestingly enough, after researching it, women were offended by the word”.
“And women seeing the title were saying, ‘I don’t want to see that movie,’ which is part of the reason I wanted to try and use the word, which is trying to reclaim the word, and not make it something that we’re so uncomfortable using,” she said.
“But we’re not there yet. And I think that’s something I have the responsibility as a filmmaker to listen to,” Kravitz acknowledged. “I care about people seeing the film, and I care about how it makes people feel.”
Blink Twice premieres in theatres now.
