Zoë Kravitz Aims To Break Channing Tatum's 'Boy Next Door' Cast With 'Pussy Island'

Zoë Kravitz had a key objective in casting Channing Tatum: to release the "darkness" within.

Kravitz cast Tatum in his debut film "Pussy Island," with Tatum set to play a sinister tech mogul who invites an unsuspecting cocktail waitress (Naomi Ackie) to his private island. The "Magic Mike" star was Kravitz's "first choice" to portray the villain.

"I wanted to find someone who had never played a dark character before, because I think it's exciting to see someone who has mostly played the boy next door, a good guy, one love, all of it," Kravitz said of "Step Up" and "She's the Man" icon Tatum.

Kravitz continued, "I felt, even remotely, before I knew him, that he was a feminist and that he wasn't afraid to explore that darkness, because he knows he doesn't. It's not. That's why I was attracted to him and wanted to meet him. And I was right."

Tatum revealed that Kravitz encouraged him to explore the deeper aspects of the character, something he's wanted to do in his career for years.

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"The easy answer is that it's always really interesting when someone brings you something that no one else has ever thought of you for," explained Tatum, who is also producing the film through his company. Free Association. "And really even made you wonder why and can you play someone so different from what you have."

The script for "Pussy Island" was rewritten in five years after the rise of the #MeToo movement.

"When we first met, the film was quite different from its current form, but the themes were the same," Tatum said. "All the iterations he went through were all pretty punk rock, to be honest."

And as the plot shifted, one aspect of the film remained frozen from the start: Kravitz had previously said that she "had [Tatum] in mind when I wrote this character" though she's never met him before.

Tatum also told Deadline that his character in the film was "an extreme version of myself" and a reflection of masculinity in the modern age.

"I'm very interested in seeing what humans are capable of, physically, mentally, spiritually, energetically, all of it," Tatum explained. “He wants to know what people are capable of, what they want and what they are capable of when they want something. And how far are you willing to push yourself to get what you want. For me, it replaces gender, race or religion, creed. It's extremely fascinating to me."

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