Weeks into a global junket tour promoting stripper movie Magic Mike XXL, actors Channing Tatum and Joe Manganiello are weathering a touch of battle fatigue over the line of questioning.
Surprisingly, it's not over the racier parts of the sequel to 2012's surprise hit Magic Mike, which follows a group of extremely buff "male entertainers" as they embark on a road trip to a stripper convention.
Instead, it's the probing about their personal life that's beginning to grate.
"It's like, really? We're talking about Magic Mike, it's a stripper movie," says Tatum, who is married to actor and producing partner Jenna Dewan, with whom he has a daughter Everly, aged 2. "Yes, my daughter is going to grow up and see it, and my wife did help me actually make the film. I don't mind answering that, but it does seem to be the only thing that people really want to talk about."
Manganiello, who is engaged to Modern Family actor Sofia Vergara, agrees. "You get all those personal life questions, 'When's your wedding? How did you propose?' I'm like, come on, male stripper, let's talk!"
There is indeed much to talk about with the Magic Mike sequel, which like the first film, is based on Tatum's own experiences of his brief stint as a stripper when he was 19, before he broke into the movies.
Since his breakthrough role in 2006's dance movie Step Up, the 35-year-old has taken on a wide range of roles including GI Joe, 21 Jump Street, White House Down, Dear John, and last year's critically acclaimed Foxcatcher.
It is Magic Mike, however, that opened up the big league to Tatum, who scored huge returns as one of the film's producers and co-financiers. The original Magic Mike was a unexpected hit, reaping almost $US170 million ($227 million) globally against a $US7 million budget. The movie made Tatum one of the highest celebrity earners in 2013 with an estimated pay packet of $US60 million.
And now Tatum, who plays the titular character, has reteamed with Manganiello, who plays a fellow stripper with the striking moniker of Big Dick Richie, to launch a second outing. While the sequel lacks the depth of the original, which carried a dark story burrowing into the underbelly of the stripping world, it ramps up the fun factor with a larger bent on comedy and extended dance sequences.
"The first one was a little window into a strange little subculture and made these characters that you probably would have judged a little more three-dimensional than you would have given them credit for, and the second one took those characters and you got to go on a really fun ride with it," says Tatum.
And the dancing? The finale at a stripper convention held in South Carolinan tourist spot Myrtle Beach sees the group pull out their best stripper moves, including Manganiello negotiating some gymnastic stunts on a sex swing.
"It's kind of like every single Chekhov, George Bernard Shaw play that I ever worked on in college, all the Shakespeare plays I was in," Manganiello says, tongue-in-cheek. "They're all running through my mind as I hang upside down in my silver sequinned thong with my head between an extra's legs."
Tatum says the final scenes, in which he performs to the amusement of co-star Amber Heard a slick routine sporting a thong, is a confronting task.
"It's fun, it's like basically jumping out of an aeroplane. You're just like 'ah, this seemed like a good idea until I got to he door, and then 'argh!'"
Magic Mike XXL opens July 9.
