Channing Tatum finds 'Magic' in semi-autobiographical strip club story

“I was very nervous,” McConaughey said. “Before I had to go onstage to dance and in front everyone live, it was kind of nerve-wracking. And then having to strip down? Yeah, very nerve-wracking. But after I did it once, I kinda wanted to do it again.”

Soderbergh, a director whose recent willingness to step outside conventional filmmaking decisions include casting adult film actress Sasha Grey as the lead in 2009's “The Girlfriend Experience” and Mixed Martial Arts fighter Gina Carano in “Haywire,” voiced some joking embarrassment about these dance sequences.

“We have edited together the full-length versions of all the routines. They're, uh ... they're pretty disturbing,” Soderbergh said. “We sent them all to Sue Kroll at Warner Brothers, and she said, ‘I really like these a lot.' I just can't believe we're having a press conference for a stripper movie.”

But this “stripper movie” is not “The Channing Tatum Story,” Tatum said, nor is it “The London Steele Story,” no matter what his old comrades in spandex might say. Tatum took a stance of good-natured diplomacy in addressing Steele, whose predictably colorful online declarations seem timed for maximum exposure.

“They are very interesting, intriguing, bizarre characters, and I'm thankful for weird people out there, I guess,” Tatum said. “They are some of the most creative people. Watch his YouTube video — it is entertaining. ‘Whoo!'”