Channing Tatum might have a name that sounds like some harmless himbo character in camp 80s super-soap Dynasty, but make no mistake about it: this young actor is one tough dude.

The buff, broad-shouldered 29-year-old receives and administers some major ass-whuppings in his new street fighting flick Fighting, and he keeps in shape by training with some of America's foremost martial arts experts.

Be that as it may, I have found at least one way to reduce him to a squirming, red-faced wreck.

"Oh man, I just don't know how to react to that," he groans, as he sinks back into his chair in the bar of the Metropolitan Hotel in London. I have brought up the little fact that People magazine had just named him the 8th most beautiful person in the world -- the second highest-ranking guy on the list behind tweenage sensation Zac Efron.

He gives an embarrassed laugh and continues: "It's cool, but who picks these lists? It's all a bit random." Still, though, it must earn him some serious kudos with his fiancée Jenna Dewan, his co-star from the 2006 dancing movie Step Up? He laughs and replies: "Oh yeah, I wake her up every morning and [flexing a bicep and pointing at it] say, 'Eh? Eh?'"

All joking aside, Tatum had better start getting accustomed to the attention. Having hovered on the brink of superstardom for the past three years, featuring in or topping just about every 'Rising Star' list in Hollywood, 2009 looks set to be the year that he goes supernova.

Fighting is just the teaser before the main attractions. This summer, Tatum will play one of the lead parts in the mega-budget action movie GI Joe: The Rise of the Cobra, as well as playing a small but pivotal role opposite Johnny Depp, Christian Bale and Marion Cotillard in Michael Mann's Oscar-tipped crime biopic Public Enemies.

"They are huge movies," he admits. "I have a small part in Public Enemies, but it's a big character in American history -- bank robber Pretty Boy Floyd. It's nuts really. I mean, I had Michael Mann spend a day teaching me how to shoot a tommy gun!

"I haven't seen either one of them yet. I have caught the ADR [rough cut used for dubbing] on GI Joe, which only gets crazier and bigger the more it goes on. Honestly, I think it's going to be one of the biggest movies ever. I don't think I realised what I was doing when I signed up for it. It's going to be a crazy ride."

Right now, he's concentrating on Fighting, a predictable yet surprisingly enjoyable yarn about Shawn MacArthur (Tatum), a quick-fisted hick who is taken under the wing of scam artist Harvey (Terrence Howard) who recognises a way to make a buck out of this brawling bruiser on New York's corrupt, underground bare-knuckle boxing circuit.

Shawn proves to be something of a million dollar baby in the ring, but as the stakes and the winnings get higher, his life becomes ever more endangered by his involvement with the coterie of Russian and Thai gangsters out to protect their rackets.

Tatum certainly rises to the task physically in the movie, but in his mind, boxing is the last thing that Fighting is about. "To me it's a movie about relationships, and these lonely people who find each other and learn to deal with it together," he says.

"We actually tried to take the fighting out of the movie and just focus on the characters. Have you seen Midnight Cowboy? That's the movie I watched the most to prepare for this. That's what we wanted it to be: to have Terrence's character and mine be like a modern day Ratso Rizzo and Joe Buck."

Er, right. At any rate, Tatum certainly knows how to throw a punch, so I wonder if he gained this skill through choreography or personal experience? He lets out a hearty laugh and replies: "A little bit of both ... where's my publicist?!

"No, look I've been in my fair share of scrapes, but I don't think I'm a good fighter. I remember I hung out with all these Irish guys in Australia. They were travelling through and we got hammered together one night. Suddenly they started punching one another in the face for fun. I had to join in, but I was like, 'Erm ... okay'." He pauses and flashes a grin. "I like to think I'm a lover, not a fighter." In Fighting, Tatum is also extremely convincing playing a wide-eyed country boy coming to grips with life in the big city. That might be because he has had a similar journey. Having grown up as a football, track and martial arts whizz in Alabama and Mississippi, Tatum (who's part Irish, but hasn't explored his roots yet) worked a series of odd jobs after graduating from high school, before he was discovered by a modelling scout one day on a street in Miami.

From there, he began pouting and posing for the likes of Versace, Dolce and Gabbana and Abercrombie & Fitch, but despite the glamorous, jet-set lifestyle, Tatum maintains that, like Shawn, he has always been a good ol' country boy at heart.

"Man, I don't think you understand how country my family is," he states. "I mean they are coun-try. When I first brought my fiancée home, my cousins and uncles were sitting up under the shed, drinking moonshine, and they were like, 'Goddamn boy, you got yourself a purdy one there!' She wasn't at all prepared for it." Tatum began to move into acting by way of a Ricky Martin music video (She Bangs) and the TV show CSI: Miami. His big screen acting break came in 2005 opposite Samuel L Jackson in Coach Carter and the following year in the aforementioned Step Up.

But if ever anyone suspected that Tatum was just another pretty-boy-model-turned-actor with no acting chops, they need look no further than his moving turn as a conflicted Iraqi soldier in Kimberley Pierce's under-rated Stop-Loss, and, in particular, his electrifying performance opposite Shia LaBeouf and Robert Downey Jnr in A Guide to Recognising Your Saints, directed by Dito Montiel, based on the director's own experiences of growing up in New York in the 1980s.

Tatum drew rave reviews for his role as the hot-headed Antonio, and earned an Independent Spirit Award nomination for his efforts. However, the star had to fight for that role, and convince Montiel (who also, incidentally, directs Fighting) that there was actual talent beneath his hunky exterior.

He explains: "Dito was like, 'Antonio is based on my own friend. He was 5ft 6, Italian, skinny and ugly. There's no way I'm going to cast an Abercrombie model'. But he did finally." Does Tatum encounter that type of anti-pretty boy attitude from directors a lot? He thinks about his answer for a moment. "Maybe a little bit, but they find out your ability really quick. If you're a good actor and can do the job well, that's all that matters. I think being a model probably helped me more than it's hurt me."

As our allotted time comes to an end, I chastise Tatum for the fact that he has generated absolutely no sex/booze/drugs scandal that I can throw back in his face. Just what kind of 'rising young star' is he?

"I just keep everything behind closed doors," he laughs.

"My circle of friends is really tight. I try to keep a low profile. It probably helps that I don't like clubs in Los Angeles. I think they're really boring. "Mainly, I'm just working a lot. All I really do is work, and then come home and prepare for the next day's shoot or the next job, or I watch a movie or hang out with my fiancée or my dogs. There's no time to go out and get a DUI. I'm never going to be thrown into that category."

Fighting is released in cinemas today

- Declan Cashin