When Jada Pinkett Smith got the call from her agent about the “Magic Mike” sequel script, there was something she needed to know: Her part as Rome, the owner of a male strip club, was written for a man. “I was like, OK?” she said.
She was skeptical, if intrigued.
Pinkett Smith had actually been thinking about the world of strippers; though she’d never set foot in a strip club, she had just wrapped a documentary for CNN in Atlanta that dealt with strip clubs and sex trafficking.
She agreed to Skype with “Magic Mike” star and producer Channing Tatum and director Gregory Jacobs. “That was a very interesting call,” she said.
Originally, Tatum had wanted Jamie Foxx for the role. He wanted to show people the side of Foxx he’d seen during a fun party, but it didn’t work out “for a lot of reasons.”
It ended up being the best thing for the film, which comes out Wednesday.