‘Gambit’ Star Channing Tatum and Producer Reid Carolin Talk Accents, Costumes and the ‘X-Men’ Universe

Now that Magic Mike XXL has been unleashed in theaters, we’re all moving on to Channing Tatum’s next big project: Gambit. The X-Men superhero’s solo movie was one we never thought could reasonably happen, especially after the horror of X-Men Origins: Wolverine. But we’re in a new, better X-Men era, and Tatum — along with his producing partner Reid Carolin — are giving us even more hope with their latest update on the film.

In an interview with DigitalSpy, Tatum and Carolin talked quite a bit about Gambit and what fans can expect from the solo superhero film, which is being directed by Rupert Wyatt. Tatum has been learning card tricks from legit, renowned magician David Kwong, who also acted as a supervisor on Now You See Me.

In addition to that, Tatum is also currently working on how to approach his accent in order to play the Cajun mutant:

I’m from the south, so I know who to go to to find the accent. I haven’t found ‘the guy’ yet, because generally that’s how I do accents. I’ll find the person I want to sound like and not just do a generic Cajun accent. So I haven’t found the guy yet.

Tatum unfortunately couldn’t say much about the costume, though he did say it would be “relative to reality,” so we can expect his hero to be a bit more grounded. As for how Gambit will fit into the X-Men universe, Carolin had this to offer:

This is a standalone movie and it’s the story of Gambit and we’ll probably gradually integrate that character into the X-Men universe as we go. As far as what characters from the X-Men universe make it into the movie — we’re not exactly sure yet, so we’re figuring it out. It’s still at the script stage… It’s his story in New Orleans.

Gambit hits theaters on October 7, 2016.