The American actor as wrestling legend Mark Schultz in upcoming movie Foxcatcher, a real-life murder tale centered on an Olympic wrestler, his sponsor and his brother. Mark Schultz also studied Jiu-Jitsu under Pedro Sauer. In various interviews from the past Schultz has talked about his experience rolling with BJJ legend Rickson Gracie.

Strangely he describes Rickson as the 2nd toughest submission grappler he has ever faced. For Schultz, Walt Bayless was the best. Bayles is an American submission grappler that created his own style of ‘Combat Jiu-Jitsu’. Bayless may not be as famous as Rickson but in the early 90’s, he had a reputation among the BJJ/MMA community.

The role was physically demanding for Channing Tatum, who didn’t realise how hard wrestling was before he tried it out. He was always an athlete and had trained baseball and American football in college. He told the Belfast Telegraph:

“Wrestling is one of the most painful things I’ve ever done. I’ve played many sports but none like this. It’s the only sport I know where you have no down time, no time to pull away and dance around a bit,” “You’re just throwing bodies around and you get caught in different angles.” “Even in boxing you can back away and dance around a bit, but in wrestling you’re locked in combat with the other guy the whole time, and that’s it. It was an amazing discipline to learn, but I do not need to do it ever again.”

“Wrestling is an intimate thing,” Tatum adds. “It’s weird from an outsider’s perspective. ‘It’s very homosexual’ — I’ve gotten that a lot. I always say just come on and try it out, you’ll realize how non-homosexual it is. It’s too painful and violent.”

Check out the trailer for Foxcatcher trailer: