‘Blue Valentine’ Director Channing Tatum Says His Refusal to Participate Wasn’t ‘Sarcastic’ (Exclusive)

Channing Tatum may have shot down Derek Cianfrance, but the filmmaker isn’t blaming him.

When Cianfrance, 51, began work on the 2010 drama Blue Valentine, which he directed and co-wrote, he had Tatum in mind for the male lead role. However, the 45-year-old actor, who was on the rise at the time, turned down the role.

The role ultimately went to Ryan Gosling, with Cianfrance later co-starring with him in The Place Beyond the Pines, but the director told PEOPLE last month that he “didn’t feel betrayed” by Tatum’s decision. In fact, he explained that he remembers Channing’s kindness at that time more than anything.

“He was very generous and kind and really cared,” Cianfrance said of Tatum at a special screening of the film “Roofman” in New York City on September 8.

“I didn’t think he was an asshole,” the coach continued. “He was like, ‘I love your script, but I don’t know who this guy is.'” I loved him. I didn’t feel betrayed or pushed away by him. I loved him. ”

The director, who had envisioned Tatum in “Blue Valentine” since seeing him in the 2006 drama “A Guide to Recognizing the Saints,” continued to tease the actor-turned-friend’s prolific acting after Tatum turned down the role.

“So from that moment on, I started seeing him in a lot of movies,” the director joked, adding, “Apparently he said ‘yes’ to a lot of other filmmakers, which is fine. I didn’t hold it against him.”

Blue Valentine depicts the love story of a couple, Dean and Cindy, played by Gosling and Michelle Williams, who received an Oscar nomination for Best Actress for her performance. Although Tatum turned down the role of Dean, he later accepted another role in the Cianfrance film, “Roofman.”

Roofman played Jeffrey Manchester, a real-life inmate who became famous for robbing 45 McDonald’s stores and spending six months hiding inside a Toys R Us store to evade arrest. In addition to the talents of co-stars Kirsten Dunst, Peter Dinklage, Juno Temple, and LaKeith Stanfield, the director tells PEOPLE that the film showcases all the sides of Tatum that first attracted Cianfrance.

The Blue Valentine director said of Tatum, “I loved his acting. When he played romantic protagonists, like in the movies, he was incredibly romantic. In the action movies, he was like the ultimate action star. And in the comedies, he was hilarious. And in the dramas, he was great,” adding, “After watching him for so many years, I loved him more and more.”

“And I think what I wanted to do with ‘Roofman’ was be able to see all sides of him, very complex and contradictory sides. And I wanted all those sides of Channing Tatum to be a soup, or a stew, in one movie,” he added.

And Cianfrance could see a lot of the She’s the Man actor in Jeffree, because “Jeff has a real inner child that lives inside him, and Channing is the same way,” he tells PEOPLE. “Channing is a bit of a Peter Pan character.”

Cianfrance met with Tatum for hours (learning about “his regrets, love, loss, etc.,” according to the director) and spent nine months rewriting the original Roofman script with Tatum in mind. He then gave the script to Tatum, and this time Tatum also participated. “I felt very grateful and relieved,” Cianfrance recalled.

About Roofman, the filmmaker told PEOPLE, “I wanted to make the kind of movies that they were making in the ’70s, ’80s and ’90s: pure, original, crazy stories. And in the end, one day we were filming in this toy store in North Carolina, and it was alive, and Channing Tatum was in his underwear and wearing Healys.”

“And I thought, ‘Okay, dreams do come true.'”

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“Roofman” will be released in theaters on October 10th.