Khris Davis didn’t know who he was auditioning for when he first got the lines for an untitled draft about a boxer. They didn’t even tell him it was based on a true story at first. But he liked that there was a character arc — it’s more than actors often get at the start of auditions.
Somewhere along the way, he started to piece it together. And then it clicked: Oh, it’s George Foreman, he thought.
The movie, “Big George Foreman,” is now playing in theaters nationwide. He traces his path from poor youth to heavyweight champion, his crushing loss to Ali in Zaire which led him to give up boxing, all the way through his miraculous comeback to the sport at 45.
“A lot of people see George as the grill guy,” said director George Tillman Jr. “Some people see him as the boxer. I wanted to tell a story of things you don’t know.
Tillman Jr. (“The Hate U Give”) had been looking for the right actor for a while. Some had the acting chops but not the height. Some had the size but not the chops. And they had the added pressure that Foreman himself was producing. Then the 6-foot-4 Davis emerged. It would take a chemistry test with Sullivan Jones, who plays Muhammad Ali, to seal the deal.
Davis cut his teeth in the world of theatre, first in Philadelphia before making the leap to New York. Curiously, his big breakthrough came in 2016 with a play also about a boxer, as the lead in Marco Ramirez’s “The Royale” at the Lincoln Center Theater. It was loosely based on the life of heavyweight Jack Johnson. Davis’ Broadway debut came in 2017 with “Sweat.” Films also started to arrive, with roles in “Detroit” and Kathryn Bigelow’s “Judas and the Black Messiah.”
He had never had a challenge like George Foreman, but he used to give his all in the theater and he was going to do it here too.
“It didn’t occur to me to put on a big suit,” Davis said. “Why should I put on a big suit if I can gain weight? It never occurred to me to put on a bald cap. Why should I do it? I’m going to cut my hair. It never occurred to me to cut a corner.
Still, Tillman Jr. was a bit nervous when he sent Davis on a five-week break during which he was supposed to put on a lot of weight. He didn’t tell his star, but he had a backup plan of a big suit waiting for him. He also knew it was an imperfect solution: what would it look like when the shirts came off in the ring?
But he didn’t need to worry. When Davis returned, Tillman was shocked to find that he had actually gained 50 pounds in five weeks, going from 225 pounds to a heavyweight 275.
“I didn’t know my body could do that,” Davis said. “And sometimes I look at the pictures and I’m still in shock because I can’t believe I managed to do this to myself. I was eating 7,000 calories a day. The heaviest I had was of 282.
He said it was emotionally difficult for him to look in the mirror and see “Khris” going through this. That’s when he cut his hair, shaved his beard, took off his shirt, looked in the mirror and saw “George” instead.
“I said, ‘There you go. There it is,” Davis said. “Every calorie I ate was worth it because it worked and I could see it building all around me. It was crazy. It was intense. But I think the effort was worth it.
Boxing was another challenge, full of intricate choreography and a number system for where punches were going to go. And they got to a certain point where they were comfortable enough to make “real contact” with the punches. During the staging of Ali’s fight in Zaire, he believes he received around 45 punches in the face. Davis also got his hits.
“Those weren’t easy, soft shots,” Davis said. “If they had muted the sound and let you hear my gloves hitting his body, that was shocking.”
And in the lead, there was always the real person he was playing.
“He was always a bit overlooked and bypassed. Mr. Foreman shouldn’t have been as much of an underdog as he was in his life,” Davis said.
“People talked about his rage. And while I was watching interviews and watching him on talk shows and TV shows, I kept seeing this guy smile and I was like, ‘Wait a minute. Hold on, hold on. You say he’s a crazy, deranged, mean guy, but this guy smiles so much, he laughs, belly laughs out loud.
“I was like, ‘There’s a sweet person in there with a big heart. I can see him.’ So I wanted to wear that not just in the second half.
Davis continued, “People think he learned to do that when he came back. No, that’s what he’s always been. But in the second half of his life, he didn’t have to commit to character anymore… That’s his story. It’s not my story. Of course, part of my legacy is tied to his story because I tell his story, but it’s his. It is truly a continuation of his legacy. I just didn’t want to disappoint him.
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