Playing George Foreman “felt like an impossibility” for actor Khris Davis — and then, transformative

What do you know about George Foreman? A brilliant South African proverb reads, "Until the lion learns how to write, every story will glorify the hunter." Those words perfectly sum up the danger of a single story and why everything that many of us knew about Foreman came through the lens of Muhammad Ali.

"Foreman is big, slow and boring," Ali sang in the most exciting way during interviews and press conferences, every chance he got to create a narrative around the other boxer's identity. Ali was powerful, vocally advanced and always in our face — the opposite of Foreman — so we listened.

Actor Khris Davis, who plays Foreman in the biopic "Big George Foreman," in theaters now, recalled how his understanding of his character was initially skewed as well — until he read the fighter's autobiography. "This guy was the most incredible person that I had ever learned about," Davis, known for his roles in "Judas and the Black Messiah," "Atlanta" and Broadway's latest run of "Death of a Salesman," told me on "Salon Talks." 

"Big George Foreman" details the boxer's fascinating journey from poverty to stardom. People unfamiliar with Foreman's story will learn that he was a family man and a genius fighter who shot to the top of his sport with little to no experience. After Foreman retired, he ran a youth program to provide a positive outlet for impoverished kids.

The combination of money troubles and a prophetic dream from his wife caused Foreman to abandon retirement and return to boxing, where he became the oldest heavyweight champion in history. Davis shared the physical transformation he endured to embody that version of Foreman, including eating 7,000 calories a day to gain 50 pounds in five weeks.

Davis said the role was transformative and put him "through the wringer."

"This role changed me tremendously," he said. "Doing this role felt like an impossibility for me, because how could I do the scope of this man in this short amount of time that I had to train, to then film? That felt like an impossibility."

Watch my "Salon Talks" episode with Khris Davis here or read a Q&A of our conversation below to learn more about his intense preparation, including meeting Foreman, and how this role changed his life forever.

The following conversation has been lightly edited for length and clarity.

Are you a fighter? Because you made it look easy in the film. And on "Atlanta" you beat the s**t out of Donald Glover.

Am I a fighter? I would say I am a fighter. But am I a fighter in the sense of being a trained boxer? I wasn't before this film, no.

What drew you to this role? 

What drew me to this role was I think the emotional context of the role. It had so many variations on growth and the deep-rooted love and self-identity that George Foreman had from the time that he was a kid, all the way up to when he won the heavyweight championship belt again. I thought that spectrum would be nice to play with all those challenges that life gives him.

Do you remember when he made that comeback in the nineties?

All I remembered was that he was the grill guy, the Meineke guy. And then when I thought about him as a fighter, all I knew was that he was the hurdle that [Muhammad] Ali had to get over. When I saw the script and I saw how in-depth his life was and I read his autobiography — and I felt like his autobiography could be 20 different limited series episodes — I thought that this guy was the most incredible person that I had ever learned about.

How did you become George?

I didn't become George, because I'm not Mr. Foreman. I could never be Mr. Foreman. What I could do was try to give a proper representation of his experience at that time to emulate some of his essence as best as I could. If I could do that and get as close to that, then I think that I was doing the right job. 

The thing about Mr. Foreman is that he's like a deep, deep lockbox. You open up one box and there's another one. You open up another one, there's another one. So you'll never really understand who he is if he doesn't want you to. All I had were all these interviews that he did, whether it was boxing as the heavyweight champion or the Olympic champion, or even as a pastor. I didn't have any personal information on him. There were no interviews of him just talking to his wife or hanging out with his children. I didn't have anything like that, so I had to go down to Texas for three days just to see how he lived, just to see how he talked to his children, how he was when he was in his personal space, to try to get an understanding of that, because we weren't telling a movie about a series of interviews.

Now if that was the case, then I could pinpoint what the interviews were like and I could emulate that. But what I had to do was, I had to tell the story of the human being, and the human being is the person off the camera, so I had to find that essence by going down and spending some time with him and try to marry the two ideas together.

Do you find biopics to be more difficult?

Now, I don't find them to be more difficult. I think that there's a little more pressure to it, especially when they're somebody as well-known as Mr. Foreman. I mean, you could do a biopic about somebody who lived a hundred years ago, but they're not around, so I'm sure you have a lot of artistic license to do whatever you want. No one's going to question that, right?

Right.

But Mr. Foreman is still around.

And he can fight!

And he can fight for real. So then there's that aspect. Was I ever a fighter? I had never had any boxing training. So I have to get into the ring — not only do this human emotional integrity, I got to get into the ring — and I have to fight like Mr. Foreman, and he had a very specific and unique style. That was probably one of the most challenging parts of doing this role for me.

What about physical transformation? Did that help you get into the role more?

The first half, the physical transformation felt pretty standard for my own physique. Because Mr. Foreman and I, when he was the heavyweight champion, even the Olympic champion, have about the same weight, the same height, the same build.

Really?

Yes, sir.

He always looked like he was so much bigger.

So they called him Big George Foreman because at that time he was about 225 pounds as a heavyweight. That was heavy as a heavyweight. They were coming to 205, 210. He's coming in at 225, he's huge. And he was, what, 6' 3" with some change? So that's a big guy, especially standing next to Joe Frazier. That's a big dude, man. So the transformation, in the beginning, felt pretty natural. It was the second transformation that I had to go through that felt insane, that I think helped me tremendously telling that second half of the film, going from 225 pounds to 275 pounds in five weeks.

So you ate and you bulked up like that? Or did you have a suit?

No, no, man, that was all me. They wanted to put a fat suit on me. At first they didn't, so we took six weeks off filming. We filmed in the first block, younger years, heavyweight champion years, and then we took six weeks off for me to gain weight. The first week the producer's calling me, he called me two days in and was like, "How's your weight?" I'm like, "Man, it's been two days. So I'm not 50 pounds heavier in two days." 

A couple more days go by, he calls me again and he's calling other people, trying to get them to check on my weight and X, Y, and Z. So I called him, I said, "Hey man, what's going on?" And he said, "I just got out of a meeting and we're talking about fitting you for a fat suit." And I got upset, because here I am: I had a plan right from a nutritionist to go 4,000 calories a day on days when I wasn't working, 5,000 on days where I was filming, 6,000 calories a day when I was training, so I was never going to make weight. So I had to readjust the program, and I bumped it up to 7,000 calories a day.

So why I was upset was because — here I am eating 7,000 calories a day. An impossibility, it felt like at that time. It's painful. I'm putting my body through all of this stress, and you're telling me you don't have faith in me that I could do it. So I told him, I said, "Look, y'all coming back in five weeks, right?" He said, "Yeah, sure." I said, "OK, well, come back in five weeks, look at my body. If you think I need a fat suit, let's put it on." So in five weeks, I put on 50 pounds and we didn't need the fat suit. Cut my 'fro and everything.

My whole life, I've been told George Foreman's story through the lens of Muhammad Ali.

Yes, right, exactly.

That one fight sometimes overshadows the fact that George was the oldest heavyweight champion that we've had to date. How do you think his narrative is going to change after this comes out?

Well, that's one of the most exciting things about doing this film. And that's what excited me about telling this narrative. Because even before I saw this script, I was always asking myself, "What about George Foreman's story?" Because we're always overlooking him. Because again, he was the hurdle that Ali had to get over. So when I read his autobiography, I was floored. I couldn't believe the story this dude had. I didn't even know he was an Olympic champion. And that journey from poverty to becoming an Olympic champion in one year, from the first time he put gloves on, an impossibility. To then becoming the heavyweight champion of the world, another impossibility, right?

He's a phenom.

He's a phenom. But his fighting style, what I thought would be exciting to do with this film was to show that Mr. Foreman actually could fight. People called him a zombie, they thought he was just a slugger. But he's probably one of the most smartest fighters that ever stepped foot in the ring, and that's why he's George Foreman, not because he could just knock people out, but because he was a smart fighter. That's why he could come back and he could win the heavyweight championship belt again in his forties — not because he was a slugger, but because he's a smart fighter. What I am really hoping that people learn about him and hopefully about themselves, is that not only follow the path, your purpose — because your dream and your purpose can be two different things — but that when you're really true to who you are, that purpose won't falter. And you'll get the things that you want, and you'll get the things that you're asking God for, if you believe in God, or whatever you call to. That the only thing stopping you really is you sometimes.

Do you feel like this role changed you?

I do feel like this role changed me tremendously. Doing this role felt like an impossibility for me because how could I do the scope of this man in this short amount of time that I had to train, to then film? That felt like an impossibility. So it challenged me in ways as an actor and as an individual that I didn't think that I would be able to accomplish, not at this point in my life. I thought I was going to have to go through much more. But this put me through the wringer, man.

So when you were getting back in shape after the film, did you use the Foreman Grill?

They should bring it back. No, I didn't use the Foreman Grill after filming. I didn't even get a Foreman Grill.

We're going to send you a Foreman Grill.

I appreciate that, man. No, I did use the Foreman Grill though in college though. I made everything on that, man. That thing is so thorough. You could make ramen noodles on a Foreman Grill.

I think your performance in "Big George Foreman" was as transformative as your performance in "Death of a Salesman." Do you have a preference between the camera and the stage?

I thought that I did before doing "George Foreman." Because in theater, there's a lot of stories that have been well fleshed out, they have a strong legacy, like "Death of a Salesman." So being a theater actor, I go to theater for the intellectual integrity of the story, and I thought that I would go to film to put pieces together and hopefully tell a full story. But after doing "George Foreman," that idea has changed. I now have been schooled, in a way, to what is possible when it comes to telling a full-scope story, well fleshed-out story on film. They both require immense, immense work and discipline to do.

I mean, "Death of a Salesman," one of the great American plays of all time — to play Biff on Broadway, never thought that was ever going to happen. Wanted it to, hoped that it would, but that job was extremely difficult. Not just because of the play itself, but there's a huge responsibility to the emotional context of the story and that journey. I take the journey of the story very seriously. So for me, it doesn't matter what modality you're telling this story, this story is the most important part of it.