From Camden to Hollywood: actor Khris Davis’ journey from Creative Arts Academy to playing legendary boxer George Foreman

After a lifetime on stage and more than a decade working in the film industry, an actor from Camden is all set to play the lead role in a Hollywood tentpole.

Khris Davis will play the eponymous boxing icon in the upcoming biopic Big George Foreman: The Miraculous Story of the Once and Future Heavyweight Champion of the World. The film covers two decades of the boxing legend-turned-entrepreneur’s life.

Davis grew up in East Camden, where he was born into a family of singers. He got some of his earliest theater experience at Miller’s Temple Church of God in Palmyra, acting in religious skits his mother wrote. By the time Davis started high school, his family had moved to Columbus, Ohio.

Then the Creative Arts Academy, a new performing arts school, opened in his hometown. The budding actor wanted to return to Camden so bad that he asked to move in with his grandmother. Davis’ family ended up coming back and he enrolled in the academy as a junior and graduated in 2004.

In those two years, he made a name for himself as one of the school’s top talents, recalled the school’s founding Principal Davida Coe-Brockington. “He was really special…always stood out,” she said. “That’s why when he was there, he starred in many of our productions.” She remembered him doing a particularly strong job as the lead in a production of Shakespeare’s Othello.

After auditioning for the role of George Foreman virtually during the early days of the pandemic, Davis prepared by spending three days with the boxer at his home in Houston before traveling to New Orleans to shoot, the actor told The Inquirer.

“I had to remind myself to talk, to ask some questions, because when you’re sitting in front of someone with such an incredible legacy, all you can do is stare at them and the magnificence of what they accomplished,” Davis said.

The filming process was enjoyable but grueling for Davis. It was shot out of chronological order and on a tight schedule, so the actor had to gain and lose large amounts of weight on a weekly basis. He also relied heavily on the acting chops he developed while in school in Camden.

Acting was an important part of Davis’ childhood, but he also excelled on the football field. The Camden City School District allowed the actor to play as a defensive end on the Woodrow Wilson High School (now, Eastside High School) football team, where his performance garnered him several college scholarship offers. But by the time Davis was ready to graduate, he had no interest in becoming a college athlete. He chose to pursue his acting dreams instead.

Starting out as an extra on the set of the 2006 drama Annapolis, he then enrolled at the Cheyney University of Pennsylvania in Delaware County — the oldest historically Black college in the nation — as a theater major.

For the now-Brooklyn based actor, who recently appeared in Judas and the Black Messiah and Space Jam: A New Legacy, his hometown will always hold a special place. “I will always keep an open door for my community and people back in Camden,” he said. “I think it’s important that they have access to the things I’m experiencing as much as they can.”

When he was cast in the Broadway revival of Death of a Salesman last year, Davis invited 100 students from his high school to New York City to watch one of his shows. The opportunity was inspiring for the teens and made a successful career in the arts seem possible for them, Coe-Brockington said.

Davis hopes his story and Foreman’s will serve as a reminder for audiences that their dreams are attainable if they stay focused and work hard.

“I hope they take away [from Big George Foreman] a sense of not just believing in yourself, but finding who you are and holding on to that at all costs,” Davis said. “That’s what Mr. Foreman’s story is about.”

‘Big George Foreman’ releases in theaters on April 28.