Actor Khris Davis, a graduate of Cheyney University, will be portraying former heavyweight champion George Foreman in the upcoming biopic “Big George Foreman” which opens April 28, writes Aaron Carter for The Philadelphia Inquirer.

It’s a long look back from the time he had to sell scrap metal for money.

Davis, a Camden native, drew on theater skills he refined at the Quintessence Theater Group in Mt.  Airy as he transformed his body for the role and even took some real punches.

Davis came out of the Creative Arts High School in Camden and was a 2009 cum laude graduate of Cheyney, where he joined the Omega Psi Phi Fraternity and earned a theater arts degree.

Alex Burns, the artistic director at the Quintessence Theater Group, remembers first meeting Davis at a 2010 audition for Othello.

“I remember it was one of those moments when you just kind of fell in love with him right away,” said Burns. “His energy was so powerful even then.”

Davis was pretty calm when he first got the news he’d be playing Foreman, adding, “But immediately I understood the responsibility that was going to go into it and I just wanted to get to work.”

Read more about Khris Davis in The Philadelphia Inquirer.

Check out the trailer for the Big George Foreman biopic,