Big George Foreman: Heavyweight icon, actor and director discuss latest boxing biopic

Despite the legendary life and career of two-time heavyweight champion George Foreman, he was never one to choose for a film about his life.

Why? Well, Foreman didn’t possess the flash of his former opponent Muhammad Ali, whose near-mythical life was chronicled in the 2001 biopic, Ali.

Outside the ring, Foreman also blossomed into a wonderful and deeply religious individual who doesn’t sell as well as villain Roberto DeNiro, who portrays Jake LaMotta wild bull.

But the other reason this biopic seemed like a near-impossible task is because of the many layers and narratives that needed to be covered. Along with a nearly three-decade boxing career (which broke into two very different parts), you’ve had a difficult upbringing, important relationships with friends and family, a religious conversion, a multi-million dollar grill machine, and a partridge in a pear tree.

As the long official title suggests, it is a “wonderful story”.

Big George Foreman: The wondrous story of the former and future world heavyweight champion hits theaters in the US and UK next Friday (April 28). And while it was highly anticipated, the film’s all-time great subject matter was quick to explain what a difficult task it was to be so insightful and transparent.

“It’s not easy to go out there and tell people about your life,” Foreman told The Sporting News during a media briefing. “For a long time I’ve made fun of religion, and I’ve made fun of people who are committed to religion.

“I’ve tried to hide that for a long time, but then a movie is made and part of it is about how I turned things around when I found God. It was’nt easy. I think everyone gets a chance [to pursue their religious convictions], but I took it. I jumped on a sailboat and floated all the way to where I am today.”

Actor Khris Davis took on the gargantuan task of playing one of the most famous athletes in history. If that’s not hard enough, Davis played Foreman as a teenager through midlife.

He carried less weight for the lean, hard-hitting version that won Olympic gold in Mexico in 1968, and he carried more weight for the plump, born-again Christian, who gave Michael Moorer a chin spot to regain the world heavyweight title 20 years after he had lost it to Ali.

Davis has worked hard and puts in an excellent performance, although he acknowledges that the transformation from actor to fighter and young man to older man has been more than arduous.

“The boxing practice was incredibly intense,” Davis told The Sporting News. “You can’t prepare for it if you’ve never done it before (laughs). I can’t explain to you how much pain you feel during combat training or what it feels like to train for the first time unless you do it.

“In a way you had to be initiated, and Darrell Foster, my fight coach, wanted to treat it like fight camp and not like we were training for a movie.

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“And also the physical ability to get in shape is one thing, but then playing the span of 17 [years old] into the 30’s and into the 40’s, it all comes from a very deep and rooted theater background that I have.

“So to be able to bring those tools into the film; Being able to jump back and forth from week to week, sometimes day to day, from 17 to 32 and swing my weight week to week has been part of the journey. Nothing about it was easy.”

It’s immediately apparent that the project was a labor of love for director George Tillman Jr., who stood next to Davis during the media call. Tillman, who directed DeNiro and Cuba Gooding Jr men of Honor (2000) and also chronicled the life and death of rap star Notorious BIG in Notorious (2009), has been diligent in capturing the authenticity of Foreman’s life and ring career.

“Yeah, I mean, the biggest thing was that a lot of those fights, three of them, are some of the biggest and most important fights in heavyweight history,” Tillman said. “There was always concern about doing it right. If you look at the eighth round of the Ali Foreman fight… that was a question I had for George: ‘What was on his mind at that particular time?’

“He said he couldn’t believe Ali was still standing and taking all those punches. At this point [in the fight] It’s a mind game, as are the punches and the physicality. That’s what I wanted to capture as a director. I wanted the audience to see this film and this fight while saying, ‘Please stop, stop, stop and slow down!’

“We’re telling it from George’s perspective, not someone else’s perspective. With a committed actor like Khris, we were there… we went for it.”

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Even for someone who knows Foreman’s career with the same familiarity as a nursery rhyme, the film works extremely well. The only parts of the ex-champion’s career that were regrettably missing were the second-round annihilation of Ken Norton in 1974 and the 1976 shootout with Ron Lyle, which later became The Ring Magazine Fight of the Year became. Apart from that, all other signature fights are included: Ali, Joe Frazier, Jimmy Young, Evander Holyfield and of course Moorer.

And the man himself? What did “Big” George Foreman take away after seeing his story on screen?

“In that film, I saw for myself how one can actually live without hope in this current world,” Foreman told The Sporting News. “Hope didn’t exist. I had no hope, but still you start at the bottom and keep working.

“Eventually I discovered (coach) Doc Broadus who gave me hope. I think anyone can walk away from this film and say, ‘If George can do what he did, then surely I can do something now.’ You can go with hope.”