‘HIM’ Star Tyriq Withers on Going from the Gridiron to the Big Screen

At one point in HIM, the Justin Tipping-directed horror out Sept. 22, football phenom Cameron “Cam” Cade, played by Tyriq Withers, gets into a fight with legendary quarterback Isaiah White, played by Marlon Wayans. The scene is bloody and intense, and took three days to shoot. But Withers has an unorthodox view on the experience.

“It was one of the most wholesome things,” Withers says over Zoom from Los Angeles. “That’s probably not what it looks like, but that’s when I realized we’re all just trying our best. Me and [Marlon], both shirtless, figuring it out.”

Withers, 27, is a former Division I athlete who played wide receiver for the Florida State Seminoles in 2017 — so he was the perfect choice to portray Cam, a quarterback who goes to disturbing lengths to prove his worthiness to White. Withers’ pivot to acting began with a play put on by FSU’s Black Student Union, and led eventually to roles in the CW series Legacies, Tell Me Lies, and The Game. Earlier this year, he starred as Teddy Spencer in I Know What You Did Last Summer, the fourth film in the decades-long slasher franchise. Now, with HIM, Withers is poised for a breakout moment.

As a former football player, Withers says was able to channel Cam’s athletic mindset — but he also realized the similarities between him and the character went beyond the gridiron. “I think we all can attest to wanting to be great at something,” he says. “Following Cameron’s journey, he’s rooted in proving himself to not only his parents, but the exterior factors of coaches. It’s a constant battle with what he can and can’t do. And he’s willing to commit his mind, soul, and body to get to the other side of success.” 

The Jacksonville, Florida, native underwent arduous physical conditioning for the role, including a six-day-a-week workout regimen and a three-day-a-week quarterback seminar with former NFLer Jordan Palmer alongside players vying to make the NFL. Withers had never played quarterback at any level, and had to learn the science of footwork, moving in open space, and the importance of hip rotation in the throwing motion. The physical preparation helped him deliver a convincing portrayal of college phenom Cam, who visits White — regarded as the “GOAT” quarterback in the HIM universe — at his sprawling desert compound for what the rookie thinks will be a pleasant passing-of-the-torch moment. 

But as White is grappling with retirement, the horrific training regimen that co-writers Tipping, Skip Bronkie, and Zack Akers crafted for the two characters is exponentially darker than any workout Tom Brady’s ever discussed. Wayans portrays White as the worst possible mentor: a brash, arrogant superstar with a hair-trigger temper and too many screws loose. White is the rare dramatic role for Wayans, part of a legendary comedy family that Withers jokes he’s now an “honorary” member of after their time filming. Withers calls collaborating with Wayans on set a “spiritual” experience, with the comedian often diffusing serious scenes with jokes. 

For Withers, Wayans “came into my life when I was yearning for brotherhood,” after losing his brother Kionte, who died in a car accident in 2021. “You look for the stems of brotherhood, and he comes from a family of brotherhood.” The two actors talked about loss and often shared laughter that reminded Withers of his brother. “Before going into this movie, I felt like grief was always this deep sorrow, which it is. But grief doesn’t need to be that always. I think grief is joy. Grief is going to the coffee shop or grabbing a beer that you and your brother used to share. And it’s weird because working with a comedian like Marlon, I feel most connected with my brother when I’m at the peaks of my laughter.”

Withers’ first time in front of the camera was for comedic social media skits that he filmed with his Seminoles teammates, before their coach banned social media during the season. As he grappled with leaving football behind, and sought a new sense of purpose, seeing people connect with his content gave him “satisfaction” and made him realize he had more to offer the world. And he says that after seeing some of his teammates not get to play in games until their fifth year of school, he had reservations about following their path. Pleasing his mother had been his previous inspiration to stick with football, but he realized that he needed a new North Star. That’s when he quit football and got involved with the Black Student Union and Diversity Inclusion Institute. The acting bug bit him while he was reciting lines for a school play, the first that the BSU had ever put on at Florida State. 

“I just fell in love with the preparation process,” Withers says of acting. “It felt like summer camp. We’re all getting together, learning the lines, but also challenging certain meanings and reconfiguring and figuring it out.” He says he was initially nervous onstage, but “then you’re in it and you lose yourself in it. And then you’re like, ‘Oh, that wasn’t so bad.’ I think some of the greatest things are on that other side of the obstacle.”

Tipping lauds Withers as “an emotional savant with a remarkable ability to calibrate his performance,” reflecting on one scene where Withers delivers a monologue that required him to “navigate a complex range of grief.” Tipping tells Rolling Stone in an email, “He landed the exact beat I asked for. I considered cutting when a plane passed overhead mid-take, drowning him out. Instead, he stayed in character, patiently waited, and completed the monologue seamlessly. The ability to balance external awareness with such emotional precision is a rare gift, and it left the crew in awe. Some of the crew were in tears on set.”

Withers, meanwhile, says Tipping “pushed me to a place that I didn’t even always see” on set. “With this film specifically, he understood the sinister side of telling a horror film, but also meshing it with the professional football world. He’s able to see it from all angles.”

The film bluntly communicates the danger of football on the body and brain, with X-ray-vision scenes that show players’ skeletons bearing the impact of hellacious hits. That said, Withers doesn’t view HIM as a cautionary tale; if anything, it made him gain “much more profound respect” for players, especially quarterbacks. “I think my relationship on football has not changed,” he says. “I’m grateful that I was able to tell this story that was rooted in football, and I think it allows insight for people who don’t really know football to understand the level of training and commitment it takes to be a quarterback.”

To Withers, HIM transcends the game, serving instead as a universal story of what we’re willing to sacrifice for our desires. He also appreciated the opportunity to present a more holistic portrayal of football players, who are often seen as the epitome of impassive masculinity. Cam, who grieves his father throughout the film, allowed Withers to show that even the toughest men in the world have their contemplative moments. He says that Tipping congratulated him after one particularly challenging scene. 

“Justin was like, ‘Thank you, you’re going to allow a lot of Black athletes to know that it is OK to feel that emotion [and] vulnerability,’” he says. “Football is masked in this armor of literal football pads. And it is a very physical sport and it’s easy to live in that masculinity. But also I think the greatest thing about masculinity is the level of vulnerability that one carries himself with. I lived within that in my own personal experiences, where I knew what it’s like to go from high school football to one of the greatest Division I football programs in the United States of America, and [having] that level of fear masked in this certain level of confidence. On the exterior there’s this, ‘I know what I’m doing,’ but in the interior, it’s like, I’m this little boy [who] just turned 18, trying to figure it out.”