‘Him’ actor Tyriq Withers says his role was inspired by his real-life football background. What else the rising star has been in, and what’s next.

Horror has found its new rising star with Him actor Tyriq Withers. The 27-year-old leads director Justin Tipping’s sports-centered horror movie as Cameron, a professional football newcomer who is thrilled when a legendary player, Isaiah (Marlon Wayans), offers to mentor him. But as weird stuff starts happening around the young athlete, he realizes that Isaiah may not be the role model he wants after all, and that success on the field comes with many sacrifices.

Though this is the first time for Withers leading a film, the actor has been making a name for himself in the industry for several years — and you may have even seen him onscreen before. Here’s what to know about Withers and why you might see a lot more of him in the future.

What has Tyriq Withers said about his role in Him?

Withers was no stranger to football prior to accepting the role in Him — in fact, he was a walk-on wideout for the Florida State football team.

He said his time on the football team inspired his character Cameron, and he was especially inspired by the “quiet boldness” of running back Dalvin Cook. “Somebody so talented yet so humble, walking with a certain level of integrity — that’s what I wanted to steal for my character,” Withers said.

Withers told Entertainment Weekly that he enjoyed the challenge of working through a range of emotions on Him, noting that one particular scene in which Tipping encouraged him to let out everything on the very first take.

“I just went to a different place where nothing was in the room, just a river of emotion and speaking from a real place,” he recalled of filming a particularly intense scene in the movie. “I was proud of that because it wasn’t acting at that point. It’s coming from a real place. I was most anxious for that, but I learned that sometimes you just have to let go, and that’s the best performance.”

He called Him a particularly “scary” film to make, not because of any supernatural horrors but because “you’re living in that vulnerability for a long time.”

What else has Tyriq Withers been in?

Withers’s first appeared on the small screen beginning in 2021, when he was appeared as a touring student on the supernatural CW series Legacies. After that, he appeared in the Black horror-focused documentary Horror Noire, which also featured director Jordan Peele, who produced the movie Him.

Later on that year, Withers appeared on six episodes of the reboot of The Game as Connor Tibbs, an aspiring NFL player. And in 2022, Withers starred in a standalone episode of Atlanta, where he played a biracial high school student named Aaron who is forced to confront other people’s perceptions of his race. He also appeared on the Hulu series Tell Me Lies as popular college student Tim.

Two years later, in 2024, Withers appeared in the remake of the 1991 black comedy Don’t Tell Mom the Babysitter’s Dead as Rock.

Why Tyriq Withers is having a major year

Before starring in Him, Withers appeared as part of the ensemble of July’s slasher flick I Know What You Did Last Summer, a sequel to the 1997 film of the same name. In the movie, he played a wealthy resident of Southport who is stalked alongside his friends — and ex-fiancée Danica, played by Madelyn Cline — by a serial killer in a fisherman’s slicker.

And that’s not the only major movie Withers has on his résumé. In April, it was announced that Withers had joined the cast of Reminders of Him, a new movie based on the 2022 novel by It Ends With Us author Colleen Hoover. The film is set for release on March 13, 2026.