Grooming by Annette Chaisson for Exclusive Artists and Lab Series.
Roommates, confidants, and comedic sparring partners, actors Nicholas Duvernay and Tyriq Withers have blazed onto the Hollywood scene with a fresh burst of cinematic energy. Even when they’re holed up in separate rooms under the same roof (yes, they hopped on Zoom for this interview despite living together), the pair can’t help but feed off each other’s enthusiasm, animatedly swapping set stoires of Florida State football fields and Thailand’s serenity.
This Sunday, Duvernay will be seen on the season finale of The White Lotus, flexing his emotional range in Thailand among an all-star cast as he plays the son of series lead Natasha Rothwell, a massage therapist trying to dodge murder at an idyllic resort. Meanwhile, Withers is fresh off filming Jordan Peele-produced film Him with Marlon Wayans and Julia Fox, in which a young football player heads to an isolated compound for training with an aging star.
In this conversation, the two invite us behind the scenes of an ever-evolving entertainment landscape—one that requires crying on command, off-the-cuff auditions, and, apparently, sharing flats with other aspiring young talents. Luckily, both halves of this duo are poised to become “the next big thing.”
Nicholas Duvernay: Why is my heart beating a little bit? I'm nervous, bro.
Tyriq Withers: Why don't we start off with, why acting? What drew you to it?
Duvernay: I started acting around my family. I just cried on cue. And my mom was like, "Look at him! Why is he crying on cue? Why is he able to do that?" And then eventually they're like, "Okay, we gotta find a way to utilize this."
Withers: I bet you got out of a lot of trouble.
Duvernay: I was the boy that cried wolf. If you said anything to me, I'm crying. I'm milking it.
Withers: I have siblings, so I understand how important that performance is in front of the parents. That's actually such an interesting thing, because I don't think we talk about that being our initial way of acting. We always go to our first acting class, or our first on set experience.
Duvernay: We all act in one way or another—especially during our upbringing. This is just a controlled environment with a script, but we all do it in a way.
Withers: Everybody's performing. If you're a salesman, if you are a doctor, there's part of what you do that's performing. You started your acting career in Atlanta. Tell me about some of the pros and cons, the struggles that you faced doing that.
Duvernay: Growing up in Atlanta, especially being mixed, you're caught almost in between two different cultures. You're not black enough, or you're not white enough. When they put out a breakdown [on a casting call], you're like, Am I even going to be what they want? Should I even submit for this? Having to really deep dive and figure out what things mean for you, and really try and find some sense of direction, because bouncing in between is just very confusing.
Withers: That's so interesting, because I think being mixed, our identity is so traumatic. I've had this experience as well, like not knowing where to sit. You get that audition, and you're like, Am I white enough for it? I have to wear my hair a certain way.
Duvernay: You just finished doing some reshoots and pickups. Tell me what that experience was like. Were you hesitant to let go of the hair? Were you excited for it?
Withers: Hell no. I grow my hair and just keep growing it that way. I'm learning to love who I am and like my hair as it is. College was [when] I was most uncomfortable with how my hair was. But actually, acting in Him, it was relieving to just shave it off and become a character. It was a difficult shoot in terms of prepping the body, getting there and then telling such a psychological story about the sport that America loves the most. And working with the Monkeypaw team [Peele's production studio], Universal Pictures, and [director] Justin Tipping—they push you to places that you couldn't have imagined.
Duvernay: I love wardrobe and clothing because it helps you step out of what you normally wear—especially with hair. You feel like a completely different person. It really helps to segue into somebody else, to serve the story.
Withers: Tell me a little bit about what Thailand was like working with the GOAT, Mike White, for The White Lotus.
Duvernay: Man, it really was like an actor's dream. You get to travel to another country for six months—which was the longest I've ever been away from home—and you're staying in the craziest hotels I've ever seen. I've never stayed in the Four Seasons in my life until White Lotus. It had the most beautiful beaches. It's such a calm place. We spent most of our time in Koh Samui, which is this island—there's like 150 islands in Thailand—but this one specifically was just so chill and calm.
Withers: So we're moving to Thailand, is what I'm hearing.
Duvernay: I couldn't do it, personally. It's a very isolating experience. That was the biggest learning curve for me. I've always liked my alone time, but alone time is really only nice when it's your choice. This experience really taught me to sit with myself, and just make do with the time that I have. I got into Muay Thai. I was training every day habitually in the gym because I didn't know what else to do with my time there.
Withers: I can only try to imagine what it's like to work with so many powerhouses. Can you share some stuff that you've learned from anybody specific?
Duvernay: I feel like I learned more about the artistry as a whole when we're not on set—like at breakfast, lunch, dinner, when we're all sitting as a community and talking. You hear everybody's different perspectives, their different outlooks, their backgrounds and where they started. There's not a single weak link in this cast. I mean, it's Carrie Coon, Parker Posey, Jon Gries, Natasha Rothwell—the list goes on. Coming in as a young actor, you have all these people that you look up to, and with everything they say, you're hanging on edge, soaking it all in. That was really good for me because I talked a lot less, and I was listening a lot more. Everyone has a different method. It was dope. I know you played D1 football in college. What was that transition like coming from D1 football to artistry and acting, and what was the segue into that?
Grooming by Annette Chaisson for Exclusive Artists and Lab Series.
Withers: It's funny because of what you said about early on when you're crying and performing for your parents. I was acting like I knew what I was doing with football. I was just good at it. I ended up at the Orange Bowl; I played scout team, so I gave the ones and twos, but I never really touched the field. I was still on that team. Jimbo Fisher cussed me out a couple of times. Once he cusses you out, that's when you know you made it.
Duvernay: [As Fisher] Tyriq! You're playing like horseshit.
Withers: I always had that love for putting on a performance. I could have played football and eventually gone to the NFL, but I didn’t love it. What I really love is acting. There was this first-ever Black Student Union play at Florida State, and they had auditions. I remember I skipped practice. I went, and I turned the Will Smith scene from Fresh Prince of Bel-Air into a monologue. Everybody was moved, and then I got the part. I had to finesse practice with rehearsals for this play, and I started to fall in love with the theater community. I had to make a decision to leave football to instead pursue my love for performing and just growing as a human. That's what I love about acting—it's a human experience. We just put it on camera, and we channel certain things. I was obsessed. To answer your question, the experience of transitioning from sports to artistry is traumatic. I'm still dealing with the trauma of choosing art over sports because my value was placed on how well I played if I scored, and what team I got on if I went into the NFL. Acting has taught me how to become okay with myself and to channel and deal with certain emotions that I would normally take out on the field.
Duvernay: It's hard for that rejection not to feel personal. It's something that everyone says when you're coming up, they're like, "You gotta learn to take rejection," and yada yada yada. But [there's] one thing that stuck with me that my dad said. I was raised primarily in Georgia, so we were building a fence. I remember getting frustrated at digging these holes. Georgia is clay, it's not dirt, so you can't dig through the clay—it's impossible. He told me this: “Persistence overcomes resistance.” That stuck with me. It's just, how long are you willing to wait for it? Are you going to stick around for it? Because it's not an overnight game. If you could swap roles in any of your previous projects, what would it be? Let's pick one. If you could swap roles with anyone in Him?
Withers: Definitely have to swap roles with Marlon Wayans. I had fun, but Marlon had so much fun. His character is like the veteran, so he can move a little more freely. Marlon took that character to a whole other place that you can't even fathom. It was so deep, psychotic, and it was matched with such levity, because he has comedy chops. I had a conversation with Jordan Peele and he said, "I know I'm making something good when I'm looking around and saying, 'Should we be making this?'" I just love the conversations that he brings to the table. I think my purpose in this industry is to serve as a vessel for many causes, many messages to be sent out into the world. This movie allowed me to serve as a vessel for many Black athletes who witnessed putting their body, their mind, their morality on the line. Jordan doesn't shy away from those types of stories. It's going to be exciting for a lot of people who love and don't even love football, because football to this script is what ballet is to Black Swan, you know? I would love for you to tell me about your best and worst day, working on White Lotus.
Duvernay: My best and worst day were actually on the same day. I had a scene—a scene I was particularly excited about—and I woke up that morning with food poisoning. Deathly ill, like maybe I should have gone to the hospital. It was a very big point in my arc, so as an actor, as Nicholas, I'm like, Yo, it's gotta happen. We can't stay at this location another day, this monster of a scene has to get done. It was probably my best day, because in the end, we prevailed and we got it done, but it was the hardest day of work of my life. That's when I was like, Okay, I really love this, because to do that sick and already overthinking the performance, and then trying to do good by Mike White's amazing writing... it felt like my whole career came to a peak while battling food poisoning.
Withers: It is beautiful, and in such an ugly way. Everything you had to overcome, you used it. That's also the scary thing too: film is forever. I'm excited to see how the season ends. I'm super proud and thankful that we got to have this conversation, and share a little bit about our worlds to the world.
Duvernay: Absolutely. Like, we live together, and these are questions that we haven't even asked each other.
Withers: We shall continue this conversation in the kitchen.
