Forest Whitaker
Forest Whitaker
Forest Steven Whitaker IIIis an American actor, director, and producer...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionMovie Actor
Date of Birth15 July 1961
CityLongview, TX
CountryUnited States of America
character thinking people
I care about people. In the end, I think they feel it. It comes across, regardless of the character I'm portraying.
healing humanity looks
I do look at that thematic of healing of humanity.
character tribes culture
I was pretty much consumed by this character. Even when I was off, I was continually searching to find something else new about [Idi] Amin, and to embed myself deeper into the culture to the point that, in the end, I was so entrenched that I could tell what tribe someone was from just by looking at them.
god believe next
And God, God who believes in us all. And who's given me this moment, in this lifetime, that I will hopefully carry to the end of my lifetime into the next lifetime.
character stay-true projects
I stay true, because whatever the project is, I'm still looking for inside of that character.
teacher art teaching
I went through two schools of acting but I learned more about acting from meditating and from my marshall arts teacher.
uganda blue skins
Since Idi Amin was from the Sudanese section in the north of Uganda, he was darker skinned. He had more of a blue undertone. So, we did change the coloring of my skin to be closer to his. But otherwise, there were no transformations besides acting.
trying different push-yourself
There's a thing you confront when you're going into something new and you come to this sort of abyss, and then you push yourself. It makes you try different things.
empowering community wealth
The true wealth of a community is measured by how carefully it listens to its women and how sincerely it values their wisdom. Empowering women empowers us all.
stereotype walks
Stereotypes do exist, but we have to walk through them.
eye needs fronts
We have to not just open our eyes to what's going on in other places; we need to open our eyes to what's going on right in front of us.
trying forests growing
I try to be like a forest: revitalizing and constantly growing.
kings character long
On the very last day of shooting [of The Last King of Scotlang], I remember wanting to get the [Idi Amin] character out of me right away, as much as I could. You literally take a bath to wash him off you. Luckily, I went into another part not so long afterwards, so I was kind of able to push it away a little bit. But speech patterns, and little sounds, particularly colloquial things, like the way you ask questions or might respond, were sticking with me, probably because I'd worked so hard to make it a part of my everyday way of expressing myself.
jobs views colonialism
Visit to Africa reshaped my point-of-view of colonialism. It reshaped my point-of-view of my own sense of source, and my own place of birth. It made it more organic inside of me, because it placed me in a position where my job was to understand and to become more African.