Forest Whitaker - biography

“As an actor, I’ve always wanted to do characters that would help me find my connection with others and connect all of us together.  You always want the energy of the character, the spirit of the person, to enter you.  I’ve been doing this for 26 years and some of the things I’ve done are always with me.”

“I really wasn’t even sure if I should continue acting.  I would like try and figure out if I could be good enough to do it.  It was like 10 or 12 years into my career before I felt like maybe I can do it.  It was such a different time than now.”

“I’m an actor.  And I guess I’ve done so many movies I’ve achieved some high visibility.  But a star?  I guess I still think of myself as kind of a worker ant.”

“It is possible for a kid from east Texas, raised in south central LA and Carson, who believes in his dreams, commits himself to them with his heart, to touch them and to have them happen.”

“In a lot of films, they’re showing more complete, developed characters of diverse ethnic backgrounds.  The larger concern is to be able to tastefully explore the stereotypes, and still move past them to see the core of people.”

“When I was a kid, the only way I saw movies was from the back seat of my family’s car at the drive-in.”

“My parents moved to Los Angeles when I was really young, but I spent every summer with my grandparents, and I’d stay with my grandfather on the farm in Longview.  He was retired from the railroad, and he had a small farm with some cows and some pigs.  I remember part of my youth was feeding hogs and plowing fields and stuff, so that’s a part of me.”

“I can play a man who’s despicable.  But I’ll still look inside him to find a point of connection.  If I can find that kernel, audiences will relate to me.”

“I care about people.  In the end, I think they feel it.  It comes across, regardless of the character I’m portraying.”

“Stereotypes do exist, but we have to walk through them.”

Forest Whitaker has appeared in the following films:
Fast Times at Ridgemont High (1982)
Vision Quest (1985)
Platoon (1986)
The Color of Money (1986)
Good Morning, Vietnam (1987)
Stakeout (1987)
Bird (1988)
Bloodsport (1988)
Johnny Handsome (1989)
Downtown (1990)
Diary of a Hitman (1991)
A Rage in Harlem (1991)
Consenting Adults (1992)
Article 99 (1992)
The Crying Game (1992)
Bank Robber (1993)
Body Snatchers (1993)
Blown Away (1994)
Jason’s Lyric (1994)
Smoke (1995)
Species (1995)
Phenomenon (1996)
Body Count (1998)
Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai (1999)
Light It Up (1999)
Battlefield Earth: A Saga of the Year 3000 (2000)
The Fourth Angel (2001)
Green Dragon (2001)
Panic Room (2002)
Phone Booth (2002)
American Gun (2005)
Mary (2005)
A Little Trip to Heaven (2005)
Everyone’s Hero (2006)
Even Money (2006)
The Last King of Scotland (2006)
The Marsh (2006)
Ripple Effect (2007)
The Air I Breathe (2007)
The Great Debaters (2007)
Chasseurs de dragons (2008)
Fragments (2008)
Vantage Point (2008)
Street Kings (2008)
Made in America (2008)
Repossession Mambo (2009)
Powder Blue (2009)
Hurricane Season (2009)
Na pude (2009)
Where the Wild Things Are (2009)
The Experiment (2010)
Lullaby for Pi (2010)
My Own Love Song (2010)
Our Family Wedding (2010)
Repo Men (2010)
Catch .44 (2011)


Forest Whitaker directed the following films:
Hope Floats (1998)
First Daughter (2004)