83 Facts About Forest Whitaker

Forest Steven Whitaker was born on July 15,1961 and is an American actor, filmmaker, and activist.

Forest Whitaker is the recipient of various accolades, including an Academy Award, a Golden Globe Award, a British Academy Film Award, and two Screen Actors Guild Awards.

Forest Whitaker has appeared in blockbusters, such as Panic Room, Rogue One: A Star Wars Story as Saw Gerrera, and Black Panther as Zuri.

Forest Whitaker made his directorial debut with the television film Strapped, and directed the films Waiting to Exhale, Hope Floats, and First Daughter.

Apart from his acting career, Forest Whitaker is known for his humanitarian work and activism.

When Forest Whitaker was in elementary school, his family moved to Carson, California.

Forest Whitaker has two younger brothers and an older sister.

Forest Whitaker attended Palisades Charter High School, where he played on the football team and sang in the choir, graduating in 1979.

Forest Whitaker entered California State Polytechnic University, Pomona on a football scholarship, but a back injury made him change his major to music.

Forest Whitaker toured England with the Cal Poly Chamber Singers in 1980.

Forest Whitaker later transferred to the Thornton School of Music at the University of Southern California to study opera as a tenor and was accepted into the university's Drama Conservatory.

Forest Whitaker graduated from USC with a BFA in acting in 1982.

Forest Whitaker then took a course at Drama Studio London at its now defunct California branch.

Forest Whitaker was pursuing a degree in "The Core of Conflict: Studies in Peace and Reconciliation" at New York University's Gallatin School of Individualized Study in 2004.

Forest Whitaker has a long history of working with well-regarded film directors and actors.

In 1988, Forest Whitaker appeared in the film Bloodsport and had his first lead role starring as jazz alto saxophonist Charlie "Bird" Parker in Clint Eastwood's Bird.

Forest Whitaker continued to work with a number of well-known directors throughout the 1990s.

Forest Whitaker starred in the 1990 film Downtown and was cast in the pivotal role of Jody, a captive British soldier in the 1992 film The Crying Game, for which he used an English accent.

Forest Whitaker was a member of the cast that won the first ever National Board of Review Award for Best Acting by an Ensemble for Robert Altman's film, Pret-a-Porter, in 1994.

Forest Whitaker played a serene, pigeon-raising, bushido-following, mob hit man in Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai, a 1999 film written and directed by Jim Jarmusch.

Forest Whitaker later expressed his regret for participating in the film.

In 2001, Forest Whitaker had a small, uncredited role in the Wong Kar-wai-directed The Follow, one of five short films produced by BMW that year to promote its cars.

Forest Whitaker co-starred in Joel Schumacher's 2002 thriller Phone Booth with Kiefer Sutherland and Colin Farrell.

Forest Whitaker read books about Amin, watched news and documentary footage featuring Amin, and spent time in Uganda meeting with Amin's friends, relatives, generals, and victims; he learned Swahili and mastered Amin's East African accent.

Forest Whitaker's performance earned him the Academy Award for Best Actor, making him the fourth black actor in history to do so, joining the ranks of Sidney Poitier, Denzel Washington, and Jamie Foxx.

In 2008, Forest Whitaker appeared in three films, first as a business man known only as Happiness, who likes butterflies, in the film The Air I Breathe.

Forest Whitaker portrayed a rogue police captain in Street Kings, and a heroic tourist in Vantage Point.

In 2013, after a small career slump where he starred in a few straight-to-video films, Forest Whitaker has enjoyed a career resurgence, having played the lead role in Lee Daniels' The Butler, which has become one of his greatest critical and commercial successes to date.

Forest Whitaker won the NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Actor in a Motion Picture for that film.

Forest Whitaker starred in the film Black Nativity and co-starred in 2013's The Last Stand, playing an FBI agent chasing an escaped drug cartel leader.

Forest Whitaker played Saw Gerrera in the 2016 film Rogue One: A Star Wars Story.

In 2020, Forest Whitaker starred as Jeronicus Jangle in the Netflix Christmas musical Jingle Jangle: A Christmas Journey.

In 2023, Forest Whitaker will portray boxing trainer Doc Broadus in Big George Foreman.

That same year, Forest Whitaker played the part of a comic book salesman in the Amazing Stories episode "Gather Ye Acorns".

Forest Whitaker appeared in the first and second parts of North and South in 1985 and 1986.

From 2002 to 2003, Forest Whitaker was the host and narrator of 44 new episodes of the Rod Serling classic The Twilight Zone, which lasted one season on UPN.

Forest Whitaker received a Primetime Emmy Award nomination for his performance in the series.

Forest Whitaker was cast in the Criminal Minds spin-off Criminal Minds: Suspect Behavior, that was cancelled by CBS on May 17,2011.

In 2017 and 2018, Forest Whitaker had an eleven-episode arc on Empire, which saw him reunited with Lee Daniels after their work together on The Butler.

Since 2019, Forest Whitaker has been starring as Bumpy Johnson in Godfather of Harlem, a series on EPIX which explores the intersection between the criminal underworld and civil rights movement in the 1960s.

Forest Whitaker is set to appear in an episode of Extrapolations, an Apple TV anthology series that focuses on climate change.

Forest Whitaker made his Broadway debut in 2016 in a revival of Eugene O'Neill's play Hughie at the Booth Theatre, directed by Michael Grandage.

Forest Whitaker branched out into producing and directing in the 1990s.

Forest Whitaker co-produced and co-starred in A Rage in Harlem in 1991.

Roger Ebert observed that the tone of the film resembled Forest Whitaker's own acting style: "measured, serene, confident".

Forest Whitaker directed co-star Whitney Houston's music video of the movie's theme song, "Exhale ".

Forest Whitaker continued his directing career with the 1998 romantic comedy, Hope Floats, starring Sandra Bullock and Harry Connick Jr.

Forest Whitaker directed Katie Holmes in the romantic comedy First Daughter in 2004, while serving as an executive producer on the film; he had previously co-starred with Holmes in Phone Booth in 2002.

Forest Whitaker gained experience as the executive producer of several made-for-television movies, most notably the 2002 Emmy-award-winning Door to Door, starring William H Macy.

Forest Whitaker produced these projects through his production company, Spirit Dance Entertainment, which he shut down in 2005 to concentrate on his acting career.

Forest Whitaker worked closely with Babyface as the executive producer to the soundtrack for Waiting to Exhale, which Forest Whitaker directed.

Forest Whitaker served as Executive Soundtrack Producer on the soundtrack for Hope Floats, which he directed.

Forest Whitaker served as Executive Music Producer and co-wrote eight songs for the soundtrack to First Daughter, which he directed.

Forest Whitaker appears in the Jamie Foxx featuring T-Pain 2008 music video "Blame It".

Forest Whitaker appears in the music video "In the Dark" by Bring Me the Horizon, released on October 21,2019, and his voice and likeness were used for Saw Gerrera in the 2019 video game Star Wars: Jedi Fallen Order.

Forest Whitaker has played an active role as co-chair of JuntoBox Films since his initial involvement as co-chair with the collaborative film studio starting in March 2012.

Since Forest Whitaker joined as co-chair, five projects have been greenlit for production.

Forest Whitaker received the Capri Legend Award in 2006, from the Capri Hollywood International Film Festival.

Forest Whitaker was honored at the Santa Barbara International Film Festival 2007, where he received the American Riviera Award.

In 2004, Forest Whitaker received an Honorary Doctorate from the North Carolina School of the Arts.

Forest Whitaker then received the honorary degree of Doctor of Humane Letters from Xavier University of Louisiana in 2009 at the 82nd Commencement Ceremony.

In 2013, Forest Whitaker received the Chevalier de l'ordre des Arts et des Lettres from France's Minister of Culture, in recognition of his work serving those affected by conflicts and violence.

Forest Whitaker was the keynote speaker at Miami University's commencement in 2014.

Forest Whitaker received the honorary degree of Doctor of Humane Letters from California State University, Dominguez Hills on May 16,2015.

In 2016, Forest Whitaker received the Humanitarian Award from the World Childhood Foundation.

In 2017, Forest Whitaker earned the Crystal Award at the World Economic Forum in Davos.

Forest Whitaker received the honorary degree of Doctor of Fine Arts from University of Southern California on May 11,2018, at the 135th Commencement Ceremony.

Forest Whitaker received the Medal of Peace from the University of San Diego's Kroc School of Peace Studies in 2018, and received an Honorary Fellowship from SOAS University of London that same year.

Forest Whitaker received the Honorary Palme d'Or from the Cannes Film Festival.

Forest Whitaker was inducted as a UNESCO Goodwill Ambassador for Peace and Reconciliation, in a ceremony at UNESCO headquarters on June 21,2011.

Forest Whitaker previously served on President Obama's Urban Policy Committee and started collaborating with the Office of the Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General for Children and Armed Conflict as an Advocate for Children Affected by War, a topic on which he was invited to speak before the UN Security Council in September 2014.

Forest Whitaker worked with elementary schools through the Turnaround Arts organization.

Forest Whitaker is a supporter and public advocate for Hope North, a boarding school and vocational training center in northern Uganda for escaped child soldiers, orphans, and other young victims of the country's civil war.

Above all, Forest Whitaker believes that ordinary people can and must come together to change the world.

In politics, Forest Whitaker supported and spoke on behalf of Senator Barack Obama in his 2008 presidential campaign.

Forest Whitaker, who was named a chief among the Igbo community of Nkwerre, was given the title Nwannedinamba of Nkwerre, which means A Brother in a Foreign Land.

Forest Whitaker co-founded the International Institute for Peace at Rutgers University in Newark, New Jersey, where he is a senior research scholar.

In 1996, Forest Whitaker married actress Keisha Nash, whom he met on the set of Blown Away.

In December 2018, Forest Whitaker filed for divorce from Nash, citing irreconcilable differences.

Forest Whitaker studies yoga, has a black belt in kenpo and is a vegetarian.

Forest Whitaker's left eye ptosis has been called "intriguing" by the critic Susan Wloszczyna, with the writer Stephanie Zacharek maintaining that it gives him "a sleepy, contemplative look".

Forest Whitaker has explained that the condition is hereditary and that he has considered having surgery to correct it, not for cosmetic reasons but because it affects his vision.

Forest Whitaker's ancestry has been traced to Nkwerre in Imo State of Nigeria, where he was made an honorary titled chief on April 5,2009.