QUICK FACTS
Activities Actor , Producer , Director more
Real name Forest Steven Whitaker
Nationality USA
Birth July 15, 1961 (Longview, Texas – USA)
BIOGRAPHY
Forest Steven Whitaker Jr. is an actor, producer and film director, born July 15, 1961, in Longview, Texas. The son of Forest Whitaker Sr., an insurance salesman, and Laura Francis, a teacher, Forest moved at a very early age, at age 4, to the city of Los Angeles, where Forest attended Palisades High School, where he went to Los Angeles. an American football star, which eventually allowed him to get an athletic scholarship to California Polytechnic State University. However, a sports injury forced him to abandon the scholarship (and school) and enroll at the University of Southern California, where he studied as a Conservatory tenor. This served as the impetus for him to obtain a scholarship at the University of Berkeley, where he became interested in acting and filmmaking.
He made his film debut in the film Fast Times at Ridgemont High (1982), by director Amy Heckerling, at the age of 21, where he shared credits with Sean Pean, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Judge Reinhold and Nicolas Cage. After some supporting roles, Forest also began working on television with series such as Arnold (1078) and Cagney & Lacey (1981). Shortly after, he was directed by Martin Scorsese in the film The Color of Money (1986) and with Oliver Stone in the film Platoon (1986). In 1988, he starred in Clint Eastwood’s film Bird , where he played musician Charlie ‘Bird’ Parker, which earned him the best actor award at the Cannes Film Festival and a nomination for the Golden Globes.
The actor began to be a well-known face in the 90s, working with important directors such as Neil Jordan ( The Crying Game ), Robert Altman ( Pret-a-porter ), Abel Ferrara ( Body Snatchers ), Roger Donaldson ( Species ). , Jim Jarmusch ( Ghost Dog: The way of the Samurai) , among several others. It was in this decade, and as a result of the work of these directors, that Forest would make his debut as a director and producer in films such as Waiting to Exhale (1995), whose cast included Whitney Houston and Angela Basset, and Hope Floats (1998) where he directed Sandra Bullock and Gena Rowlands.
In 2002 he participated in the films Phone Booth , by Joel Schumacher, and Panic Room , directed by David Fincher. It would be 2006, the year in which Forest would obtain the greatest recognition, for his role as the dictator Idi Amin, for the film The Last King of Scotland , where he was recognized with multiple awards, including the SAG Award, the Golden Globe, the BAFTA Award and, of course, the Oscar award for best actor.
Forest Whitaker has continued to be very active in recent years, working alongside Denzel Washington in the film The Great Debaters (2007), alongside Keanu Reeves in Street Kings (2008), alongside William Hurt and Sigourney Weaver, in the film Vantage Point (2008) and more recently in the role of Saw Gerrera, in the film Rogue One: A Star Wars Story.
