Forest Whitaker
Forest Whitaker is a deceptive actor, who is talented playing a supporting role or a leading one, and has also won an Oscar for Best Actor. I first saw Forest in Good Morning Vietnam (1987 comedy starring Robin Williams), where he played a character named Garlick who was supporting a new DJ serving in Vietnam in 1965. His role included him to appear naive, give Robin a reason to make a difference for people like Forest’s more by the book soldier, and ended up being the heart at the center of the film. The film worked because you saw the impact Robin had on Forest, and you wanted Garlick to be happy and survive. Whitaker is also capable of taking on the leading role in a film with an Oscar winning performance in The Last King of Scotland (2006 drama with James McAvoy). He starred as the Ugandan dictator Idi Amin in the 1970s and was commanding and terrifying. With normally such a positive outlook, demeanour, and a large physical presence, Forest has the ability to dictate what kind of interpretation of character the audience will have, this is important as an actor because we wait to find out what is going through the character’s mind. I would not like to play poker against Forest. He was most recently in the mini-series Roots (2016), Arrival (2016 sci-fi with Amy Adams), and was Saw Gerrera in both the live action Rogue One (2016 with Felicity Jones) and animated Star Wars: Rebels (2017).
Forest was born in Longview, Texas, pursued football and singing in university, and was in his first acting roles at age 21. One of his first credits was Fast Times at Ridgemont High (1982 comedy with Sean Penn), followed by episodes of tv shows such as Cagney & Lacey (1983), Hill Street Blues (1984), Diff’rent Strokes (1985), and North and South (1985-1986). He then gained more exposure appearing in The Color of Money (1986 drama with Paul Newman), Platoon (1986 war with Charlie Sheen), Stakeout (1987 comedy with Richard Dreyfuss), Bloodsport (1988 action with Jean-Claude Van Damme), and headlined Bird (1988 drama directed by Clint Eastwood). Whitaker prefers to take on dramatic roles such as Article 99 (1992), The Crying Game (1992), Jason’s Lyric (1994), Phenomenon (1996 with John Travolta), Light It Up (1999 with Usher Raymond), Green Dragon (2001 with Patrick Swayze), Panic Room (2002 with Jodie Foster), The Air I Breathe (2007 with Brendan Fraser), The Great Debaters (2007 with Denzel Washington), Vantage Point (2008 with Dennis Quaid), Powder Blue (2009 with Jessica Biel), Hurricane Season (2009), Zulu (2013 with Orlando Bloom), Lee Daniels’ The Butler (2013 with Oprah Winfrey), Out of the Furnace (2013 with Christian Bale), and Southpaw (2015 with Jake Gyllenhaal). Working in tv, Forest appeared in episodes of ER (2006-2007), The Shield (2006-2007), American Dad! (2007-2009), and Criminal Minds (2010-2011). He also takes roles in more stylized action films such as Species (1995 sci-fi with Natasha Henstridge), Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai (1999), Battlefield Earth (2000 sci-fi with John Travolta), Phone Booth (2002 with Colin Farrell), Street Kings (2008 with Keanu Reeves), Repo Men (2010 with Jude Law), The Last Stand (2013 with Arnold Schwarzenegger), and Taken 3 (2014 with Liam Neeson). Next up for Forest is roles in The Forgiven (as Desmond Tutu in a drama with Eric Bana), LAbyrinth (crime thriller with Johnny Depp about Tupac Shakur and Notorious BIG), Finding Steve McQueen (crime with Travis Fimmel), Burden (drama involving the KKK), and Black Panther (Marvel superhero film starring Chadwick Boseman).
Thank you and Happy Birthday Forest!