Forest Steven Whitaker (born July 15, 1961) is an American actor, filmmaker, and activist. His accolades include an Academy Award, a Golden Globe Award, a British Academy Film Award, two Screen Actors Guild Awards, the Cannes Film Festival Award for Best Actor and the Honorary Palme d'Or.
After making his film debut in Fast Times at Ridgemont High (1982), Whitaker went on to earn a reputation for intensive character study work for films, such as Platoon (1986), Good Morning, Vietnam (1987), Bird (1988), The Crying Game (1992), Phenomenon (1996), Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai (1999), The Great Debaters (2007), The Butler (2013), Arrival (2016), and Respect (2021). He has also appeared in The Color of Money (1986), Panic Room (2002), Where the Wild Things Are (2009), and Black Panther (2018) as Zuri. Whitaker starred in the Star Wars franchise as Saw Gerrera, appearing in the film Rogue One (2016) and would later reprise the role in the television series Star Wars: Rebels (2017) and Andor (2022–2025), as well as the video game Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order (2019).
Whitaker won the Academy Award for Best Actor for his portrayal of Ugandan dictator Idi Amin in the historical drama The Last King of Scotland (2006). Whitaker made his directorial debut with the television film Strapped (1993) and directed the films Waiting to Exhale (1995), Hope Floats (1998), and First Daughter (2004). On television, he portrayed Lieutenant Jon Kavanaugh on the fifth and sixth seasons of The Shield (2006–2007) and since 2019, he has starred as Bumpy Johnson in the Epix crime drama series Godfather of Harlem.
He made his Broadway debut in the revival of Eugene O'Neill's Hughie (2016). Apart from his acting career, Whitaker is also known for his humanitarian work and activism. In 2011, he was inducted as a UNESCO Goodwill Ambassador, later receiving a promotion to Special Envoy for Peace and Reconciliation, and is the CEO of Whitaker Peace and Development Initiative (WPDI), a non-profit outreach program.
Forest Steven Whitaker was born on July 15, 1961, in Longview, Texas, the son of Laura Francis (née Smith), a special education teacher, and Forest E. Whitaker Jr., an insurance salesman. When Whitaker was in elementary school, his family moved to Carson, California, a suburb of Los Angeles. He has two younger brothers and an older sister. His first role as an actor was the lead in Dylan Thomas's play Under Milk Wood.
Whitaker attended Palisades High School, where he played on the football team and sang in the choir, graduating in 1979. He entered California State Polytechnic University, Pomona on a football scholarship, but a back injury made him change his major to music (singing). He toured England with the Cal Poly Chamber Singers in 1980. While still at Cal Poly, he briefly changed his major to drama. He later transferred to the Thornton School of Music at the University of Southern California (USC) to study opera as a tenor and was subsequently accepted into the university's Drama Conservatory. He graduated from USC with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in Acting in 1982. He then took a course at Drama Studio London at its now defunct California branch. He 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.
Whitaker has a long history of working with well-regarded film directors and actors. In his first onscreen performance of note, he had a supporting role playing a high school football player in the 1982 film version of Amy Heckerling's coming-of-age teen-retrospective Fast Times at Ridgemont High. In 1986, he appeared in Martin Scorsese's The Color of Money and Oliver Stone's Vietnam War drama film Platoon. The following year, he co-starred in the comedy Good Morning, Vietnam alongside Robin Williams. He also appeared in the 1985 movie Vision Quest, which guest starred Madonna.
After completing several films in the early 1980s, Whitaker gained additional roles in multiple television shows. On the series Diff'rent Strokes, he played a bully in the 1985 episode "Bully for Arnold". That same year, Whitaker also played the part of a comic book salesman in the Amazing Stories episode "Gather Ye Acorns". He appeared in the first and second parts of North and South in 1985 and 1986. Throughout the 1990s, Whitaker mainly had roles in made-for-cable films which aired on HBO, including Criminal Justice, The Enemy Within, and Witness Protection.
1988–2006: Breakthrough and acclaim
In 1988, 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. To prepare himself for the part, Whitaker took saxophone lessons and sequestered himself in a loft with only a bed, couch, and an alto saxophone, having also conducted extensive research and talked to numerous people who knew Parker. His performance, which has been called "transcendent", earned him the Best Actor award at the 1988 Cannes Film Festival and a Golden Globe nomination.
Whitaker continued to work with a number of well-known directors throughout the 1990s. He 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. Todd McCarthy of Variety described Whitaker's performance as "big-hearted", "hugely emotional", and "simply terrific". He 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, Prêt-à-Porter, in 1994. Whitaker also played an abusive, alcoholic father in the star studded film, Jason's Lyric in 1994 alongside Jada Pinkett Smith and Allen Payne. In 1995, he gave a "characteristically emotional performance" in Wayne Wang and Paul Auster's Smoke, and appeared in the science-fiction film Species. In 1996, he played the role of a good-natured man in Phenomenon, alongside John Travolta and Robert Duvall, which earned him a Blockbuster Entertainment Award for Favorite Supporting Actor – Drama, and was also nominated for NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Motion Picture.
Whitaker branched out into producing and directing in the 1990s. He co-produced and co-starred in A Rage in Harlem in 1991. He made his directorial debut with a grim film about inner-city gun violence, Strapped, for HBO in 1993 – and won the International Critics' Award at the Toronto International Film Festival. In 1995, he directed his first theatrical feature, Waiting to Exhale, which was based on the Terry McMillan novel of the same name. Roger Ebert observed that the tone of the film resembled Whitaker's own acting style: "measured, serene, confident". Whitaker also directed co-star Whitney Houston's music video of the movie's theme song, "Exhale (Shoop Shoop)". Whitaker continued his directing career with the 1998 romantic comedy, Hope Floats, starring Sandra Bullock and Harry Connick Jr., which he also executive produced. He directed Katie Holmes in the romantic comedy First Daughter in 2004, while also an executive producer on the film; he had previously co-starred with Holmes in Phone Booth in 2002. He 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.
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. Many consider this to have been a "definitive role" for Whitaker. In a manner similar to his preparation for Bird, he again immersed himself in his character's world—he studied Eastern philosophy and meditated for long hours "to hone his inner spiritual hitman". Jarmusch has told interviewers that he developed the title character with Whitaker in mind; The New York Times review of the film observed that "[I]t's hard to think of another actor who could play a cold-blooded killer with such warmth and humanity." From 2002 to 2003, Whitaker was the host and narrator of 44 new episodes of the Rod Serling classic The Twilight Zone, which lasted one season on UPN. After working in several film roles, he returned to television in 2006 when he joined the cast of FX's police serial The Shield, as Lieutenant Jon Kavanaugh, who was determined to prove that the lead character, Vic Mackey (Michael Chiklis), is a dirty cop. As opposed to his previous character work, Whitaker stated that he merely had to draw on his childhood years growing up in South Central Los Angeles for the role. He received rave reviews for his performance—Variety called it a "crackling-good guest stint"—and he reprised the role in the show's 2007 season.