Forest Steven Whitaker (born July 15, 1961) is an Academy Award-, Golden Globe-, and Emmy-winning American actor, producer, and director. For his performance as Ugandan dictator Idi Amin in the 2006 film The Last King of Scotland Whitaker has won several major awards, including an Oscar, a Golden Globe, and a BAFTA. He became the fourth African American to win an Academy Award for Best Actor, following in the footsteps of Sidney Poitier, Denzel Washington, and Jamie Foxx.

Whitaker immersed himself in the details of Amin's life to prepare himself for the part. He has earned a reputation for this kind of intensive character study work for films such as Bird and Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai. general_he_rules/?page=1" target="_blank">"In general, he rules," _The Boston Globe, October 1, 2006. blank">"Forest Whitaker: The King Of The Oscars?", Showbuzz.com (CBS News), February 4, 2007. However, for his recurring role as Lieutenant _Jon Kavanaugh on the gritty television series, The Shield, Whitaker has merely had to draw on his childhood years growing up in South Central Los Angeles, California. Adam Sternbergh. blank">"Out of the Woods: How Forest Whitaker escaped his career slump," _New York, January 9, 2006.

Forest Whitaker has packaged a king-size talent into his hulking 6' 2", 220 lb frame. The athletically-inclined Whitaker initially found his way into college via a football scholarship. Later, however, he transferred to USC where he set his concentration on music and earned two more scholarships training as an operatic tenor. This, in turn, led to another scholarship at Berkeley with a renewed focus on acting and the performing stage. Whitaker made his film debut at the age of 21 in the raucous comedy Fast Times at Ridgemont High (1982) wherein he played, quite naturally, a footballer. He went on to play another student pigskin player in his second film Vision Quest (1985). He gain experience on TV as well with featured spots on such varied shows as "Diff'rent Strokes" (1978) and "Cagney & Lacey" (1982), not to mention the TV-movie Civil War epic "North and South" (1985) (mini) and its sequel, the movie that truly put him on the map Color of Money, The (1986). His one big scene as a naive-looking pool player who out-hustles Paul Newman (I)'s Fast Eddie Felson was pure electricity. This led to more visible roles in the "A" class films Platoon (1986), Stakeout (1987), and Good Morning, Vietnam (1987), which culminated in his breakout lead portrayal of the tortured jazz icon 'Charlie "Bird' Parker' in Clint Eastwood's passion project Bird (1988), for which Whitaker won the Cannes Film Festival award for "best actor" and a Golden Globe nomination. While his "gentle giant" characters typically display innocence, indecision, and timidity along with a strong underlying humanity, he has certainly not shied away from the edgier, darker corners of life as his various hitmen and other menacing streetwise types can attest. Although in only the first section of the film, he was memorable as the IRA-captured British soldier whose bizarre relationship with a mysterious femme fatale serves as the catalyst for the critically-lauded drama Crying Game, The (1992). Always a willing participant to push the envelope, he's gone on to enhance a number of lesser films. Among those was his plastic surgeon in Johnny Handsome (1989), gay clothing designer in Robert Altman (I)'s Prêt-à-Porter (1994), alien hunter in Species (1995), absentee father confronted by his estranged son in Smoke (1995), and Mafia hitman who models himself after the samurai warrior in Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai (1999), among many others. As would be expected, he's also had his share of epic-sized bombs, notoriously the L. Ron Hubbard sci-fi disaster Battlefield Earth: A Saga of the Year 3000 (2000). On the TV front, he was the consulting producer and host of a revamped Rod Serling's cult series classic "Twilight Zone, The" (2002), which lasted a disappointing one season. In the early 1990s, Whitaker widened his horizons to include producing/directing and has since developed respect name behind the camera. He started things off co-producing the violent gangster film Rage in Harlem, A (1991), in which he co-starred with Gregory Hines and Robin Givens, and then made his successful directorial debut with the soulful Waiting to Exhale (1995), showcasing a legion of distaff black stars. He also directed co-star Whitney Houston's music video of the movie's theme song ("Shoop Shoop"). Most recently, he scored with audiences helming the fluffy romantic comedy First Daughter (2004) with Katie Holmes and Michael Keaton. He is married to former model Keisha Whitaker and has three children with her. His younger brothers Kenn Whitaker and Damon Whitaker are both actors as well. Whitaker's multimedia company, Spirit Dance Entertainment, includes film, television and music production. Whitaker works closely with a number of charitable organizations. He has also given back to his community, serving as an Honorary Board Member for Penny Lane, an organization that provides assistance to abused teenagers, the Human Rights Watch and The Hope North organization.