Forest Whitaker

Did You Know?

• Whitaker worked closely with Babyface as executive producer of the soundtrack for Waiting to Exhale, which won a Grammy for Best R&B Song.
• He appears in the music video 'In the Dark' by Bring Me the Horizon, released on October 21, 2019.
• Whitaker married actress Keisha Nash in 1996, whom he met on the set of Blown Away.

Career

Forest Whitaker's first notable screen role was a supporting part as a high school football player in the 1982 teen film Fast Times at Ridgemont High. He later appeared in Martin Scorsese's The Color of Money and Oliver Stone's Platoon in 1986, and co-starred with Robin Williams in Good Morning, Vietnam the next year. He also had a role in the 1985 film Vision Quest. In the 1980s, Whitaker took television parts on Diff'rent Strokes, Amazing Stories, and North and South. His portrayal of jazz musician Charlie Parker in Clint Eastwood's 1988 film Bird won him the Best Actor award at the Cannes Film Festival and a Golden Globe nomination. During the 1990s, his work was mostly in HBO made-for-cable movies such as Criminal Justice, The Enemy Within, and Witness Protection.

Production companies

Whitaker closed his earlier company, Spirit Dance Entertainment, in 2005 to focus on acting. His current venture, Significant Productions, works with partner Nina Yang Bongiovi to boost stories and filmmakers from underrepresented backgrounds. Together they produced Ryan Coogler’s first film, Fruitvale Station, which earned top honors at Sundance and Cannes. They also helped launch Chloé Zhao’s career with Songs My Brothers Taught Me.

Other projects include Repentance, Dope, Roxanne Roxanne, and Sorry to Bother You. In 2021, Significant’s Passing premiered on Netflix. The company also made Serving Life, a documentary filmed in an Angola prison hospice, and A Kid from Coney Island, about basketball player Stephon Marbury. Since March 2012, Whitaker has been co-chair of JuntoBox Films, a collaborative studio where filmmakers and fans develop ideas together; five projects have moved into production under his tenure.

Activism

Whitaker founded the Whitaker Peace & Development Initiative (WPDI) in 2012, a non-governmental organization implementing peace-building programs in conflict-affected communities worldwide, training youths in conflict resolution and business development. Programs operate throughout Africa, Mexico, and the United States. He was inducted as a UNESCO Goodwill Ambassador for Peace and Reconciliation on June 21, 2011, working to support initiatives empowering youths and preventing cycles of violence.

He was later promoted to UNESCO Special Envoy for Peace and Reconciliation and served on President Obama's Committee on the Arts and the Humanities, as well as his Urban Policy Committee. Whitaker collaborated 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, speaking before the UN Security Council in September 2014. He worked with elementary schools through Turnaround Arts and sits on the steering committee for the UN's work with the Reintegration of Child Soldiers.

He is also an advocate for the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals and a supporter of Hope North, a boarding school in northern Uganda for escaped child soldiers and orphans.

Acting credits and accolades

In addition to awards for The Last King of Scotland, Whitaker received several other honors. In September 2006, the Hollywood Film Festival presented him with its Hollywood Actor of the Year Award. He received the Capri Legend Award in 2006 and the American Riviera Award at the Santa Barbara International Film Festival in 2007. On April 16, 2007, he received the 2,335th star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6801 Hollywood Boulevard.

He received an Honorary Doctorate from the North Carolina School of the Arts in 2004, the Cinema for Peace Award in 2007, and an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters from Xavier University of Louisiana in 2009. In 2012, he received the United Nations Correspondents Association's Advocate of the Year Award. In 2013, he was named a Chevalier de l'ordre des Arts et des Lettres by France's Minister of Culture and a Martin Luther King, Jr. Fellow by Boston University. He received the Humanitarian Award from the World Childhood Foundation in 2016.