Selected Filmography of Forest Whitaker

2024 Author: Leah Sherlock | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 05:25

Forest Whitaker is a famous American producer, director and actor. Winner of many awards in the field of cinema, including the "Golden Raspberry". He started with such films as "Platoon", "Good Morning Vietnam", "Rage in Harlem" and others. His filmography is too huge to list all the projects included in it. Therefore, in the article we will pay attention only to the most popular of them.

Biography

Forest Whitaker (photo shown in this material) was born in 1961 in the Texas city of Longview. He grew up in a large family. In addition to him, Laura Francis and Forest Whitaker Jr. raised his two younger brothers (Kenneth and Damon) and older sister (Deborah). In Los Angeles, where the family moved back in 1965, Forest graduated from Palisades Charter High School, where he studied choral singing and played for the local football team. Then he studied at the California State Polytechnic University in Pomona, but due to an injury he had to leave the sport. Admittedly, there were advantages to this as well. After all, now he could devote more time to his no less favorite hobby - music.

Forest continued his studies at the Conservatory of Music at the University of Southern California, where he trained as an operatic tenor. After studying, he transferred to the faculty of drama of the same educational institution. He was also a student at the Berkeley Theater School in London. Forest has been married to actress Keisha Nash since 1996. They now live in Los Angeles and are raising two children together and two children from a previous relationship.

Career start

Forest Whitaker's filmography began in 1982, right after graduating from the University of Southern California. And it was an episodic role in the American comedy series of the CBS channel Making the Grade. After that, he had to star in episodes of other popular TV shows, including Cagney and Lacey (1981-1988), Hill Street Blues (1981-1987), Stuntmen (1981-1986) and North and South. (1985). And already in 1986, he got a role in the main cast of Oliver Stone's military drama Platoon.

A year later, another military drama came out - "Good Morning Vietnam" - a film with Forest Whitaker, shot by Barry Levinson, where the actor played Private First Class Eddie Garlick. Then, along with Jean-Claude Van Damme and Bolo Yen, he appeared in Newt Arnold's action movie Bloodsport (1988). He played the main role, for which he received a prize at the Cannes Film Festival, in the musical drama The Bird (1988). And three years later he played the gangster Jackson - the main character in Duke Bill's crime comedy "Rage in Harlem".

Ghost dog in the panic room

DoctorsSid Handleman - an employee of a military hospital, the actor played in Howard Deutsch's comedy-drama "Article 99" (1992). As Jodie, a British soldier kidnapped by Irish militants, Forest Whitaker appeared in Neil Jordan's thriller The Cruel Game (1992). Police officer Anthony Franklin was in the 1994 action movie The Demolitions directed by Stephen Hopkins. Dani Smithson - a specialist in the field of telepathy, played in Roger Donaldson's science fiction film "Special" (1995). And in the role of "Ghost Dog" - a mercenary with a samurai codec of honor, a faithful servant of the Italian mafia, he appeared in Jarmusch Jimi's action movie "Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai" (1999).

Forest Whitaker played the role of police officer Dante Jackson in Craig Bolotin's Rock the Boys (1999) about six schoolchildren who protested the public by taking a representative of the order hostage. Burnham, one of the robbers, played in David Fincher's thriller Panic Room (2002). In the same year, as police captain Ed Ramey, he starred in Joel Schumacher's crime thriller Phone Booth. He played the role of Carter, the principal of a high school, in Aric Avelino's drama American Pistol (2005). A year later, he appeared in Kevin MacDonald's historical drama The Last King of Scotland. He landed the lead role of Idi Amin, a politician, military officer, and the President of Uganda, for which he received numerous awards, including a Golden Globe, a BAFTA award, and an Oscar statuette.

Hurricane Season Returns

From 2006 to 2007 ForestWhitaker played seasoned, resourceful, but scheming Internal Investigation Officer John Cavanaugh, Vic Mackey's main rival, in the fifth and sixth seasons of Sean Ryan's police drama The Shield (2002-2008). He played the role of American tourist Howard Lewis in Pete Travis' thriller "Point of Fire" (2008). Captain Jack Vander was in David Eyre's crime drama Street Kings (2008). Two years later, he became Al Collins, a school basketball coach, in Tim Storey's sports drama Hurricane Season. And hotel concierge George played in the drama "Lullaby for Pi", filmed by Benoit Philippon in 2010.

Two years later, together with rapper 50 cent and Robert De Niro Forest, Whitaker starred in Jesse Terrero's crime thriller Freelancers. He was a colleague of Arnold Schwarzenegger on the set of Kim Ji Un's action movie The Return of the Hero (2013). Companion Orlando Bloom in the crime thriller Jerome Salle "Conspiracy Theory" (2013). In the company of successful American TV presenter Oprah Winfrey and popular actor Cuba Gooding Jr., he appeared in Lee Daniels' biographical drama The Butler (2013). And during the filming of Scott Cooper's Thriller Out of Hell (2013), Foster worked side by side with actors such as Woody Harrelson, Casey Affleck and Christian Bale.

Star Wars for Christmas

In 2013, Forest Whitaker played Reverend Carnel Cobbs in Casey Lemmons' musical drama Black Christmas. A year later, the main role, namely the role of William Garnett, he played in the dramatic film by Rashid Bouchard "Two incity". And as Inspector Frank Dotzler, he acted in the thriller Olivier Megaton "Hostage 3" starring Liam Neeson.

In the 2015 Chinese-American sports drama Southpaw directed by Antoine Fuqua, he played the role of Tick Wills, a former boxer turned gym owner. Appeared as Henry, a musician slave, in three parts of the historical drama Roots (mini-series, 2016). He played Colonel Weber in Denis Villeneuve's sci-fi drama Arrival (2016). And in the role of Sou Gerrera, a veteran of the clone wars and a close friend of the Erso family, he starred in the science fiction action movie Rogue One: A Star Wars Story. Stories filmed by Gareth Edwards in 2016.

What else to expect?

The actor's career continues to develop rapidly. Indeed, in the near future, Forest Whitaker's filmography will be replenished with several more projects. Movies like Black Panther, Labyrinth, Burden and Finding Steve McQueen are already wrapping up. David M. Rosenthal's thriller How It Ends is in production. And in the summer of 2017, Jennifer Lynch's mystical drama The Fall was announced.