A biography for Forest Whitakerhasn’t been written yet.
“I put down the camera long ago, you know? I was here in London, aged 19, and I was obsessed with my camera, shooting everything I could. Then someone stole it. It helped me to see things for the first time.”
“My wife, Keisha, came home once, and I had these violinists playing for her, and I'd prepared dinner for her, and I write poems. She's pretty amazing, so I like to celebrate that. She's really taught me how to celebrate life; that's something I've learned.”
“I'd spend every summer in Longview on my grandfather's farm. It was a tiny little town divided by a river, which was the segregation line: that side white, this side black. And meanwhile, I lived in Compton - basically, another whole world sealed into 10 square blocks. It's interesting how insular an environment can be.”
“It's all about destiny. That's why people look at the zodiac or the I Ching - because there's a certain order to life, and that order has been lived since the beginning of time. No matter what you do, you're going to live inside of it.”
“Look - I'm an African-American. I'm black. But I'm just looking at the character and trying to find his soul, his energy. If you can wipe away the blanket of skin and flesh that people tend to see, and look inside for the essence of the soul, then that's the work I'm doing. That's the work I always do.”
“On the whole, I now see my work as being an expression of my spiritual life and, because I look at it that way, I have a different centre. I go through the stress and pressure, but I think I'm lucky because I come from a different source point.”
“I think that cinema and the arts are central in our lives because we grow up and learn about the world through our exposure to stories. Parents use them as a tool to teach their children fundamental truths and values, much as adults can view them to gain exposure to cultures and individuals that they'd never be able to view in their own lives.”
“The characters I've portrayed may outwardly be quite different from one another, but I've found that they're also intrinsically linked.”
“I was in middle school right around the time the Bloods and the Crips started taking root in Compton and a lot of the other neighborhoods around me. I saw way too many of my peers - smart, kind, good kids - who got drawn into gangs and violence, and their futures were going to be forever scarred by that.”
“I'm inspired to work with good actors, period. I want to work with the best anytime because I think they'll make me better.”
“I'm fascinated by the capacity to be able to do harm. I struggle every day with the ability of people to do evil. Not just the big things - the petty things that people do in order to make someone feel small, when it's so easy to do, and it hurts so much.”
“I try to support stories that enable us to see the difficulties in our society and the challenges we face, which is why I've also produced documentaries like 'Brick City' and 'Serving Life.'”
“I think the only consistent thing is that I like projects that explore different social themes. 'Our Family Wedding' is a comedy, but it deals with two different cultures coming together. It's also about people letting go.”
“If there is inequality, and that equates with colour, then I'm going to deal with it.”
“You try to pull away the experiences until you get to the core of humanity, and you find that light that exists in everybody. It's that light that I'm searching for in all of my work - is that connective thing, that ether that enters all of us - you know what I mean? That's a part of God.”
“Directing is more comfortable for me because, as an actor, there's always something inherently false. Because I'm not that person.”
“I try to be like a forest, revitalizing and constantly growing... Kids would tease me, calling me 'Little Bush.' But... I thought being called Forest helped me find my identity.”
“College football, acting, opera singing - I approached them all in the same obsessive way.”
“When I was a kid, the only way I saw movies was from the back seat of my family's car at the drive-in.”
“I've had many incidents in my life of racism. I've been thrown on the ground. I've been frisked. I've been arrested so many times I couldn't tell you. I have no need to talk about it.”