Forest Whitaker: The Interview

When I first heard that I was going to be interviewing Oscar/BAFTA/SAG winning Actor/Producer/Director Forest Whitekar in the build up to the release of his apartheid era crime thriller movie "City Of Violence" - I thought to myself; 'What do you ask the man who has Oprah and Obama on speed dial?"

I wanted to avoid your standard 'industry' questions that I'm sure he has answered numerous times in countless interviews. I decided to be more playful and irreverent but the moment we started chatting - I was immediately overwhelmed by his charm and grace and instantly gleaned his uncompromising commitment to his craft.

I was going to be silly and ask - if he was ever late to set would the Director shout; "Run Forest, run."

I was going to say - if he obscured the camera man's shot would he say; "Hey, I can't see the trees for the Forest."

The interview I got and the conversation I ended up having was infinitely better than the one I had planned or intended to have. I found him to be gentle and charismatic and I feel privileged and grateful to have had 10 minutes with Forest Whitekar.

Forest Whitaker chats about South African accents, the different ethnic references between South Africa and the US, working with a rehabilitating gangster, working with South African actors and asked what his perception was about how locals here feel about our beautiful country.

Darren chatted to Forest Whitaker about the juxtaposition that is SA; The 4 Nobel Peace Lauriets vs. the most violent crime countries of the world; Darren inquires about Forest's fearlessness when taking on challenging roles like that of Idi Amin from Academy Award winning film The Last King od Scotland.

In this last segment Darren and Forest explored the challenges about coming back from intense roles like Idi Amin (The Last King of Scotland) and whether he's taken anything with him back from SA.