Forest Steven Whitaker III is an actor, producer and director who has earned a reputation for intensive character study work for films such as Bird, The Crying Game, Platoon, Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai, The Great Debaters, The Butler and "Arrival*.

He has also appeared in blockbusters such as Rogue One: A Star Wars Story as Saw Gerrera and Black Panther as Zuri.

For his performance as Ugandan dictator Idi Amin in the 2006 film The Last King of Scotland, Whitaker won the Academy Award, BAFTA Award, Golden Globe Award, National Board of Review Award, Screen Actors Guild Award and various critics groups' awards for a lead acting performance.

Whitaker produced the 2013 film Fruitvale Station and played Cecil Gaines in that same year's Lee Daniels' The Butler.

Forest Whitaker has dedicated most of his time to extensive humanitarian work over the past decade. His social awareness has compelled him to seek ways of using the film medium as a means to raise peoples' consciousness. He produced the award-winning documentary Kassim the Dream, which tells the poignant story of a Ugandan child soldier turned world championship boxer, Rising From Ashes, which profiles Genocide survivors of the Rwandan war who have risen from wooden bicycles to competing in the Olympics, Serving Life, which focuses on hospice care for prisoners at Louisiana's Angola Prison, and the Emmy nominated and Peabody Award-winning Brick City, which takes a look at inner-city life in Newark, New Jersey.

In 2007, Whitaker received the Cinema for Peace Award for his selfless and ongoing advocacy for child soldiers, as well as his work with inner-city youth. He was also awarded the Humanitas Prize in 2001. In 2008, he served as a member of the Urban Policy Committee and currently sits on the board of the President's Committee on the Arts and the Humanities (PCAH). Whitaker serves as a Senior Research Scholar at Rutgers University and a Visiting Professor at Ringling College of Art and Design. In 2011, Whitaker was designated as a UNESCO Goodwill Ambassador for Peace and Reconciliation. In this role, he works towards global peacebuilding through anti-violent education, research, training and community building. In recognition of his commitment as UNESCO Goodwill Ambassador and for his outstanding contribution to the work of the Organization, Whitaker received in December 2012 the United Nations Correspondents Association Advocate of the Year Award. In 2013, Boston University's Howard Gotlieb Archival Research Center appointed Whitaker as a Martin Luther King, Jr. Fellow.

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