Zitat des Tages von Forest Whitaker:
Many of the wars we see around the world start as domestic conflicts that are fueled by external forces and powers. My view is that we can help peace if we help communities transform from the inside, on their own terms.
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 can play a man who's despicable. But I'll still look inside him to find a point of connection. If I can find that kernel, audiences will relate to me.
As an actor, I've always wanted to do characters that would help me find my connection with others and connect all of us together. You always want the energy of the character, the spirit of the person, to enter you. I've been doing this for 26 years and some of the things I've done are always with me.
For many child soldiers, war and violence are all they have ever known. If we don't take it upon ourselves to show them an alternative, then they're going to be soldiers forever, and they'll continue to be recruited and to participate in violence if another conflict starts five or 10 years down the road.
You have to ask if the country would have been ready for Barack Obama if we hadn't been prepared by Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice. If they hadn't already been in positions of enormous power and influence - secretary of state, secretary of defence - you know what I mean?
Poitier opened the doors to so many artists, not just black artists. There is a line that goes from black to Latin to Asian with regards to roles.
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 love to play chess. The last time I was playing, I started to really see the board. I don't mean just seeing a few moves ahead - something else. My game started getting better. It's the patterns. The patterns are universal.
Stereotypes do exist, but we have to walk through them.
I'm an actor. And I guess I've done so many movies I've achieved some high visibility. But a star? I guess I still think of myself as kind of a worker ant.
I want to get better as an actor, to keep trying to work harder, trying to discover something different. In some ways, it's a pretty frightening experience. But normally, I do tend to walk against fear and hope that I'll be able to survive.
It's hard for me to judge my own films as an artist sometimes. But as an artist, I did feel a fulfillment working on them, you know?
I care about people. In the end, I think they feel it. It comes across, regardless of the character I'm portraying.
I want a director who can let me feel that he's listening and watching and that he's got me covered. That security is really important for me because sometimes you go into a vulnerable space, and you want to be able to look to somebody because you get insecure: 'Did I do that right?'
I was a curious child. I'd debate with anyone who came to the door - people from the Islamic community... Jehovah's Witnesses... anyone.
I submerged myself in all the information that I could find about Idi Amin. I mean, before I left Los Angeles, I was studying Kiswahili. I was working on the dialect. I was studying every documentary and tape of him that I could find - not just visual, but also audiocassettes, even in other languages when he was speaking in other dialects.
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.
While it's easy for South Sudan to feel distant, the situation is all too real for the South Sudanese mothers choosing which child gets to eat tomorrow. This is a time when we must look outward together and declare that humanity has no borders - no one deserves to suffer like this, especially in a world of such abundance.
In a lot of films, they're showing more complete, developed characters of diverse ethnic backgrounds. The larger concern is to be able to tastefully explore the stereotypes, and still move past them to see the core of people.
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.
Directing is more comfortable for me because, as an actor, there's always something inherently false. Because I'm not that person.
It is possible for a kid from east Texas, raised in south central LA and Carson, who believes in his dreams, commits himself to them with his heart, to touch them and to have them happen.
When children and youth are deprived of their right to education, their community is deprived of a sustainable future. It is all the more true with refugees.
I think I didn't know whether I wanted to keep acting deep into my career. I kept trying to see if I would be able to do it well enough to make that part of my destiny or part of what I was supposed to do.
Until film is just as easily accessible as a pen or pencil, then it's not completely an art form. In painting, you can just pick up a piece of chalk, a stick, or whatever. In sculpture, you can get a rock. Writing, you just need a pencil and paper. Film has been a very elitist medium. It costs so much money.
I can't say I follow it, but I've watched 'Downton Abbey' a couple of times and loved it.
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.
If I go to a reunion in east Texas, my mother's side or my father's, one out of ten is a preacher or a teacher. That's just the way it is in my family.
I really wasn't even sure if I should continue acting. I would like try and figure out if I could be good enough to do it. It was like 10 or 12 years into my career before I felt like maybe I can do it. It was such a different time than now.
If there is inequality, and that equates with colour, then I'm going to deal with it.
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.
To try and act like we haven't had great progress is not true. Obama didn't fail - he changed the psyche of the nation and, in some ways, the world.
I've been trying to understand conflict and violence ever since I was a kid. You know. There were a few things that happened even on my block - the Black Panthers used to be right around the corner from where we were.
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.
College football, acting, opera singing - I approached them all in the same obsessive way.