FOREST WHITAKER FINDS HUMANITY IN IDI AMIN

(VIDEO) Forest Whitaker captured the evil and the human side to Idi Amin in The Last King of Scotland.

Ugandan dictator Idi Amin will be known in history for slaying 250,000 of his own people but Forest Whitaker wanted to capture his charisma as well as his monstrous side in his portrayal of the infamous African leader in The Last King of Scotland. Forest went back to Amin’s childhood and met with his family and people who understood him privately rather than publicly.

Forest mastered the accordion as Amin would have played it.

“I had more conversations with his brother and his sister. I learned how he behaved as a kid. I learned how after he came back into Aruwa after he became general, president he’d come back in and say, ‘look I want to have a soccer game, I want to have a party.’ His little brother would climb the tree and look around and go and try to collect everybody, bring everybody together so they could have a soccer game. He’d pull out his accordion and stuff. From that I kind of understood the way he dealt with his friends and the way he dealt with his family. That was a very important thing for me to understand.”

Despite his propensity for cruelty Amin was embraced by Ugandans who believed he was making a difference in his rule. While in Africa Forest was able to take some time off for exploring and found that like Amin he was taken into the brotherhood of the Ugandans.

“I like that instrument. I can improv. The accordion he played, it was interesting because I had to be careful because if you watch Idi Amin play he really doesn’t use his right hand too much. He just kind of does the one and plays one chord on the other. When they were teaching me I was learning all these different chord progressions and so I had to kind of simplify it a little bit. He was just kind of rocking back and forth letting the band go. It was more for fun.”

Forest was so taken with his stay in Africa that he has committed to helping an African orphanage Hope North to raise money and awareness. The Last King of Scotland opens today in theaters.rn

“We were going to the source of the Nile and when we were there they pulled out this shirt and they said, ‘this is for you.’ I was like, ‘oh man.’ It was like some kind of badge, an acceptance of brotherhood. I’m in the family or something. I still have the shirt and I still have the memories so that was very important to me.”