Forest Steven Whitaker is an American actor, filmmaker, and activist. His accolades include an Academy Award, a Golden Globe Award, a British Academy Film Award, and two Screen Actors Guild Awards.

Early life and education

Forest Steven Whitaker was born on July 15, 1961, in Longview, Texas, the son of Laura Francis (née Smith), a special education teacher and Forest E. Whitaker Jr., an insurance salesman. A DNA test has shown that his mother had Akan ancestry, while his father was of Igbo descent. When Whitaker was in elementary school, his family moved to Carson, California. He has two younger brothers and an older sister. His first role as an actor was the lead in Dylan Thomas's play Under Milk Wood.

Whitaker attended Palisades High School, where he played on the football team and sang in the choir, graduating in 1979. He entered California State Polytechnic University, Pomona on a football scholarship, but a back injury made him change his major to music (singing). He toured England with the Cal Poly Chamber Singers in 1980. While still at Cal Poly, he briefly changed his major to drama. He later transferred to the Thornton School of Music at the University of Southern California to study opera as a tenor and was subsequently accepted into the university's Drama Conservatory. He graduated from USC with a BFA in acting in 1982. He then took a course at Drama Studio London at its now defunct California branch. He was pursuing a degree in "The Core of Conflict: Studies in Peace and Reconciliation" at New York University's Gallatin School of Individualized Study in 2004.