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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.
Forest Whitaker -
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.
Forest Whitaker
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Directing is more comfortable for me because, as an actor, there's always something inherently false. Because I'm not that person.
Forest Whitaker -
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.
Forest Whitaker -
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.
Forest Whitaker -
When we talk about the issue of child soldiers, it can be easy to focus just on ending recruitment and liberating those boys and girls who are currently being held in military camps. Obviously, both of these are incredibly important goals, but it's also essential that we not forget about former child soldiers once they are liberated.
Forest Whitaker -
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.
Forest Whitaker -
The first time I ever went out of the country, it was to London. I was with the choir from my college, and we were touring around all these different churches. I loved it so much I tried to find a way to stay there.
Forest Whitaker
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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.
Forest Whitaker -
My eye? It's a genetic thing. My dad had it, and now I have it. You know, I just found out that it may be correctable a little bit, because it does impair my vision. When I look up, I lose sight in this eye. I think, maybe for other people, it informs the way they see me.
Forest Whitaker -
I was in middle school right around the time the Bloods and the Crips started taking root in Compton and a lot of the other neighborhoods around me. I saw way too many of my peers - smart, kind, good kids - who got drawn into gangs and violence, and their futures were going to be forever scarred by that.
Forest Whitaker -
In high school, I did some musicals, but I never took acting until college. I was studying opera, classical voice, and a speech teacher asked me to audition for this play, and I got the lead.
Forest Whitaker -
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?
Forest Whitaker -
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.
Forest Whitaker