 Welcome to hard talk with me, Zeyn Abedawi, from the World Economic Forum in Davos. My guest is humanitarian, activist and Hollywood actor, Forrest Whitaker. He's probably best known for his Oscar-winning role 10 years ago as the Ugandan dictator EDR mean in The Last King of Scotland, and he's remained deeply involved with Uganda through his work with the Whitaker Peace and Development Initiative, which helps young people living in communities affected by violence across several continents. He's also a special envoy for UNESCO and a member of the UN's advocacy group on sustainable development goals, but can celebrity activists like him be real agents for change? Forrest Whitaker, welcome to hard talk. It's great to be here with you. Now, in your acting career, you've been a very, very versatile actor, mainstream popular films like Rogue One, The Star Wars Story, and also the great debaters back in 2007 about black students striving for equality. Do you like to act in any genre of films? I'm trying to continue to grow as a person, so each character is an opportunity for me to understand a different part of myself, a different part of humanity, and so what happens is that I don't necessarily repeat the same roles because I'm continuing to search to understand and deepen who I am as a person, an artist. Do you believe that film can really create a dialogue and help bring about change because you're a very committed social activist, and for instance you've been in rather gritty roles. You played a gay character in Preta Porter, and also in two of your films as director which are waiting to exhale and hope floats. You dealt with issues such as divorce, abandonment, adultery, that kind of thing. I mean, I think that we hope that film can lend a lens or a mirror to our inner thoughts and our inner understandings. I think that I've done a number of films. We have other production company, and we do produce films. A lot of the films are with first time filmmakers, unique individual voices. We did one a few years ago called Fruitvale Station with Ryan Coogler that Nina Yang did with me. That film was dealing with Oscar Grant and his being murdered in the Bart station in San Francisco. Whereas I've done comedies where I've introduced like Linda Mendoza, she did something called Chasing Poppy. That was her first film, but just supporting these new voices and supporting her as a filmmaker and as a female filmmaker. But do you think that your films can act as a catalyst to generate debate and perhaps to bring about change in mindsets? Certainly, I think that as the film I was talking about was put out at the conclusion of the trials that were going on with Trayvon Martin. I think the films that we did before, we did a film on Vietnamese refugees that created a new dialogue with the director named Tim Buie about what had happened when they were here in the United States during that time. I think a lot of the films, even the Butler as an artist, as an actor, met you delve into the dialogue of race and understanding and the movement or the growth of the entire country. I think it was just a dialogue about what had happened during the country's time and what it was reaching for, the sort of sense of life, liberty and pursuit of happiness. You won numerous accolades awards, including Oscar for Best Actor for your portrayal, as EDR Mean, the Ugandan dictator in the last king of Scotland. Is that a film you're proud of? Yes, I gained a lot from that film as an artist and as a person. I had to do so much research to try to understand this particular character. I had never been to the African continent up until that point. That was an opening for me. I had been charged with the notion that I was from there. I needed to understand what it felt like in some ways to actually be African, not African American. That was a challenge. The challenge of understanding the historical relevance of what was going on with him during that time and all the countries in that region and the attacks that were going to him, the colonialism. All these things were opportunities for me to continue to grow, to learn a new language. I was working on Keith Swahili so I could actually speak in the film in that language and be able to improvise a little bit in the language. I had to learn musical instruments because that was one of his things. It was like a party in a box accordion that he was playing, but it allowed him to create a party wherever he went. There were certain qualities of his personality that were interesting. Very taxing role. You had to put on 50 pounds, didn't you, to take the role on? Something like that. You must have been eating a lot of forest in the run-up to that. During that time, I just kept eating. As an African American going to the content of Africa for the first time for the film, about 2005-2006 roughly, what did you feel like when you first landed in Africa? Did you feel like a sense of that you'd come home? Did you have any kind of affinity? I acquired a deeper feeling of that. Tomorrow I was opening myself to understanding things. At first you get a general feeling of the air and the place and the people. There's very generous. The Ugandans were very generous to me that I met. But then something happens as you start to eat the food, you're resting on the sides of a road, riding motorcycles through the streets. I tried to experience as much as I could to help me understand how to project this in a truthful way. You were quoted in the New York magazine in 2006 saying EDR Mean was responsible for major atrocities, but he also reshaped opportunities for people in his country. He was a person who was colonised and he stood up to colonialism, and he was demonised for many things, but partly for standing up. Sounds like you perhaps somewhat admired him. I didn't admire the atrocities that he did as far as the many deaths. Although if you examine the historical reference, you'll see that the person behind him committed more murders than the person before him committed more murders. So it doesn't make his right. It's just curious as to why he was so focused on doing that time. I think certainly he was trying to bring a sort of sense of nationalism. He kicked out the West, which was unusual for someone who was from the continent. Did he kick out the West because he kicked out a lot of Ugandans of Asian origin who lived for many years? More than that, it's not a question of trying to act like he's some form of a hero. It's a question of just looking at the references and seeing the different things that affected the people and changed their sense of identity, and he did have some influence on changing their identity. You said in general about empathising with characters that once you understand the patterns that shape a person, how can you not find sympathy? Does that apply to somebody like E.D. Armin who, as you say, committed many atrocities, extrajudicial killings, we believe that estimates between 100,000 to 300,000 people killed, the nepotism, the corruption and all the rest of it. Does it apply to him? In some ways I guess he very strongly because at first you look at what is projected of him and you have to try to go to the source of what would make him become that. What would make him commit 300,000 murders? What would allow him to do some of the atrocities that occur? You're asking for understanding, though, for somebody who was a very brutal dictator? I'm not asking for understanding for him. I'm looking for humanity in who he is. I think we have to look at humanity. We have to be able to stand in each other's shoes and understand that the way we behave is based on the different structures or things that happen to us as we grew up in our lives. So my philosophy as an artist is I look at every character and I try to understand them. I go to their core. I start pulling away the different experiences of their lives. Pulling away the different pains and understandings until I get to the bottom. And at the bottom of it I believe we are all connected in some way. At the bottom there's just a flame that is connected to everybody. And then you put those things back up on top of that character, that person, and that forms him. And then you can see a person who did atrocities who did horrible things, but you do try to go for understanding. Look at the perceptions that that film raised about Africa. I want to tell you what a Black British writer and film critic Vanessa Waters wrote in The Guardian. She said the fact that Armin killed many of his people. Does that give carte blanche to the filmmakers to play to some of the worst stereotypes of corrupt, murderous, incompetent and ridiculous Black leaders? Africa is presented as a place of violence and superstition ruled by fear. How far do you believe that's true and if so does it worry you? I mean I think that certainly because the content is really diverse and so there's all different types of stories and many of those stories need to be told. From different ways of life, different types of characters who make up that continent. But I think that if you look at historically like this particular character and what he did in his life and the things that happened, then you have to deal with the truth of what that is. It doesn't mean because I think this movie was somewhat about colonialization and what colonization did. And I think that was looking at painting that picture of that he was created. He was a soldier who was famous for fighting with the Mao-Maus and they took him. He wasn't choosing to be a president. They took him and said, here's this opportunity here. We'd like you to become president. We will use you as a puppet to deal with Armin's. But unfortunately for them he chose not to take that down. It doesn't play into the negative stereotypes of Africa which is the point that Vanessa Waters is making. Do you accept that there's a kernel of truth in that? I can say that does it play into that? I think that it plays in this particular story. I think it's trying to stay pretty true to what was occurring during that time. The things you were talking about, when you were referencing Idi Amin, you said all kinds of atrocities. You had no sympathy for him. You were discussing all these things and asking me how I could have any feeling about him. That was your point of view. So I'm saying that yes, that that may exist. And I think yes, more stories need to be told to deal with the African diaspora and to deal with the African continent that show the uplifting stories. They show the lies, the joys and all things like that. That's one of many stories. It's just one of many stories. One other aspect, just to finish on that film, that's interesting. So there's Idi Amin, this big figure in Africa ruled between 1971 to 79 and made quite an impression globally. But what does the film tell us about Hollywood? Because the story is related through the eyes of a young Scottish doctor who goes to Uganda. The veteran film producer Joe Piteralo says in general, the bottom line is that the major studios want assurances that film projects have the potential to attract a significant white audience. So they've got to go through the eyes of a white doctor. I think that has been the case in different times and continues to be that way at certain times. In the case of that, it was based on a book. So it was following that particular book. As a general point though, it's valid. At times it's been extremely valid. I think it continues to be. We're looking at a system where 13% of the leading characters in films, minorities are people of colour. But in reality there's 40% of our population is that. So there's a disparity. And so there's this question of economy. There's a question of why you make what film you make. And sometimes I think the studios themselves have made this assumption that in order to make a film be successful, in order to make the monies that they need to make, they needed to have a white protagonist. I mean I would put you some figures. In 90 years of the history of the Academy Awards, under 15 men and women of colour have received Oscars for Best Actors. And as you know, in 2015-2016, there were no nominations for black or non-white actors. And that made directors like Spike Lee and other people boycott the Oscars. Have you received short shrift in Hollywood, do you think, as a result of your colour? Or are you just one of the success stories who swam against the tide? I think in the first part of your statement, I think certainly there are disparities that have happened with artists who have not been recognised for their work at times. And I think it's still being worked on. It's even being worked on by the Academy to make it more inclusive, to make more people of colour, different people from different cultural backgrounds of different languages come together. For myself, it's difficult because I had a particular reason why I was becoming an artist. At the time when I was becoming an artist, I was using it as a window for me to be able to understand humanity in some way. So even if I had roles, it might not make me satisfied. I might be doing something that everyone would loud and say was great, but maybe it didn't create a great individual journey for me. Now I've had the opportunity to have really interesting journeys in different characters and stuff. Perhaps it's atypical at times and becoming more typical. But I want to ask you about that because one role that you did take was you played a cop in a policeman in the TV series The Shield, and you grew up, you were born in Texas, but you moved to LA when you were four years of age and you lived in a fairly segregated neighbourhood and you talked about how you saw acts of police brutality even against members of your own family and friends and so on and so forth. So then how did you feel about acting the role of a policeman? Again, I think each time it's an opportunity to try to understand more about that situation, understand more about myself, understand more about people. So if I'm playing a police officer, I get the opportunity to walk in their shoes to try to understand their purview and understand that particular person individually. It's not, I can't say it's difficult to play a police officer. Maybe I have certain reactions to police officers personally because of experiences that I've had, maybe put a charge inside of me at times because of things I've seen or because of the way I was brought up. That's still things that I'm working on as a human being. But playing the character was another opportunity to try to understand humanity, and for me that is the goal. That's the goal. We've seen obviously the Black Lives Matter campaign and even big stars like you are, for instance, I'm thinking of the case when in 2013 you walked into New York, Delhi, and you were wrongly accused of shoplifting and you were searching someone. You were stopped and frisked. What does that tell us about race in America today? Certainly, we're looking at all the, talking about Black Lives Matter, talking about what sort of came out of as a statement about against what was happening and occurring inside of many different communities where people of color were being harmed or hurt by state officials or police, and profiling that goes on with them and the stop and frisk movement and stuff. It makes the statement about the nation and how far we still need to go. Certainly, I think a young Black teenager, young Black teenager is like 20 times more likely to be killed than his White counterpart. Certainly, we have things that we need to be working on. You campaigned for Barack Obama in his presidential bid and you said back in 2008, I can feel the tide of change in the country. Did it come? There is still a tide of change. To try to act like we haven't had great progress as a nation and as culturally is not true. I mean, we're coming from a situation where originally we came to the nation as slaves. Now, the head of our country, the president was President Obama. It's a long journey. So to act as if we haven't moved anywhere is a... But he himself said in his final... It doesn't mean we won't have places to go. I think as Martin Luther King was saying, we're owed, it's a promissory note that's been given to us. That promissory note was for life, liberty and happiness. We have not achieved that. So until we truly achieve that, then we haven't become the America that we say we want to be. We are not living up to our Constitution, our Declaration of Independence. We're not living in that. But he didn't do very well on race, did he? Even in his final speech as President Barack Obama said, after my election there was talk of a post-racial America. Such a vision, however, well-intended was never realistic for race remains a potent and often divisive force in our society. The fact that there was this first African American president didn't really change things on the ground, did it? And in that sense he failed, he failed. No, I don't think he failed in that respect. I think he moved forward in conversation, he moved forward in understanding. It changes the psyche of the nation and the psyche of in some ways the world. Like I say, we're working on making those things stronger. You know what I mean? But to act like he hasn't succeeded and to act like that doesn't exist and to act like there isn't some success isn't correct because it's the truth. So Donald Trump, of course, in the White House and 88% of African Americans who voted in the presidential election voted for Hillary Clinton, only 8% of them voted for Donald Trump. Does that worry you then that he's not going to be a president for all Americans, in particular African Americans? I mean, that certainly remains to be seen. I'm hopeful that he's going to be a president in the end who represents all the constituency, who represents the people of all cultures, races, of sexual preference, of, you know, immigrants. You're optimistic about that? Optimistic? I can't be optimistic based on some of the statements that have been made. I'm just... What statements worry you in particular? Well, there's a lot of statements. There are loads, yeah. So there's concerns, but then we have to come to the table and try to find some common ground and hopefully push forward the agenda. It doesn't look good, though, does it? I mean, he's taken a swipe at what he's called liberal Hollywood and we saw the attack he made on Meryl Streep after she criticised him at the Golden Globes Awards. So he doesn't like liberal Hollywood. Is that going to include you, isn't it? It won't stop me from doing the work in the manner that I've been doing it for years and continuing to try to strive forward. I don't... I'm hopeful that we will be able to be a nation that's united. Right now we've been a nation that's polarized and before that we had a lot of questions and there's not a lot of... I think there's a lot of people who are doubting that we're going to move forward, you know, but in a positive way. They have to try to push it forward and if it doesn't happen, then the people themselves have to stand up and speak. If it doesn't happen, if they're not being respected, not being treated well, their needs are not being met, then they have to stand up whether that's in protest, movements, marches, however, to make their voices be heard. What is more important to you, your work as an actor or as a humanitarian activist? I mean, my work is, you know, humanitarian work is particularly important to me. But I'm always trying and striving to understand humanity and make sure that I see myself in others. And if I see myself in someone else and they're struggling and suffering, then I'd like to take up that mantle to try to heal that. Your peace and development initiative works a great deal with young people affected by violence, in particular young people, children who were forced to work to fight as child soldiers, which of course we've seen in Uganda as well as other parts of the world. But how can you fix that aspect of a much, much bigger problem by just addressing this one thing? And are you having much success with child soldiers? I don't address it just by dealing with child soldiers. I've been working with child soldiers. There's 250,000 child soldiers in the world. I started working initially in Uganda with child soldiers. We started working in the South Sudan on our youth peacemaker network to deal with peace and reconciliation and development. So we've been training youth in that way. We started first in Zhongli State because we thought maybe the conflict might happen there. We wanted to help stabilize the country if it did. And it did happen and that was the place where the conflicts happened. But the use that we had trained all activists like a sort of early warning system to help each other get to safety. So that was very powerful and that's what they did and continued it. What I meant is developing these countries is such a huge, huge problem. You can help the young people, but where are the jobs for them? Even if you get them in education, quality education, there's no gainful employment for them and so on. It must make you feel very frustrated that despite your huge efforts, you still sometimes see that there isn't as much change on the ground as you would like. Certainly, when you deal with this situation like in South Sudan where people are being... The Civil War has been going on for a long time. There's 50,000 deaths. 2.9 million people displaced. 2.9 million people displaced. A million are refugees and two internally displaced. The United Nations is saying that 5 million people don't have enough food and are in need of humanitarian assistance. That's nearly half the population. Are we to not try to move things forward and help the equation because of those atrocities? Of course you help. I'm saying that what we've done is worked with the youth, training them in that area. Those youth have went out into the community and trained others in those areas. In our space, as you say, it is a really difficult situation, but they have managed to be able to help during the situation as peace builders and as peace mediators. One of our youths went to get the army to move out of a school in order to bring his children back inside. He was able to accomplish that. He was affected as a member of Parliament. A lot of these different things are going on. All these development projects that they're still doing, even during this time, of really major atrocities and different difficulties are going on. A lot of worries about South Sudan, as you say. You have met President Salveqir of South Sudan and also his erstwhile deputy, Riyak Masha, who now leads the Sudan People's Liberation Movement in opposition, the main rebel leader. The rival between them is so personal. There are those who argue that there will be no peace in South Sudan until both men are no longer on the scene acting politically. I think that recently, I think it was in December, they started a dialogue for reconciliation in the country and I'm hoping that it will be inclusive, this national dialogue, and that everyone will be included and they'll be able to move through it otherwise there are a lot of players who are trying to help people find common ground to be able to deal with the situation. Is there any other situation of this magnitude? Can activists like you really be agents for change? I mean, I think that we all can be agents of change if we decide to stand up for certain things. Certainly I've been working in this area. We have thousands of views in the protection of civilian camp that we work with, 3,000 I believe at the moment. We are about to do into a refugee camp where we'll be working with about 10,000 people. Certainly we're dealing with the situation, building community learning centres across that state and stuff, in Eastern Equatorious State. So certain things are happening and during this time of difficulty, during this time of really painful recognitions. Forrest Whitaker, thank you very much indeed for coming on hard talk. Thank you.