USA: Academy Award winner Forest Whitaker receives star on Hollywood Walk of Fame

Forest Whitaker received the 2,335th star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in Los Angeles, California on Monday (April 16) outside the building where he picked up his Oscar earlier in the year. Whitaker's star is directly in front of the Kodak Theatre where he won an Academy Award for best male lead performance as Ugandan dictator Idi Amin in "The Last King of Scotland." "All I can think is how knows maybe there is going to be a little kid either where I come from or from abroad or I don't know. He looks down at the stars like I did at the Walk of Fame and he feels the magic and he dreams and who thinks for a second, even if for second, that maybe those dreams are possible because this being here under the Kodak theatre sign. Being here inside that building earlier this year , being here with all those people smiling and this is amazing it is unbelievably possible to do," Whitaker said. The LA native received the honour one day before the DVD release of "The Last King of Scotland.'' Famous friends of the actor also attended the ceremony including Angela Bassett who he directed in "Waiting to Exhale,'' and his "Phone Booth'' co-star Kiefer Sutherland. "Forest has a lot more dignity as a actor and as a person really then anyone else that I know. I am in awe not only of his talent again what I talked about today that everything comes from his heart and his heart is in a really good place," Sutherland said after the ceremony. Whitaker's first significant film role was in 1982's "Fast Times at Ridgemont High,'' portraying a football star. He went on to appear in "The Color of Money'', "The Crying Game'', "Platoon", and "Good Morning, Vietnam." He received a Golden Globe nomination for his starring role as jazz musician Charlie Parker in the 1988 film "Bird.'' 2007 is shaping up to be a year to remember for Whitaker -- in addition to the Oscar, Whitaker also received the Golden Globe and Screen Actors Guild awards and has many high profile films in the works including working with fellow Oscar winners Jennifer Hudson and Denzel Washington. "I just worked on a movie called "Winged Creatures" with Jennifer Hudson she actually plays my daughter. I didn't have many scenes with her she has most of her scene with other people its with Dakota Fanning, Kate Beckinsale, and Guy Pearce and Jackie Haley. It's a really powerful cast and I think a really powerful movie and I think she is going to be amazing in it. There is no music in it it's pure acting and the work I have seen her do so far is really strong. I do that next. I will probably meet with Denzel over the next few days before I leave town just to talk about the script and then we are going to go down to Shreveport which is actually 50 miles from where I was born. So it's a perfect for me to do part there the story like right where I was born," Whitaker told Reuters.

ITN Source | April 19, 2007

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