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Tavis: Forest Whitaker is an award-winning actor whose film credits include 'Platoon,' 'The Crying Game,' and 'Panic Room.' He also appears frequently on the FX drama 'The Shield.' His latest project, he plays former Ugandan dictator Idi Amin in the film 'The Last King Of Scotland.' The movie is getting great reviews and opens today in a few cities, more on the way. Here now, a scene from 'The Last King Of Scotland.'

Tavis: Forest, good to see you, man.

Forest Whitaker: Good to see you.

Tavis: You been all right?

Whitaker: I've been great, I've been really well.

Tavis: I was just telling Carol, my producer, before we came on the air, that I haven't completely filled out my list of all five men who will receive a nomination for the Academy Award next year. But I've got two of the five slots filled in. interestingly, king is the operative word. I've got Sean Penn for 'All The King's Men.' He must be nominated.

Whitaker: Oh, he's a great actor, yeah.

Tavis: Must be nominated. And 'The Last King Of Scotland,' Forest Whitaker, must be nominated.

Whitaker: (sounds like) Thank you, that's nice.

Tavis: You've done a lot of great work over the years. This was absolutely phenomenal. It will be a crying shame if you don't get nominated. Let me start by asking you, and I'm anxious to do this, how you would describe Idi Amin. I had one image of him before I saw this, and that didn't altogether shift, but it expanded, if I can put it that way.

Whitaker: Sure.

Tavis: How would you describe Idi Amin?

Whitaker: Well, it's difficult to describe him without looking at the fact that he's a soldier, and that he was groomed to be a soldier since he was very young. And I think that a lot of his choices and things, his political choices when he became the president of Uganda, and then the way he started to defend himself, how he decided to dictate his politics upon the nation. And when he tried to stop his enemies, really. In this case, being the president, he decided who his enemies were. As a soldier, those enemies were pointed out to him.

Tavis: I was fascinated to juxtapose how much he loved being a Ugandan. Here's a guy who's proud of being not just an African, but a Ugandan. It's all in his being.

Whitaker: Yeah, exactly.

Tavis: And yet I couldn't understand, I couldn't juxtapose being proud to be a Ugandan, and yet being so devilish. Maybe that's a word I don't wanna use these days, after Mr. Chavez. (Laugh) But being so devilish in his ways where his people were concerned.

Whitaker: But you what's interesting, because from the western point of view, us being in the west, it's much different than the way Ugandans look at Idi Amin. When I was in Uganda, the people, on the one hand, they could hold him as this person who had created all these atrocities, all these murders. But on the other hand, they would look at him as somebody who did a lot of great things for them.

In some ways, some people even looked at him as a hero. So it was a weird juxtaposition, but he did do a lot of things in his love for Uganda and his push for pride that, like, resonated for the people there. He changed a lot of things. He created, really, the business class in Uganda. And there's so many things that he's altered and shifted that, like, helped them as Ugandans.

Tavis: For everyday people in Uganda who see him in total or in part as a hero, they base that on what? What are they referencing, with regard to his legacy, that they see as heroic?

Whitaker: Well you have to remember, he was the head of the OAU. He was the head of the Organization Of African Unity. The whole of the continent of Africa looked to him in a lot of ways, because he was one of the few leaders that said get out. He told the Brits, get out. He told the Israelis, get out. He told basically America to get out. He said, we can handle ourselves. We can take care of our own people.

And then he, through naiveté or whatever, but his intent was to create a business class (unintelligible). So when he kicked the Asians out, which was really difficult and horrible for the Asians, 'cause many of them had been living there and were born there. But they did control 80 to 90 percent of the economy of Uganda. And so when they were left out, the people in the confusion had to try to fill these jobs.

And slowly, as time went on, now they have these Ugandan businessmen who are running the country and running the businesses there. So I think that's one of the reasons, as well as, like, making them learn their native languages. National pride. And also at the same time, he started a radio station. And with the radio station, he auditioned plays. He took these plays and he put them in the theater, and before that, only the expatriates, the Brits, were doing theater there in Kampala. And so he did all these things. It's just hard to reconcile the fact that so many people died.

Tavis: Two questions about your playing the role. One, how did you prepare to play this? And I wanna come back and ask in a moment whether or not, in the preparation or in the shooting itself, your view of Idi Amin changed one way or the other. But first, how did you prepare to play, 'cause he is a complex character.

Whitaker: Yeah. First I started, I really started learning the key Swahili, 'cause I wanted to sort of trick my head that English was a second language. I started learning the accent, started studying all these documentaries. 'Cause he let people follow him around. He really courted the press. So there was a (unintelligible) documentary that I was studying. And then I went to Uganda, and I met with his brothers and his sisters.

I met with his generals, I met with his ministers. I met with some of his girlfriends. And then I just started to immerse myself in the culture there, to try to understand what it was like to be African, from the African continent.

Tavis: Did your opinion of him shift in any way from what you knew or thought you knew about him prior to playing the role?

Whitaker: It did. I had always assumed that he wanted to be the president, that that was a goal of some sort. That he had this mad quest for power. But then what I found out as I started to do this research and historical research was that really, he was trying to defend himself. What happened was there was these three countries with Uganda, Tanzania, and Kenya, and they were creating a socialist bloc right there in Africa.

And the west wanted it broken. And so when he was away, they were about to arrest Mbote, the president, and they helped him do a coup to insert him as the president of Uganda. And then it just created this unrest in that whole region of Africa. I had assumed that he had gotten this mad quest for power, where he was a general, and he's like no, I should be president. But it wasn't like that, really.

Tavis: Did your opinion, 'cause mine did, but this is not my conversation, it's yours. But did your opinion or view of America, the United States, and how we engage the world in a geopolitical sense, did your view of America, U.S. foreign policy, shift or change in studying Mr. Amin?

Whitaker: Yeah, I think the movie itself examines what happens when we, as a western culture, go into places and start to dictate to them the way they should live, what they should do, their politics, who their leaders are. And what kind of monsters, really, are created from us doing that. And so as a result, I had to look at my own country, and I'll have to look at the choices that we're making as we're going into different places and dictating our belief systems and structures upon them. And what kind of monsters are created from that. I hate to use that word, it's the wrong word to use. The results of our actions. There's always cause and effect, you know what I mean?

Tavis: Absolutely.

Whitaker: (Laugh) Yeah.

Tavis: Well, at least I know I'm not alone now. (Laugh) I wasn't the only one who saw it that way when I was reminded of that again. I think we know that already. But to see it on film just reminds you that we do have some tricky ways of engaging the world from time to time. That said, let me go back, Forest, to something you said a moment ago that I wanna go back and get. You said that Amin, and you see this in the film, was real cool with courting the press.

Which again I found fascinating and interesting, because for a guy who had this image, for a guy who had this reputation, one doesn't think that dictators or thugs or monsters, whatever word you wanna put on them, allow the press to get that close to them, and yet he did. What'd you make of that?

Whitaker: Well, I think that he was smart enough to realize that that was one of his places of power. Because he had asked the Brits for weapons. He'd tried to arm himself. But the one arm that he had was to be able to speak out and be heard. And at first, I think the west, they didn't really recognize even what was going on in the country. They were so caught up in trying to create this sort of buffoon character.

This sort of madman in Africa. And as a result, he started to talk about politics. He started to talk about South Africa and what was going on there, he started to talk about what was happening in Israel and the PLO. He started talking about all these different things, while they're laughing. They're, like, thinking oh, we're coming to just have a good time. And as a result, it empowered him. It became his weapon, in a way, and I think one of the reasons why he's so large on the world stage.

Tavis: Let me go back to where I began this conversation. I'm not a king-maker. There's that word king again. Because if I could, I'd put you automatically in that category, along with Mr. Penn, who I mentioned, Sean Penn, who I mentioned earlier. But that's my opinion, which doesn't mean a hill of beans in this town. (Laugh) What I am curious, though, is about your opinion of where this project ranks in terms of the work that you have done.

I assume that there are things in your career that you might not do over again, or didn't think you did your best job on, or wish you were as great an actor then as you are now. All that said, how do you rank this performance? 'Cause again, I think it's at the top of your list now.

Whitaker: Yeah, I think it's the most complete work I've done, probably. There's been a lot of films, I feel very proud of them. But there was just so many technical things to understand, and so many things to pull together, and then trying to find the spirit of this man. And it took a lot of work. And when that kind of materialized, when it came out, in the end, the result, I felt that it was honest and true. And I felt that it was some of the best work that I've ever done.

Tavis: Yeah, here again, I'm not alone. We agree. (Laugh)

Whitaker: (Laugh) Thanks.

Tavis: Yeah, it is tough to watch at times. It's powerful, but tough to watch at times. One that I certainly recommend, and recommend highly. Forest, nice to see you.

Whitaker: Thank you, thanks for having me here.

Tavis: Glad to have you here. That's our show for tonight. Catch me on the weekends on PRI, Public Radio International. Check your local listings. See you back here next time on PBS. Until then, good night from Los Angeles, thanks for watching, and as always, keep the faith.