Recognized as one of the greatest actors of all time right alongside names such as Denzel Washington, Samuel L. Jackson, Don Cheadle, and the elusive Wesley Snipes, Forest Whitaker has displayed a level of quiet and disciplined character in many of his movie roles, appearing as one who is wise and considerate. However, there are roles where he played quite the opposite, such as in The Last King of Scotland in which he won plenty of awards for his portrayal of the Ugandan politician and military officer, Idi Amin. He also appeared in movies like Black Panther alongside Michael B. Jordan and the late Chadwick Boseman as well as the Great Debaters, in which he starred next to Denzel Washington.
To date, the Texas-born actor has appeared in over 90 films over the years. Here is how the prolific acting career of Forest Whitaker has built him a $25 million net worth.
A Famous Happenstance
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Not every famous actor in Hollywood reached their height of success by intending to become an actor early on in life. Some saw acting as a secondary pursuit that just so happened to careen them into superstardom. Such was the case with Forest Whitaker. Born in Longview, Texas on July 15th, 1961, Whitaker and his family moved to California when he was in elementary school where he was raised with his two brothers, Kenn and Damon, and his sister, Deborah.
While he may have had no intentions of becoming the next Barry White, his desire was to sing, and he joined the choir in addition to playing football in high school. According to Celebrity Net Worth, he attended California State Polytechnic University on a full football scholarship. He would then shift his focus from football to opera singing and eventually to drama, graduating with a BFA in acting in 1982.
Following his graduation, he landed a supporting role the very same year as a football player in the coming-of-age comedy-drama, Fast Times at Ridgemont High, shot by the famous film Cameron Crowe and starring Sean Penn. Whitaker’s on-screen performance was highly regarded, and he went on to star in a string of other movies throughout the ’80s, including The Color of Money in 1986, starring Tom Cruise and Paul Newman and grossing $52.3 million at the box office. The same year, he appeared in Oliver Stone’s war film named Platoon when he appeared opposite Willem Dafoe and Charlie Sheen, grossing $138 million worldwide. Whitaker’s stock was only increasing with each role.
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Being Associated With Big Names And Gaining More Fame
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His next noteworthy film was another war film, this time a comedy called Good Morning, Vietnam, starring the late comedy king Robin Williams. Then, in 1988 he landed his first lead role in Clint Eastwood’s Bird as the musician Charlie “Bird” Parker. Despite the film’s commercial failure at the box office, Whitaker received praise for his performance and won the Best Actor Award and a Golden Globe nomination.
As his career progressed into the 1990s, Whitaker continued hooking big fish roles with well-known directors, such as the 1992 thriller The Crying Game where he played the role of a captive British soldier, going as far as employing an English accent. In 1995, he appeared alongside the acting genius William Hurt and Harold Perrineau Jr. in an independent film titled Smoke, which was a box office success with a gross earning of $38 million. His next movie was Phenomenon, a 1996 romantic fantasy drama starring John Travolta and Kyra Sedgewick which grossed $152 million. From there he went on to play the star lead as a mysterious Mafia hitman in the 1999 crime film, Ghost Dog: Way of The Samurai which grossed a little over $9 million at the box office.
His remarkable success continued into the 2000s with his appearance in the British-Canadian film The Fourth Angel starring Jeremy Irons and Jason Priestley. He would go on to star in the 2002 thriller, Panic Room, where he played the role of one of three burglars who decide to rob the home of Meg Altman (Jodie Foster) and her daughter, played by The Twilight Saga’s Kristen Stewart.
In just a few more years in 2006, he would act as Idi Amin in what is regarded as one of the greatest performances of his career, The Last King of Scotland, starring James McAvoy, David Oyelowo, and Kerry Washington. The film grossed $48.4 million in worldwide earnings, but what’s more, is that Whitaker won a total of 23 major for that particular film. His other highlighted film appearances include The Last Stand (2013), in which he co-starred with Arnold Schwarzenegger and Johnny Knoxville as well as Rogue One: a A Star Wars Story in which he co-starred with Felicity Jones and Diego Luna for a global earning of $1.056 billion.
Television Appearances And Real Estate
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Whitaker hasn’t only dominated film, but also television series with his unique acting brilliance. His first television appearance began in the mid-1980s with Diff’rent Strokes and then he played a comic book salesman in Steven Spielberg’s Amazing Stories. Between 2002 and 2003, he narrated 44 episodes of The Twilight Zone. In 2006, he also made a guest appearance on FX’s police drama series, The Shield, where he was praised for his riveting performance. Most recently in 2019, Whitaker has been starring in the EPIX series, Godfather of Harlem, as Bumpy Johnson in hopes of depicting the relationship between the criminal world and the civil rights movement in the ’60s.
In 2017, the Street Kings actor listed his Hollywood Hills homes for $6 million before reducing it to $3.85 million in 2020. The actor/director bought the two properties in 2003 for $2 million which stretch across 1.66 acres of land and boasts 11 bedrooms and 10.5 bathrooms. His portfolio may not be as extensive as someone like Rihanna, but rest assured, he is most likely quite content somewhere in Nigeria, where he was named a chief among the Igbo community and considered A Brother In A Foreign Land.
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Sources: Roger Ebert, Celebrity Net Worth, Spirituality and Practice
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