Tim Marlow: The director of The Last King of Scotland, Kevin Macdonald, said he thought at first that you might not be dark-minded enough for the role of a dictator. Did you find the childishness and humour of Amin a way into this darkness?

Forest Whitaker: When I started working on playing him, I didn’t really think of him as a child, but as somebody who went after his passions and intentions so strongly in whatever he was doing. But when you see him flip from one intention to another in a sort of mercurial fashion he can start to look like a child, who one minute is crying about hurting his knee and the next minute is excited by ice cream. But I don’t really think of him in that way. I think like a child he has ‘toys’ to play with - in the form of the military - but it was important for him to try to be the ‘father of Uganda’ since the country has a strong patriarchal society. But rather than follow the structure he had been taught in the military he chose to become the enforcer of Uganda.

TM: You obviously had to cut through the stereotype of Amin being a monster, but in doing so were you conscious of drawing criticism of being too sympathetic from some quarters of the press?

FW: I wasn’t trying to make him sympathetic at all but I think many people have only a two-dimensional picture of him. You can’t ignore that he was a charismatic figure – he rose from nothing to become the president. All through his life he was chosen – by the British to train at Sandhurst and by the Israelis for special training. All the countries loved him. If you watch any of the documentaries about him – such as Barbet Schroeder's Idi Amin Dada - you can see he was human, I wasn’t making this up.

TM: How much of the character of Amin did you have in your mind before you went to Uganda and how much did filming over there change the way you thought about him?

KW: I had no real deep understanding of him before this film, other than a postage stamp image of a mad dictator in Africa. But when I went to Uganda I started to submerge myself in the country to try to understand his motivations – not to excuse them – so I could put a face to the name. I think unless you give a face to the name of somebody like Amin then we will find it very difficult to stop somebody like him in the future, or even realise that we are standing in the midst of somebody who could wipe out this many people.

TM: How has your approach to a role changed over the course of your career?

FW: I used to be a much more isolated actor. Now I’ve worked with a lot of different people, on a lot of different projects and also behind the scenes so I understand everything a lot better now. I am an actor that likes to submerge himself in the role of a charactor though and rather than using ‘the method’ I try to use my own method of learning the languages and skills of a character and try to get an insight that way. When I was asked by Clint [Eastwood] to take on the role of Charlie Parker [in Bird] I was just proud that he had faith in me and allowed me to throw myself into the role. I spent days learning how to play the saxophone. In The Crying Game I decided to spend most of my time developing an accent I was happy with. For a lot of the film I have my head hidden by a bag [Whitaker plays a British soldier kidnapped by the IRA] so I knew it would be important for people to connect with my voice.

TM: Does the idea of taking on the grand roles of stage, such as Shakespearean characters, appeal to you?

FW: That was always my idea when I started out, I was going to go to New York and be a stage actor, but I got kind of sidetracked. I just haven’t had the chance so far, but I like the stage. I like the energy of the stage and the ease at which you can connect with the audience. You feel the people. What I’ve been trying to figure out in film is how you can connect in a similar way.

TM: You’ve worked with some fantastic directors – from Eastwood to Scorsese to Jordan – but which director have you learnt most from?

FW: I guess I learnt something from all of them, just different things. With Clint [Eastwood] I just learnt how important a good environment is and how to go about creating one that moves along seamlessly. Also, how important it is as a director to support your whole crew. Robert Altman [Prêt-à-Porter] had a way of doing improvisation and such and creating a situation, putting you inside of it and making something happen. [Martin] Scorsese [The Colour of Money] just has such a clear, fascinating focus. David Fincher [Panic Room] has an amazing capacity to understand all of the technical aspects of film.

The Last King of Scotland opens January 12

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