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Forest Whitaker has won the Academy Award as best actor
for his acclaimed portrayal of Ugandan dictator Idi Amin in The
Last King of Scotland.
The triumph came on the first Oscar nomination ever for Whitaker, a
prolific character actor who gained 50 pounds and learned some
Swahili for the role that landed him Hollywood's highest honor for
a big-screen performance.
Whitaker, 45, is only the fourth black performer to win the Oscar
as best actor, following in the footsteps of Sidney Poitier for the
1963 film Lilies of the Field, Denzel Washington for 2001's
Training Day and Jamie Foxx two years ago for Ray.
Whitaker's menacing and mercurial portrait of Amin was so
universally lauded for its eerie realism that critics and Oscar
pundits regarded him as a near shoo-in for the top acting prize
this year.
His biggest competition came from Peter O'Toole, the 74-year-old
veteran of British stage and screen, who received the eighth
best-actor nomination of his career (without winning) for playing
an aging actor who falls for a young woman in Venus.
Others nominated for best actor were Leonardo DiCaprio for his role
as jewel smuggler in Blood Diamond, Ryan Gosling as an inner-city
school teacher with a drug habit in Half Nelson, and Will Smith as
a struggling salesman who ends up homeless with his son in The
Pursuit of Happyness.
