Broadway Debut for an Oscar Winner and Peace Envoy
The moment Forest Whitaker steps onto 42nd Street in New York, the shouting begins.
“Can I get a picture with you, please?” “One selfie? One selfie?” “You’re the best.”
It’s just three blocks from the rehearsal studio to the theater where he will be making his Broadway debut, but around him, there are blazing billboards, screaming sirens, crushing crowds.
Mr. Whitaker is trying to tune all that out. He’s been obsessing about Times Square, but the Times Square of 1928, swanky and soaring just before the big stock market crash.
It was at a hotel in this neighborhood that Eugene O’Neill was born in 1888. And it was at a hotel in this neighborhood that the playwright set the one- act play “Hughie,” in which Mr. Whitaker is preparing to star as a small-time gambler and bigtime drinker called Erie Smith.
The role will be the first time in decades that Mr. Whitaker, 54, an in- demand film and television actor who won an Oscar for his work in “The Last King of Scotland,” has appeared in a play. It will also be the first time that a black actor has played Erie Smith on Broadway — a detail that might be just theatrical trivia, but for the fact that it comes at a time when Hollywood is convulsed by debate over this year’s all-white slate of Oscar acting nominees, while Broadway is celebrating its most diverse season ever.
“Look — I’m an African-American,” he said. “I’m black. But I’m just looking at the character and trying to find his soul, his energy,” Mr. Whitaker said. “If you can wipe away the blanket of skin and flesh that people tend to see, and look inside for the essence of the soul, then that’s the work I’m doing. That’s the work I always do.”
Over the last three decades, Mr. Whitaker has played a variety of roles on film and TV, often in prestige projects like “Bird” and “Lee Daniels’ The Butler.” In person he is quiet, thoughtful and passionate, particularly about acting, and about justice; he is also a Californian, a longtime vegetarian and a lifelong practitioner of ma r t i a l arts (after years of Kali, a Filipino sport, he has recently become interested in qigong, a Chinese practice).
M ichae l Grandage, t he director of “Hughie,” said: “When someone asks, ‘ Can you describe Forest Whitaker?’ you go: ‘ Based on what? “The Crying Game?” Idi Amin? “Southpaw”?’ He’s so different in each of them.”
He added: “He’s a transformer, and he does it literally. In rehearsal, he has lost almost a few inches off his own size, because he’s gone into himself as Erie; he’s adjusted his own vocal point, which is a great bass baritone voice naturally, to something slightly higher and more vulnerable, and he’s constantly looking over his shoulder, because Erie is paranoid.”
The play takes place between 3 and 4 in the morning in the lobby of the rundown hotel. O’Neill wrote the play in 1941, but it was not performed during his lifetime. “When it came out, it got respectful reviews, but they weren’t over the moon,” said Robert M. Dowling, an O’Neill biographer. “Now ‘Hughie’ is considered by a lot of people to be the greatest one- act play ever written by an American.”
Mr. Whitaker had not appeared onstage since shortly after graduating from college; after his film career took off, he thought about trying stage acting, drawn to what he saw as “a magical medium.” He thought he was holding out for an original play, when, out of the blue, a Broadway producer sent him the script of “Hughie.”
Mr. Whitaker did not know the play, but he liked the idea of O’Neill, the theme of identity, the context of mourning.
“I want to get better as an actor, to keep trying to work harder, trying to discover something different,” he said.
Mr. Whitaker is a busy man. In recent months, he shot the next movie in the “Star Wars” franchise, as well as the TV remake of “Roots.” He is a director (“Waiting to Exhale”) and producer (“Fruitvale Station”). He spends about 60 percent of his time on philanthropy, overseeing his foundation, which works on conflict resolution around the globe, and representing the United Nations, for which he is a Unesco Special Envoy for Peace and Reconciliation.
He is deeply concerned about race issues in his own country. Some of that concern is informed by his personal experiences: Just three years ago, he was accosted by a deli worker who falsely accused him of shoplifting
r. Whitaker said the lack of diversity among the Oscar nominees should prompt reflection.
“This is something that has to be addressed on a base level: Who is distributing projects, what kinds of stories are being written, what kind of roles are people of all colors being allowed to have,” he said. “You have to try to find a way to change that equation, and we’re living in a time when equations can be changed.”