US star meets Madiba

2007-04-20 21:11

Johannesburg - Academy award-winning actor Forest Whitaker met former South African president Nelson Mandela on Friday and received a rapturous welcome from university students at the start of his visit to the country.

Accompanied by his wife Keisha and three daughters, the star of The Last King of Scotland arrived on Thursday as a guest of South African tourism promotion officials. It was Whitaker's first visit to the country.

"South Africa as a country is a place that we as a family have been looking forward to visiting for quite some time," Whitaker said on arrival at Johannesburg's OR Tambo International Airport on Thursday, where he was greeted by Zulu dancers and drummers.

Passions and dreams

On Friday, Whitaker met Mandela in a private visit at the former president's offices after telling students at the University of Johannesburg about his journey from a small Texan town to his Oscar win for his portrayal of Ugandan dictator Idi Amin.

"My parents always encouraged me to pursue my passions and my dreams. And I was driven," he said.

He said playing the African leader who was responsible for the deaths of thousands of people in the 1970s was a "powerful experience" that changed him.

"I didn't find him to be foreign, I understood his fear and I tried to understand his motivations and reasons," he said.

Whitaker addressed concerns raised by students about actors not from Africa playing characters from the continent and said that it largely had to do with ensuring a film's commercial success.

"I was not the director's first choice for the Idi Amin role," he said. "And I know that African actors did audition for the role, but I ended up being their final choice."

- SAPA