Whitaker On 'Last King Of Scotland'

Forest Whitaker has been in a lot of movies over the last 25 years, from "Fast Times At Ridgemont High" to "Bird" to "Panic Rroom." And he's also gotten applause as the director of "Hope Floats" and "Waiting To Exhale."

Now, the Oscar buzz is growing for his portrayal of Uganda's former dictator Idi Amin in "The Last King of Scotland."

Whitaker stopped by The Early Show to talk to Hannah Storm.

People are saying not only will he be nominated for an Oscar, but they are projecting you as a front-runner to win.

"I'm happy that people enjoy my work, and they are loving the film," Whitaker said. "Hopefully it will get people to the movies. It's a great film. I am trying to live in the moment. I am excited. I'm Happy."

The actor said it was gratifying to work so hard on a character.

"It is fulfilling, feeling that people are embracing the work and the film and the character," Whitaker said.

But is all the buzz also nerve racking?

"I don't want to get too caught up in what could happen. I just want to enjoy the moment and smell the air right now."

'Last King Of Scotland' is already having a big impact. Oprah Winfrey said she was going crazy for it – she's seen it three times and called this one of the greatest performances of all times.

But, Whitaker said he didn't know when he was filming it that it would have such an impact on people would who saw it.

"It was a little movie – we made it for like $8 million and shot it in eight weeks," he said. "You never know how an audience is going to respond. Right now we are still waiting because it'll probably be until January until it will open wide and a lot of people will see it."

Whitaker did a tremendous amount of research for this role, and Storm asked him what he learned about the Ugandan dictator.

"I think that, primarily, he was a soldier," he responded. "He was a soldier who became president reluctantly and then ruled the country as a soldier, trying to combat his enemies. All he knew about his enemies was to stop and destroy them, and that's what happened."

But was it to find humanity in the middle of Amin's madness?

"No," Whitaker said. "I wanted to understand the way he felt and what motivated him. Everybody has motivations for what they do, and once you understand them as an actor, it started to make the character become more whole and people relate to that."

The movie was shot on location in Uganda. Whitaker said that was critical for its success.

"I don't know if we could have done it anywhere else," he said. "At one point they tried to shoot it in South Africa which is a totally different place. In Uganda, I am there, I am around the Ugandans. In the movie, I am driving in Idi Amin's limousine, where he was raised as a kid. And I am at parliament where I am saying my speech."

Whitaker said he kept using Amin's accent even when he wasn't on the set, saying he needed to stay in character.

"There was one time into rehearsals that I dropped it because I had to go down and meet all the dignitaries, and it took me days to get it back," he said. "I was so frightened because I was there a month before and I was like, 'this is not going to happen again, I am not going to lose this character'."

Whitaker also said that when he would come on the set playing Amin, the entire crew would snap to attention like they would for a real dictator.

But, he also said it was a little difficult to leave the role.

"It took me a while," Whitaker said. "Even though I left the energy and voice, I was still talking in the first person for a while. My friends were like, 'could you stop saying, I, I, I? It's a character, let it go'."