In the 2006 movie The Last King Of Scotland, Forest Whitaker played the main character, Ugandan President Idi Amin, for which he won the Academy Award for Best Actor. To better understand what he was going to portray, the actor immersed himself in research. He talked with Amin's friends, relatives, generals, and victims. He learnt Swahili and perfected an East African accent.

He was so consumed by this role even off-set that his family stopped talking to him as they didn't want to put up with him. He ate only mashed bananas and beans and somehow managed to gain 50 pounds in the process to be more similar to the real dictator in appearance as well.

The director Kevin Macdonald said that he was a bit worried because he mostly had experience with documentaries and didn't work much with actors. The director shared his impressions, "This was method acting taken to extremes and I watched with astonishment. Forest was at a crisis point in his career and this felt like make or break. For nearly six months he wanted to be Amin, not just perform him. But in the end I could see there was method in the madness - he acted at the top of his game."