METAMORPHOSIS HOW NICE-GUY FOREST WHITAKER BECAME FEARSOME UGANDAN DICTATOR IDI AMIN.

Byline: Glenn Whipp Film Writer

Forest Whitaker playing Idi Amin?

Kevin Macdonald couldn't see it. When the actor's name was first mentioned during the casting process for ``The Last King of Scotland,'' the director dismissed the idea. Too internal, thought Macdonald. Too much the gentle giant. Couldn't produce the fireworks necessary for playing one of history's most notorious dictators.

But Macdonald was drawing a blank on other alternatives, so he agreed to at least meet Whitaker. And the first thing that he noticed was the way Whitaker seemed to understand the Ugandan general.

``He had an empathy for him right away,'' Macdonald says. ``It was almost creepy.''

At the end of the meeting, Whitaker looked Macdonald in the eye and said, ``You still don't think I can do it, do you?'' Macdonald admitted as much. He told Whitaker he was fascinated by the 45-year-old actor's take on Amin but couldn't get beyond his preconceptions.

``I've never seen you do anything like this,'' Macdonald told him.

Which prompted Whitaker to think to himself: ``Just who has a piece of work that's like Idi Amin?''

The soft-spoken, friendly Whitaker laughs when he thinks back to the initial meeting, saying he understood Macdonald's position. That's why he agreed to do what he calls a work session, in which he performed several scenes from the ``Scotland'' script, including one following an assassination attempt in which Amin's mercurial, dark nature comes to the fore for the first time.

Later, when the movie's producers asked him to come back again and film the scenes, Whitaker passed.

``I just wanted Kevin to be comfortable,'' Whitaker says. ``It's his first movie. But you know, I do have a large body of work. I thought that should answer any further questions they might have.''

Body of work with depth, breadth

While it's true that, over his long film career, Whitaker has inhabited his share of dark characters - he played a killer in ``The Panic Room'' and a Mafia hit man (albeit a quiet, sad one) in ``Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai'' - the performances have been largely internal. Whitaker's most celebrated work was playing doomed jazz legend Charlie Parker in Clint Eastwood's ``Bird,'' another soulful, introspective turn.

That history makes his volatile portrayal of the madman Amin in ``The Last King of Scotland,'' which opened Wednesday in Los Angeles, all the more revelatory. Whitaker's chilling turn was the talk of the Toronto Film Festival with Wall Street Journal film critic Joe Morgenstern going so far as to say: ``Forest Whitaker's portrait of Amin is one of the great performances of modern movie history.''

``It's exciting that people are liking the work,'' Whitaker says. ``I hope it makes people want to go see the movie.''

The film, based on a novel by Giles Foden, is a morality tale that plays like a good version of Steven Zaillian's ``All the King's Men.''

A Scottish doctor (James McAvoy) goes to Uganda, looking for adventure, and finds more than he bargained for when he becomes Amin's personal physician and close adviser. The fictional doctor - vain and self-serving - compromises whatever morals he once had, turning a blind eye toward Amin's dark side and deluding himself until the monstrous truth becomes impossible to ignore.

Whitaker traveled to Uganda, where the movie was shot, a month before filming began. He spoke to those who knew Amin - family members, generals who served under him - and the populace at large. The actor was searching for the spirit of the character, and the journey surprised him.

``It was interesting, this weird duality, the way people viewed him,'' Whitaker says. ``People would say, `He was good for the country,' and then mention later that he killed their father.''

The bloody, erratic regime

Amin, who began his military career in the British colonial army, seized power in a 1971 coup, and shortly afterward began killing members of the opposition. His regime, which lasted until he was deposed in 1979, was characterized by erratic behavior that some attribute to possible neurosyphilis. Journalists were charmed by his outspokenness and eccentricities. It wasn't until later in his regime that the world understood the true horror of his rule.

The film hardly exonerates Amin, but it also uses the Scottish doctor as a symbol of the wrongs caused by Western interference and intervention in cultures it doesn't understand.

``This film will, hopefully, make people think what the story is really about - what happens when the West goes in and dictates to people how they should live their lives and how to behave and what to believe in and how to appoint their leaders,'' Whitaker says. ``That's the relevance of the movie to me. It keeps happening over and over all over the planet.''

Actor remained in character

While making the movie, Whitaker stayed largely in character, something he rarely does as an actor. He did it almost out necessity, finding it impossible to jump in and out of the energy needed to play Amin.

``Before we started the film, they threw a party at the hotel, and I went down there and tried to drop the accent and it took me days - days! - to get the character back,'' Whitaker says. ``It was really difficult, and I was so frustrated, frightened, in a way. `What happened? I had it.' But I hadn't entrenched it deeply enough to manifest it in every gesture and every thought so the character would live as a complete being.

``That was a very clear indication that I need to stay similar to the character,'' Whitaker continues. ``That night really freaked me out. So I decided I wasn't going to play around with it.''

Says Macdonald: ``It wasn't like he was going to kill anyone on set. But he learned Swahili. He learned how to play the push-button accordion. He read the history, he watched the videos. He would only eat the food Amin ate - mashed green bananas and beans. He absorbed it all and internalized it. And he stayed in that place for eight weeks.''

``I didn't know what he was doing,'' McAvoy adds. ``People on the set were whispering, `Forest is in a foul mood. He's going to turn on us.' I didn't think about that. I just knew he was giving off a huge amount of energy, which was great for me as an actor.''

McAvoy isn't surprised, nor is he miffed about being in Whitaker's shadow.

``When we were making the movie, you knew who the king of the set was,'' McAvoy says. ``Not that he acted like it, but you knew you were witness to something special.''

Glenn Whipp, [phone]

glenn.whipp(at)dailynews.com

CAPTION(S):

4 photos

Photo:

(1) learning to be a MONSTER

Forest Whitaker transforms himself into Ugandan dictator Idi Amin in `The Last King of Scotland'

Gus Ruelas/Staff Photographer

(2 -- 3) no caption (Forest Whitaker)

(4) - Forest Whitaker