Question: What surprised you about him as a guy, getting a chance to know him because you two seem to have the same kind of energy?

Forest Whitaker: I liked him. When you deal with him when you first meet him he seems to be really open and comfortable with himself. That's very cool. He's very, very confident in that respect. I think that we got to know each other through the work more than through other things.

Question: Where do you keep your Oscar?

Forest Whitaker: There are shelves in my house as you go down the stairs and it's in there on a shelf on the side of the wall.

Question: What's it like to go to work when you're around a lot of great actors? Does it change your attitude and was that a draw to this movie?

Forest Whitaker: I think it was slowly trying to figure out what I might be able to do with it. The character grew as the movie was getting cast. There were still people being cast and then it became this amazing cast. I'm inspired to work with good actors period. I want to work with the best any time because I think they'll make me better. I keep trying to reach that. I think that David did a good thing. He put together a kind of eclectic group of people. They seem very different from each other, but they fit into this world really well and all the actors are really strong. Common had a really strong focus on the character. Everybody had a different take. Jay Mohr. I thought that Jay was great. Something about his character was very understated and very strong.

Question: What's happening with 'Wild Things'?

Forest Whitaker: I don't know. Last time I talked to someone about it they said there were some complications. I don't know what they are. It's not coming out this year. It might come out this year. I was thinking about it the other day and I was thinking about calling Spike Jonze and ask him, but I don't want to frustrate him more.

Question: Was that all voice over or was there more to it than that?

Forest Whitaker: On that one we actually did rehearsals and he shot all the rehearsals. So we started with rehearsals at his house and then moved up to the hills and had like dodge ball fights and stuff. Then we went into this space he erected and they created the world in Styrofoam and then we all played the scenes and played the characters. They had a camera on each one of us and they filmed each one of us as we went through the whole process of doing the movie. Then I think that he took that and showed it to the guys who would be working the puppets so they could see the way we were moving and doing certain things. Then they kind of imitated our movements a little bit and then I think they were going to take some of our facial expressions and put them inside 'Wild Things' faces.

Question: Who's a better dodge ball player, you or Spike Jonze?

Forest Whitaker: I think I'm pretty good. Spike loves that though, that's his thing. He created 'Jackass'. He's a fun guy and he loves doing that stuff. Even when we did the scene when we got the space and we were doing rock fights in the movie we were having bread fights. So we'd be throwing rolls at each other across this giant thing and it kind of got pretty intense, violently intense. When you squeeze a roll really tight you can get some speed on it and it can hurt.

Question: Have you seen this movie with the audience? There's that final scene where your character is stunned that Keanu walks in. Do you enjoy the audience reaction?

Forest Whitaker: What did they do?

Question: They laughed. You don't expect him to be alive and he's alive and we know it and you turn around and he tries to play it off.

Forest Whitaker: I've only seen it with the actors. I'm curious to see it with an audience. I thought it was interesting because whatever David did he did this thing where you can't predict what's going to happen to me because he made the characters capable of doing anything. I felt like the characters were capable at any time of harming each other or harming someone else. So as a result you don't know what's going to happen. You're surprised. So I am interested in seeing how the audience will respond to some of the surprises.

Question: There's also a lot of ammunition fired in this film. Did you know how to hold and shoot a gun prior to this film?

Forest Whitaker: Yeah.

Question: Any mishaps on the set?

Forest Whitaker: I don't know what happened with those guys. I didn't shoot a weapon. I don't remember shooting anything. I don't think I did. So the biggest thing for me, I guess, that I did was the fight scene. We didn't get hurt or anything. Those other scenes were really intense. I don't know what happened to them.

Question: You recently worked with Patrick Swayze in 'Powder Blue'. How did you react to the news that broke about a week ago, with what's going on with him?

Forest Whitaker: It's a horrible thing. Pancreatic cancer is a horrible cancer. I've worked with Patrick a number of times. I worked with him on 'North and South' for about five or six months. I produced 'The Green Dragon' and he was in that and I produced 'Powder Blue' which he's in. It's a horrible thing.

Question: Have you had a chance to reach out to him at all?

Forest Whitaker: I haven't known what to say. I will be talking to him, but I just don't know how to give the proper comfort.

Question: Can you talk about 'Powder Blue'?

Forest Whitaker: It's about different characters in Los Angeles trying to connect. It's about connection. I play a guy who's a priest who's wife died in car accident at our wedding. So then I'm like trying to kill myself and I can't. My morals stop me and so then I try to get other people to do it for me. I go around Los Angeles trying to convince someone to kill me. The other characters are dealing with love. Jessica Beil plays an exotic dancer and she's dealing with this guy, finding love and stuff. So it's a lot of different characters in different stages of trying to connect.