Bullseye with Jesse Thorn is a production of MaximumFun.org and is distributed by NPR.

I'm Jesse Thorn, it's Bullseye.

Forest Whitaker is of course the star of so many great movies. He has a knack for taking

huge figures from history portraying them as complex, fascinating, sometimes fragile people.

He played Charlie Parker in Bird, he played Cecil Gaines, the White House butler in the butler.

He won an Academy Award for Best Actor for his role as Edie a Me, in the last King of Scope.

These days you can see him on the TV show The Godfather of Harlem, which is wrapping up its first season on Epex.

He plays Bumpy Johnson, the real-life mob boss who operated in Harlem in the first half of the 20th century.

When I talked to Forest last year though, he just finished a film about another famous real-life person.

He played Archbishop Desmond Tutu in the film The Forgiven.

It takes place in South Africa just after apartheid.

The Truth and Reconciliation Commission is in full swing, holding public and private testimony from the victims and perpetrators of past wrongs.

Archbishop Tutu was the chairman of the commission, appointed by Nelson Mandela.

In this scene, Archbishop Tutu is in a courtroom interrogating a colonel in the South African state security agency.

In what looks like a small stage, sort of like a jury box, there are a handful of families seated.

Each of them holds a photo of their deceased or disappeared relatives.

Do you have nothing to say to these families?

To David Lyon's family? Or Symba Goneywish family?

Families who have had no news of their beloved son or their adored husband for years.

Do you have nothing to say that would ease their pain?

That might give them closure?

I will say only this Archbishop.

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