It's a matter of life and death for this country. The Kenyan forests are facing extinction and it is a man-made problem.

I grew up in Chicago so I've always been a Bears fan. Dad used to take me to Bears games and Cubs games. My brother used to ride me over to Lake Forest College on his Honda Supersport and we'd watch the Bears practice. I remember those guys out there as monsters - they were the biggest things I've ever seen!

I thought my life was mapped out. Research living in the forest teaching and writing. But in '86 I went to a conference and realised the chimpanzees were disappearing. I had worldwide recognition and a gift of communication. I had to use them.

One of the things that people don't realize is that that natural beauty those recreational forests they have an economic development impact for the state as well.

It is not so much for its beauty that the forest makes a claim upon men's hearts as for that subtle something that quality of air that emanation from old trees that so wonderfully changes and renews a weary spirit.

Here you do have forests where pigs could be raised by letting them root about in the forests for a good part of the year. Therefore you have a different attitude toward them compared with what continues to exist in the Middle East.

You are welcome to your intellectual pastimes and books and art and newspapers welcome too to your bars and your whisky that only makes me ill. Here am I in the forest quite content.

We start 'The Butler' in June and that's incredibly exciting for me because I get to work with the amazing Forest Whitaker again. It's a phenomenal script and a great great role - I play his son. Oprah Winfrey is his wife and my mother. My character is a radical civil rights activist.

I wanted to be a forest ranger or a coal man. At a very early age I knew I didn't want to do what my dad did which was work in an office.