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Don Cheadle is the type of actor that comes around every generation or so and absolutely captivates audiences with his sincere ability to make you believe he IS the character he is playing. And that has been an ambitious challenge, considering that he has played a number of very different and divergent characters in his 23-year movie career.

It was both sweet and deserving that he would be nominated for an academy award for his role in Hotel Rwanda, considering his widespread activism in humanitarian causes, specifically in relation to the situation in the Sudan. Don is a man of great substance, care, and humanity, and this inner goodness seems to project itself exteriorly so that audiences instinctively care for the characters he's portrayed. Even when playing a character with inherent and obvious flaws, such as in the movie Crash where his role was a hardened homicide detective, the viewer was still able to catch a glimpse of a core humanity that is good and deserves compassion.

In one of his breakthrough roles, he starred as a porn star in Boogie Nights, and practically stole the spotlight from leading star Mark Wahlberg with a performance that was absolutely riveting. In the movie Traffic, the audience was again emotionally involved in a character that is trying to do good in an imperfect world as a DEA agent, but finds that because of loopholes in the system, he might have to break the law in order to fulfill his duty and obligation to what is right. And that is indicative of what Don Cheadle is about...doing what is right.

You might not want to hear his political views or even hear about the terrible situation in another part of the world. But Don is going to tell you about these important issues one way or another, and odds are that you probably won't shut him out because he has a way of getting his point across in a passionate and sincere manner that shows just how much he cares.

Obviously a man of this substance must have had a great foundation growing up, and the Cheadle home included his mother Betty who was a bank manager and psychology teacher, and father Don Sr. who was a clinical psychologist. His siblings included a brother and sister, and the family moved around to various parts of the country through Don's childhood years.

He was a musically gifted child that played the saxophone and loved jazz music, but also got a tremendous rush when given the opportunity to act in school plays, even at an early age. When he came to a junction in his life where

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