Neither good guy nor bad guy

"I think he questions what he's going to do in service to his country, and the conflict that his beliefs come into with that. All he's left with is, 'I have to figure out what I am because I kind of don't know anymore if I'm acceptable in my own faith.'

"That's why he's messed up."

This isn't to suggest, said Cheadle, that the character he's playing in this film is a bad guy. It doesn't mean he's a good guy, either.

"I don't necessarily have to agree with what these characters are doing or with their methods, but I think every human being I play is human. And every human being, unless you're seriously wired in a way that is massively screwed up, has good parts and bad parts," said the actor.

"As an actor I think what I'm always trying to do is bring people into the understanding of the humanity of these characters so that it makes it hard for you to sit on the sidelines and judge something in a sort of black and white way, because I've never seen that experience in my life."

Continued Cheadle, "I've never gone, 'This person's pure evil and this person's pure good.' "

Cheadle signed on as a producer for "Traitor," as well as its on-screen star, after it was decided that the original scenario from Steve Martin (yes, that Steve Martin) needed some work.

The actor enumerated his many responsibilities —- "the development of the script, the casting, the hiring of the director, the other producer, overseeing how we released it and where, the locations, the poster, the dates, all aspects of making the movie."

Although Cheadle said there came a time when he had to be an actor and let everyone else do their thing, being a producer "means that some time after you're done at 3 o'clock in the morning you're firing off e-mails trying to fix stuff and get stuff ready for the next day."

There was a lot of stuff to deal with on "Traitor." The film was shot in five countries on three continents, and Cheadle had to learn to speak Arabic for the picture, a language that differed from place to place.

"The dialects are different in every place, and something we would hear from a Sudanese was different from a guy in Morocco, which was different from a guy in Canada," he said.

The actor also spent time studying Islam, "mostly for the prayers and rituals so I could make sure I was doing those properly, but also just to know what my character's background was and to know what it was in that religion that he focused on and where he found his strength," he said.

"One of the things that was most surprising —- I was surprised that I was surprised —- but it was how closely related the monotheistic religions are, Judaism, Christianity and Islam. They all came from the same place, often have the same players in the writings and teachings. It's just how those religions are manipulated and used by the leaders for what they want it to be."

Cheadle also discovered another commonality among the three faiths.

"I think we can see that fundamentalism exists in all religions and in all political streams and in all sects. It's everywhere. No one has a monopoly on fundamentalism," he said.