His break came when they asked the line of actors to read in an African language. Ashong was the only one who spoke fluently. "Everyone else was like no, I don't speak, but I have a lot of African friends, and it doesn't matter because I'm an actor. I can insert myself into the role."

For weeks after the audition, Ashong didn't hear from the studio. It didn't really matter, he figured. He'd just go back to school, finish up his thesis, a musical on identity issues facing Africans and Afro-Americans, and graduate.

Then he got a phone call from his father in mid-January. "Hello Derrick, this is Daddy," Ashong recalls, imitating his father's British-Ghanaian accent. "I got a call from this woman about a movie. What the hell is going on?"

"They finally called me and were like, 'Yeah, you made the final cut. By the way, do you have any problems with nudity?' I was like, what?" The rest of the month was a whirlwind. "I was so frazzled, I was spending all my time auditioning. I knew I was going to be so behind."

He read over the script, sent in a tape, talked to the staffing agent in Cambridge, and filled out his study card without having shopped any classes. Most fortuitously, he called up Henderson at Dreamworks the morning after he found out he was probably going to be in the film.

Henderson, a recent Harvard grad who had actually written his thesis on the capture of the Amistad, was working closely with Spielberg on all aspects of the movie. He decided he was going to make sure this Harvard kid got some kind of part in the film.

The short list for the part of Buakey, a younger brother figure to slave rebel leader Joseph Cinque, was solidified before Spielberg even saw Ashong's tape, but the director's top choice for the part fell through at the last minute.

"I pulled out Derrick's tape and showed it to Steven. We flew him out a day later, and everyone was really impressed. He's quite a star. Everyone is sort of in love with him."

And he's in love with them. "Debbie Allen, the consummate professional," and "Steven Spielberg, he's a genius" are oft-repeated phrases for Ashong. Clearly Hollywood hasn't yet blunted his enthusiasm or his unassuming ways. And it hasn't disturbed the still, carefully pronounced pools of thought deep inside his head.

He's heading out to L.A. this summer, probably to sign with the agency Coast-to-Coast. And then its back to Harvard for one more semester to make up the time he missed this spring.

He has confidence that he's going to make it. He wants to come back and host Cultural Rhythms someday. Laughing, he admits he wants to be "a superstar."

So in 10 years, ideally, "my parents will be sitting at home in a lovely house I bought for them, chilling, and my family at home will have everything and anything they want. I'll be married with one kid." He pauses and thinks. "Maybe two," he says definitively. "My wife will be really nice, my sister will be out of college and doing really well and I will be really successful in both the music and the film industry. And I'll have the world as my oyster...ceteris parabis, that's the plan."

And in 10 years, realistically speaking? Derrick doesn't miss a beat. "Same thing." And bam--there's that face-splitting grin again