Whoopi Goldberg Has Little Use for Pretense

In 1984, your one-woman show, Whoopi Goldberg, premiered on Broadway and launched you into stardom. A recording of the show—in which you portray various eccentric characters, ranging from a young Valley Girl to a Jamaican woman—aired on HBO in 1985 and earned you a Grammy. This summer, it was revived as The Whoopi Monologues, starring several actors, including Kerry Washington and Kara Young. Why did you decide that 2026 was the right time to bring the show back?

I didn’t. Kerry Washington came to me and said, “I have this idea. I would like to revive your show with five actors.” And I said, “Fantastic.” I didn’t want to be part of it at all, but I recommended one woman, Kara Young, to play Fontaine, the junkie. I didn’t want to go to rehearsals, and I didn’t want to talk about the show with the cast, because I wanted them to make it their own.

You’ve been revisiting several of your old projects. Sister Act 3 is officially underway, which means you’ll revive Deloris, a nightclub singer forced to take refuge from the Mob in a convent. The first two Sister Act movies came out in the early 1990s. What’s it like to return to them after all this time?

I had hoped to do it before Maggie [Smith] passed, but we weren’t able to get it done. I don’t want to say it’s closure, because that sounds so esoteric. It’s like, You know what? Let’s put a button on this. People love Sister Act. As I’ve traveled around the world, I’ve discovered it airs almost on rotation in so many countries. Nuns come up to me everywhere and say, “We’ve done the same thing that you did, but we did it for real.” Chinese nuns, Spanish nuns.

What makes you say yes to a project?

The truth of the matter is, very few times has anybody said, “Do you want to be in this movie?” I know and you know that I’m Black. Apparently, this comes as a surprise to people. So I would say, “Gee, I’d love to read for that.” And they’d go, “Oh, no, there’s not a part for you.” Most of the movies I have made, I got the job because some bigger star said they didn’t want to do it. Jumpin’ Jack Flash was for Shelley Long. Sister Act was for Bette Midler. Burglar was for Bruce Willis. I know all the names.

You’ve been on The View with a panel of women discussing the day’s topics for almost 20 years. What keeps you coming back?

A good check.

Is that really it?

That’s really what it is. I’m well-paid, and I do a good job. I earn my dough, and sometimes people like it, sometimes they don’t. No one is going to pay me guy money to be in a movie. I get what I can, have as good a time as I can, and I don’t really worry about it too much.

Weighing in on politics opens you up to criticism. Are you ever scared to speak out?

No. Barbara Walters gave me the job, which is something I take very seriously. She hired me to say what I think, and that’s what I do.

Of all your careers and projects, what do you want to be remembered for?

Just for being a decent person who maybe made mistakes but didn’t run from anything.

What about your EGOT? You’ve received an Emmy, a Grammy, an Oscar, and a Tony Award—and became the first Black person to achieve that feat. What does that distinction mean to you?

Not a lot. I had never heard of such a thing until I did Tracy Morgan’s show 30 Rock [in 2009], where his character is looking to become an EGOT. I said to him as we were shooting, “Can you explain what this is?” He said, “You don’t know what this is?” I didn’t know I had done that.

When was the last time you surprised yourself?

I did a very crazy animated show called Kevin this year. I played an old, filthy, bald cat named Cupcake. And when I say “filthy”—she has a dirty mouth. It surprised me how much fun I had, because people get very nervous if you curse, but everyone seemed to be very happy when I was doing it.

You’ve been doing a lot of voice work. What do you enjoy about that?

The fact that I can do it in my underwear.

Is there anything you wish you could go back and tell your younger self?

No. You know why? I wouldn’t have listened. Also, I think it’s much better to—pardon my French—step in shit. That’s how you learn.

Photo Assistant: Laura Messina; Retouching: Francisco Vargas At Andes Studios; Special Thanks To Terrazza Killiché.