Between her work as an actor, comedian and presenter, Whoopi Goldberg is one of the most celebrated stars in Hollywood today – and she’s got the EGOT to prove it.
The “O” part of that coveted accolade came in the early 90s, when she picked up the Best Supporting Actress prize at the Oscars for her work in Ghost.
However, during an interview on the podcast Baby, This Is Keke Palmer, Whoopi opened up about how the role of conwoman-turned-psychic-medium Oda Mae Brown in the hit romance drama didn’t come easy.
Initially, she recalled that “every Black woman and their mama” had been called upon to audition for the role of Oda Mae but her, quipping: “They got women out the grave to come audition for this – and I hadn’t gotten a call.”
When she enquired with her agent as to why this was, her team claimed: “[We] suggested you [for the part]. They didn’t want you, because they felt people would take you out of the movie. I said how would I take them out of the movie? I don’t understand!”
Apparently, the film’s casting director had been advocating for Whoopi to land the part, and when Patrick Swayze was cast as Ghost’s leading man, he also said he wanted her to play Oda Mae.
Eventually, this was enough to get the film’s male lead and director on a plane to visit her in Alabama, where she was shooting Long Walk Home.
“Patrick and I hit it off right away, because he was just a really funny, wonderful man,” she recalled. “They literally flew in, we had some fun and did some improv, and the next day, they offered me the part.
“And [Patrick] kept saying, ‘why haven’t you called her? Did she turn it down? Did she not want to do it?’. And they finally had to say to him, ‘no, we thought it’d be too much, and [she would] just weigh [the film] down in a way we didn’t want’.”
Host Keke then suggested to Whoopi this was a case of her successfully “advocating for yourself”, after which the View panellist opened up about some more of her biggest roles – and how few of them were actually written with her in mind.
“They wrote [Sister Act] for Bette Midler,” Whoopi said. “That wasn’t mine. I was looking for work [and] apparently I’m Black! And I guess I didn’t realise it! So, every time I went looking for [a role] they were like, ‘oh, no, no, no, this isn’t for you’.
“So, I started saying to my agents, ‘give me all the stuff that people have turned down’. So, I got that Burglar that way, that was Bruce Willis’ movie. Jumpin’ Jack Flash was Shelley Long’s movie. There’s several! A whole bunch of movies! Because I felt like people really wanted to make those movies, and then the person they wanted said no. Let me see what I could do!”
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“People 30 years ago or 40 years ago had a limited idea what could be done, and had a limited idea of what I could do, because clearly they hadn’t seen my show – so they didn’t know,” she continued.
“So, I did [those films]! And you know, listen, they didn’t always work at the box office. But when they got on television, people lost their minds. And that’s how a lot of my movies have become these kind of classics.”
Although these days, Whoopi’s time is often spent offering her hot takes on The View, she made a big return to the acting world in the 2020s.
Her recent credits have included the historical drama Till, the dramedy Ezra and the Western Outlaw Posse.
She also made a cameo in the 2023 musical The Color Purple, having previously starred as Celie Harris-Johnson in the 1985 original, earning her the first of her two Oscar nominations.
