Goldberg said Patrick Swayze advocated for her to be cast in “Ghost” after the production said the actress would “weigh it down” with her star presence.

Whoopi Goldberg explains how she landed major film roles rejected by white stars: ‘Apparently I’m Black’

Goldberg said Patrick Swayze advocated for her to be cast in “Ghost” after the production said the actress would “weigh it down” with her star presence.

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August 4, 2026 3:26 p.m. ET

Whoopi Goldberg in ‘Sister Act,’ ‘Ghost,’ and ‘Jumpin Jack Flash’. Credit:

Buena Vista Pictures; Everett(2)

- Whoopi Goldberg recalled the *Ghost* team initially rejecting her for a role that would eventually win her an Oscar.

- The 70-year-old said Patrick Swayze advocated for her to get the part.

- Goldberg explained how she later landed major film roles rejected by white stars like Bruce Willis, Bette Midler, and Shelley Long.

With her powers as potent as those of her *Ghost* character Oda Mae Brown, Whoopi Goldberg had to conjure good fortune for her own career by taking matters into her own hands as she rose through the ranks of Hollywood.

The 70-year-old EGOT-winning actress and moderator of *The View** *opened up to fellow actor Keke Palmer on the latest episode of the latter’s podcast (below), where they discussed how Goldberg had to land major movie roles by taking on parts that were rejected by white stars like Bruce Willis, Shelley Long, and Bette Midler.

Goldberg told Palmer that she wasn’t initially approached about starring in *Ghost*, but found out that “every Black woman and their mama” was at an audition for the role of Brown, per her friend, actress Beverly Todd, at the time. After calling her team, Goldberg said her agent asked, “Oh, who told you?” and that her team “suggested you and they didn’t want you, because they felt people would take you out of the movie” in the end.

However, she said that the casting team (consisting of Janet Hirshenson and Jane Jenkins) championed her for the part, as did eventual star Patrick Swayze. Goldberg recalled Swayze and the film’s team coming down to Alabama to visit her as she and Sissy Spacek filmed the movie *The Long Walk Home* on location, and said that she formed a deep bond with Swayze as he advocated for her to appear in *Ghost*.

While Goldberg maintained that the film’s crew thought she would “weigh it down” with her star power, she was offered the part after her time with Swayze on the* Long Walk Home* set, and eventually won an Oscar for the portrayal.

Palmer then inquired about other iconic roles in Goldberg’s filmography, including the beloved 1992 comedy *Sister Act*.

“They wrote that for Bette Midler. That wasn’t mine,” Goldberg said to a chuckling Palmer, who jokingly asked why Goldberg took the part from the *Hocus Pocus *star. “I didn’t take it. I was looking for work!” (Midler previously addressed turning down *Sister Act* in a recent interview with Rolling Stone: “I turned down *Sister Act *because I said, ‘My fans don’t want to see me in a wimple.’ And Whoopi said, ‘Bring on the goddamn wimple.’”)

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Goldberg continued, “Apparently I’m Black. I guess I didn’t realize it, so every time I went looking for something, they went, ‘No, no, no, this isn’t for you,’” before she told her agents to give her “all the stuff that people have turned down.”

“I got *Burglar* that way, because that was Bruce Willis’ movie. *Jumpin’ Jack Flash *was Shelley Long’s movie. There’s several, a whole bunch of movies,” Goldberg recounted. “I felt like people really wanted to make those movies, and then the person they wanted said no. Let me see what I can do.”

She estimated that, decades ago, people “had a limited idea of what could be done, and had a limited idea of what I could do, because clearly they hadn’t seen my [stage] show,” she said of her self-titled, one-woman Broadway show that ran from 1984-1985.

Maggie Smith and Whoopi Goldberg in ‘Sister Act’.

Buena Vista Pictures

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“Listen, they didn’t always work on the box office, but when they got on television, people lost their minds,” Goldberg said of her filmography and the risks she took by joining the aforementioned movies. “People didn’t always have money to go see the movie, but they could se it on TV. A lot of my movies have become these kind of classics [that way].”

Goldberg has long been open about attempting to get another *Sister Act* movie off the ground, with Goldberg even previously listing Palmer as part of her dream cast for *Sister Act 3*, which has been stuck in development hell for years.

Watch Goldberg and Palmer’s discussion in the podcast episode above.

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