What It Was Like For Whoopi Goldberg To Audition For Steven Spielberg

Whoopi’s performance that not only earned her an Academy Award nomination but one that opened up the door for her incredible career in film and tv.

For those who don’t remember, she starred in his 1985 Academy Award-nominated film, The Color Purple. While Whoopi Goldberg is now best-known for her role and opinions on The View, her ongoing career in film and television is nothing short of epic.

And it really all started with a pretty memorable and unique audition for Steven Spielberg.

The Road To Auditioning For A Legend

Whoopi began her career in the early 1980s when she was trained by Uta Hagen at the HB Studio in New York. Aside from a role in  Citizen: I’m Not Losing My Mind, I’m Giving It Away (1982), an avant-garde film, Whoopi had no film experience. She did, however, make a name for herself in theater, which is something that everyone forgets about the Academy Award, Emmy, Grammy, and Tony award winner. The theater is where she was discovered by famed director Mike Nichols, who Whoopi considers as her mentor.

Whoopi Goldberg’s Broadway stardom caught the eye of author Alice Walker and Academy Award-winning filmmaker Steven Spielberg.

During her May 5th, 2020 appearance on The Howard Stern Show, Whoopi Goldberg explained what it was like to audition for one of the most famous and talented filmmakers of all time.

“Getting picked by Steven Spielberg,” Howard began.

“That was her first role, right?” Howard’s long-time co-host Robin Quivers asked.

“Yeah,” Whoopi responded.

“And it was unorthodox the way he hired you. He rented out a theater or something and just filled it with a bunch of…” Howard said before being corrected by Whoopi.

“No, it was his theater. He had a performance space. And he had heard about me from Alice Walker [the author of “The Color Purple”],” Whoopi explained. “I get a notice from my management. They said ‘Um, do you have time on such and such a day, Steven Spielberg wants to see you. We think he’s doing The Color Purple. And so, we suggest that you take this meeting’…”

Whoopi, of course, agreed, given that Steven Spielberg had just finished his first two Indiana Jones movies, E.T. Close Encounters of the Third Kind, and, of course, Jaws, his first mega-hit.

“But your audition for–I want to make sure I understand this,” Howard said. “Your audition for The Color Purple, in a way, was Steven saying ‘I can’t get to New York. Come out to L.A. and you’ll perform in my theater.’…”

“So, I went to Steven’s theater, and I peeked out from behind the curtain. And there were all kinds of people. Quincy Jones and Michael Jackson. And just all these people who were watching me perform. And I just felt like ‘I hope I’m good’. Because all those people there, including Steven, were people who I had always dreamed about.”

“And you were new to filmmaking, right?”

“Yeah.”

Working With Steven Was A Dream

Given that Whoopi was new to acting in film, Howard Stern asked her if she was messing up on the first few days of shooting The Color Purple. But Whoopi claimed that actors shouldn’t worry too much about that if there’s a great director like Steven Speilberg.

“The great thing for me about Steven Spielberg was his knowledge of film,” Whoopi explained. “He would say, ‘Did you ever see Koyaanisqatsi?’ And I said, “Yeah, I saw that”. And he’d say, “Well, remember when the sun is coming up and there is all the steam on the trees and stuff, that’s the feeling I want’…”

This was very helpful to Whoopi as she could picture exactly the energy and tone that he wanted from each moment. This is how director Steven Spielberg communicated with Whoopi, who had really not been given any direction before in terms of acting. And it was extremely beneficial to her. Especially since she calls herself a visualist.

Whoopi also voiced her concern for being ‘bad’ to Steven. And he asked her if she had ever been ‘bad’ before, to which she responded, “Yeah, I’ve been terrible.” Whoopi said that Steven told her that working on the movie will present times where she will be terrible, but that’s what he is around to help her with. And this kind of support allowed Whoopi to relax into her role and give one of the best performances of her life.

A performance that not only earned her an Academy Award nomination but one that opened up the door for her incredible career in film and television.