Whoopi Goldberg ‘can’t do’ ‘Sister Act 3’ without Maggie Smith

Whoopi Goldberg is reaching out publicly to her Sister Act co-star Maggie Smith.

She really wants her to be a part of the planned movie, which Disney announced in 2020, that would be a sequel to the 1992 hit Sister Act and 1993’s Sister Act 2: Back in the Habit, which follow the adventures of a nightclub singer (Goldberg’s Deloris Van Cartier) as she attempts to hide from the mob in a convent, posing as Sister Mary Clarence, and ends up transforming the choir for the good. Smith played Mother Superior (aka the Reverend Mother), who bristles at Deloris’s ways at first, but eventually comes around.

Goldberg made the plea Friday during an appearance on British talk show Loose Women.

“One of the things that I want to make sure I do while I’m here is … I want to let Maggie Smith know that I’m holding the part of Mother Superior for you,” Goldberg said. “Because I just can’t do it with anybody but you. So if you need me to come over here and shoot it and do whatever we have to do, we will do whatever you want us to do, but we don’t want to do it without you, Maggie.”

Eighty-eight-year-old Smith, a native of the United Kingdom who Queen Elizabeth II made a dame in 1990, has continued to appear on the big screen regularly. Yahoo Entertainment has reached out to her rep.

Otherwise, Goldberg noted, she’s “liking the script” of the movie and is “trying to secure a director.”

In October, she told Yahoo that her intention with the new Sister Act is to bring a “silly happiness to people.” She explained that she was inspired to do a sequel all these years later when Disney+ went ahead with the sequel to another ’90s favorite, Hocus Pocus, that month. Both movies happen to co-star actress Kathy Najimy, who reprised her role in the Halloween favorite and is expected to do the same with Goldberg and the gang.