Goldberg ready to Whoopi-it up on the road

By Sherri Sylvester
CNN Showbiz Today Reports


Whoopi Goldberg stars in the upcoming comedy "Rat Race"

Hollywood, California (CNN) -- The multi-talented Whoopi Goldberg is going multi-media this summer. She can be seen on the small screen -- that's center square on "Hollywood Squares" -- on the big screen in the upcoming comedy "Rat Race," and center stage in theaters across the country. For the first time in more than a decade, she's touring in a one-woman show.

For Goldberg, it is a return to her stand-up roots. Born Caryn Johnson, she worked as a bank teller, brick-layer and as a make-up artist in a mortuary before trying comedy. She was discovered onstage by director Mike Nichols and landed her own Broadway show in 1984. Steven Spielberg cast the newcomer in "The Color Purple" a year later. After that, Goldberg took the stage for special occasions -- as one of the founders of "Comic Relief," and to deliver Oscar jokes. She was the first woman to host the Academy Awards ceremony.

Goldberg sat down to talk with CNN's Sherri Sylvester on the eve of her new tour.

Sylvester: Tell me about the tour, you're going out June 19th?

Goldberg: Yes, I just thought it was time to start talking about stuff -- the last time I felt like this I wrote a book, and had I been thinking, it might have been less hectic to write another book, but it feels like a good time to go and do what I used to do in the very, very beginning.

Sylvester: Is there a fear factor involved?

Goldberg: Umm, a little bit. I want people to just come and not bring any expectations and just watch me sort of flex, and de-atrophy myself. It's been 15 years since I've been out like this, so they're all very small venues, except for the Apollo. I had to play the Apollo Theater -- I had to do that for my heart. But, when I'm in San Francisco at the end of the tour, I'm at the Fillmore West, which has 500 seats.

Sylvester: What are your topics this time?

Goldberg: (President George W.) Bush. "G.W." has given me a lot to talk about.... I'm talking about menopause, all the shocking changes that seem to happen overnight, you know what I'm talking about? You don't know what I'm talking about.

Sylvester: You told me before hand...

Goldberg: But it's not for our audience here. You have to come to the show.

Sylvester: I can't imagine what material you've picked up from Hollywood through the years.

Goldberg: Yeah, the fact that you see somebody on Wednesday and see them on Sunday, and you don't know who the hell it is -- you want to say to them, "Do you think no one is going to realize that you've just rearranged your entire face?" Cause it takes two, three, four years for the face to settle down -- it's the most amazing thing. And this idea of having to weigh 6 ounces to be an ideal that really doesn't exist. Very few of these "supermodels" look like themselves when they wake up in the morning -- they are not "super" in the morning, they are doggie models like the rest of us. We're just kind of puppies when we wake up.

Sylvester: We've talked about this before, you don't fly.

Goldberg: No, I don't.

Sylvester: Do you have a special bus ready for this tour? How are you gonna get around?

Goldberg: Same way I always do -- I have a giant bus, a big old purple thing that rolls across the country. I'm just not getting up in the air again. I know lots of people do it, they're really comfortable with it, and I love the airport people, but it's just not for me. So I'll be rolling across the country again. It'll be good for me. I need to flex. I need to flex and remind myself what I do.

Sylvester: Tell me about "Rat Race," you have this movie coming up.

Goldberg: With Rowan Atkinson and John Cleese and Jon Lovitz and myself and Cuba Gooding Jr. and Kathy Najimy. It's very funny, very funny, like gut-busting, tears, make-up is gone if you happen to wear it -- I say wear "Depends" to go see it. It's visual humor -- this is a call back to the old days of slapstick.

Sylvester: What happens when you get that many comedians together on a set?

Goldberg: We're all looking at the director waiting for him to tell us what to do, 'cause it's Jerry Zucker. (Producer/Director behind "Airplane" 1980, "The Naked Gun," 1988, "My Best Friend's Wedding," 1997.)

Every actor said we're here because we want to work with Jerry Zucker. I understand that -- been there, doing it again, second time.

Sylvester: You worked with him on "Ghost" (1990), won the Oscar.

Goldberg: Yep.

Sylvester: Would you host the Oscars again?

Goldberg: Not a prayer.... Never again.

Sylvester: Why not?

Goldberg: Because I hosted the last one of the 20th Century, and I can never be better than I was that night. Coming out as Queen Elizabeth -- I can never top that -- and wearing the wardrobe from all the movies and having that much fun. It just will never be that again... and who wants to be mid-century?

Sylvester: "Hollywood Squares." What were your expectations when you started with the show and how have they been achieved or exceeded?

Goldberg: I just wanted it to be fun. The bottom line is, it's not "Who Wants to be a Millionaire." It's not "You are the Nastiest Person in the World." What is that show with the English lady? "You are the Nastiest and Ugliest Person I've Ever Seen, Goodbye." We're not that, we're just silly fluff for half an hour. We have an array of people. No, they're not always blockbuster movie stars, but the shock is that often times blockbuster movie stars have no personality. Oh it's a shock -- you hand them a great joke, and you hear them doing it, and it's like, "Oh my God, this is a comedy show and you're not funny." We have another two years and we've won a couple of Emmys and that's exciting and we've outlasted a lot of the shows that began when we began. I don't want to sweat it. I just want to have some fun, that's all.

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