Stand Deliver
WHOOPI GOLDBERGERG GETS CLOSE TO GOD – AGAIN – IN STEPHEN KING’S PRESCIENT THE STAND. BY
WHOOPI GOLDBERG is one of the most recognisable figures in pop culture. She’s had a career of nearly 40 years, received multiple awards including an Oscar for her part in Ghost and will be forever remembered for her role in Sister Act. It’s fair to say that, well, she’s been around the block. Still, it must smart a little to be cast as the 108year-old Mother Abagail in Starzplay’s The Stand. Insulted?
‘Oh no – I would be very happy to live to be 108, are you kidding?’ laughs 65-year-old Goldberg via Zoom from the States. ‘I feel like as long as you’re living, you can’t really take offence to growing older. It is what it is. The alternative is not so interesting!’
Mother Abagail is the unlikely hero in a battle between good and evil that follows an apocalyptic flu strain that kills 99 per cent of the population in this latest adaptation of the Stephen King novel. She is tasked by God with recruiting an army of decent, moral survivors to take arms against the demonic Randall Flagg (Alexander Skarsgård, deliciously evil), who is building his own army of the damned ready to accept him as their ruler.
An all-star cast (including James Marsden, Ezra Miller and Amber Heard) does the heavy lifting but it’s Goldberg who livens up the screen whenever her curmudgeonly but thoroughly decent preacher appears. Just how much pressure is she under?
‘So much,’ says Goldberg. ‘Imagine that God is talking to you – suddenly she’s getting these edicts, appearing in people’s dreams and telling them what to do and how to find her. It’s exhausting – and she’s human so she doesn’t always get it right.’
The Stand may be one of King’s most popular novels but it’s also one of his longest, with The Complete And Uncut Edition 1,152 pages. Yet that hasn’t deterred Goldberg from reading it multiple times.
‘I’ve read this book about 45 times over the years,’ she says. ‘It’s one of my go-to books just because it is epic – and I love an epic.’
This means that Goldberg is that most critical of people – a fan. Does she think this latest adaptation will appease King aficionados?
‘Fans are never thrilled with stuff until they are in it,’ she laughs. ‘They’ll get mad, they’ll crunch it out and say it’s not what it was – but it can’t be because this is set in a different time. Hopefully they’ll dig the growing up that the story has had to do in order to fit these times because I don’t think you could pull it off otherwise.’
You may have noticed that we’re having our own battles with a deadly flu strain – should we be gearing up for our own battle for humanity?
‘I’m waiting for it to do what it’s going to do,’ smiles Goldberg. ‘Though I don’t want to find out that this is the major battle between good and evil and I wasn’t part of it. That would bother me.’
I have read it about 45 times over the years. It’s one of my go-to books
The Stand is on Starzplay now