Whoopi Goldberg’s Excited for “Till”

Whoopi Goldberg spoke with The Hollywood Reporter on Saturday (October 1st) at the world premiere of Till, a film about the brutal murder of Emmett Till in 1955 and his mother Mamie Till-Mobley’s subsequent fight for justice. Goldberg is a producer on the film and stars as Emmett’s grandmother Alma Carthan.

Goldberg told the outlet that producers were “trying forever” to make the movie, but the movement for racial justice following the tragic deaths of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and Ahmaud Arbery is what helped them finally secure funding. “People thought we should do some stories about Black people, after all that went on over the last couple of years. I always say, we got popular. We got back in vogue and people started saying maybe we should be doing more, we should be telling these stories and we got in through that and [MGM’s] Orion [division] said, ‘We should do this.’”

She added, “Yes, thank you. Because we’ve been trying forever, just forever, to get it done. And people say, ‘No, it’s an important story and we really feel for it.’ And it’s like, ‘So you’re not going to give us any money for this?’”