Whoopi Goldberg Will Be Absent From 'The View' 'for A While'

Whoopi Goldberg will step away from The View "for a while," her co-host, Joy Behar, announced during Monday's show.

Behar told the audience that Goldberg, 66, is busy shooting the upcoming Amazon series adaptation of Neil Gaiman's 2005 fantasy novel, Anansi Boys. Behar called it a movie, but it's actually a six-episode order that, according to Variety, is currently in production in Scotland.

"If you're wondering where Whoopi is, the girl's got a movie she's making and she will be back when she finishes whatever she's doing," Behar said. "So, she's gone for a while." Goldberg, who is set to play Bird Woman in the series, gushed to Variety how excited she was to be part of the project.

"I have been a fan of this book for a very long time and when Neil Gaiman told me it was being brought to the screen, I did everything I could to be part of it to help make people aware of Anansi and all his magic," she said.

Gaiman also told Variety that he'd envisioned Whoopi playing Bird Woman decades ago and long before he met her.

"When I first conceived Anansi Boys, decades ago, I imagined Whoopi Goldberg as Bird Woman," the English writer told Variety. "I wasn't able to meet her until 2018, when she interviewed me with some of the Good Omens team at New York Comic Con. At which point she mentioned that she had just finished listening to Sir Lenny Henry's reading of Anansi Boys, and that it was one of her favorite books. Sometimes things feel planned and inevitable, and we are incredibly lucky. She's going to be scary."

Hakeem Kae-Kazim, Emmanuel Ighodaro, Cecilia Noble and Ayanna Witter-Johnson are some of the other cast members. Gaiman will serve as the show's writer, executive producer and co-showrunner.

It's unclear how long exactly Goldberg will be away from the daytime talk show. She's certainly been keeping busy, from kicking off season 2 of Star Trek: PicardonParamount+ to being part of the new animated movie Luck (streaming Aug. 5) for AppleTV+.

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