All About the New Show Whoopi Goldberg is Filming While Off ‘The View’

“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 – so she’s gone for a while,” The View co-host Joy Behar explained to audiences during yesterday’s show, when host Whoopi Goldberg was conspicuously absent from the panel. Behar got one small detail wrong though, Goldberg is filming a new Amazon Prime Video limited series, not a film, here’s what we know about it.

What show is Whoopi Goldberg filming while she’s off The View?

It was recently announced that Goldberg will be starring as Bird Woman in the new Amazon Prime Video series Anansi Boys. The series is based upon the 2005 book by Neil Gaiman, who will also serve as the series writer and showrunner. Anansi Boys is about a young man, Charlie Nancy (Malachi Kirby) who discovers that his dead father was an incarnation of Anansi, a West African trickster god. Eventually, Charlie learns he has a brother who looks just like him, who starts to cause chaos for Charlie. Goldberg’s character is one of several antagonists the brothers must face in the wake of their father’s death.

“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,” Goldberg stated when her casting was revealed. (Gaiman has said that he envisioned Goldberg for the role when he first conceived of the character in the book.)

The series will co-star Hakeem Kae-Kazim, Emmanuel Ighodaro, Cecilia Noble, Ayanna Witter-Johnson, and Don Gilet.

When will Anansi Boys come out?

The six-episode series Anansi Boys has only just begun filming in Scotland. There is no official premiere date set for it.

When will Whoopi return to The View?

As Behar pointed out in her remarks on The View, Whoopi will be gone for a while, though we don’t know for exactly how long. We do know she will be off this week, and then the whole show will be taking a hiatus during the week of April 18th. It’s unclear if Goldberg will be back when the rest of her colleagues return on April 25th.