Sister Act (1992)
Trivia
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Spoilers (2)
When Paul Rudnick was writing the screenplay, Bette Midler (who was attached to star at the time) suggested he go to a real-life convent to do research. He went to stay in the Regina Laudis Abbey in Bethlehem, Connecticut. The Prioress, Mother Dolores Hart, O.S.B., had been an actress, singer, and dancer, appearing in movies including King Creole (1958) and Where the Boys Are (1960). Mother Hart is still the only known nun to be a voting member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, and she and her fellow nuns enjoy watching her Academy screeners every year.
Whoopi Goldberg hired Carrie Fisher to re-write her dialogue, which led to many arguments with Disney executives. Fisher later told Goldberg, "You're getting into a pissing contest with people who have actual dicks."
This movie was later turned into a stage musical. Whoopi Goldberg appeared in a limited run of the London performance, this time playing Mother Superior.
An opening scene shows Deloris as a young girl, played by Isis Carmen Jones. Later the same year, Jones played a "de-aged" version of Goldberg's character Guinan, in Star Trek: The Next Generation (1987) season six, episode seven, "Rascals".
During the shoot, Kathy Najimy and Wendy Makkena decided to order wine and fries to their hotel room from room service, while still in their habits. Before the order arrived, Kathy insisted that Wendy sit on the bed transfixed on the television, which was tuned to a porn channel so that they'd get a reaction out of the waiter. All went as planned until Wendy could no longer contain her laughter, and lost a $100 bet with Kathy.
The church in which Whoopi Goldberg takes refuge is St. Paul's Catholic Church located at 221 Valley Street (near Church Street) in San Francisco's Noe Valley district.
Wendy Makkena's singing voice was dubbed by Andrea Robinson.
One of the neighborhood teenage girls was played by Desreta Jackson, who played the young version of Celie, Whoopi Goldberg's character in The Color Purple (1985).
When Mother Superior dubs Deloris "Sister Mary Clarence", she states that Clarence derives from "Saint Clarence of Concord". The Roman Catholic church does not recognize St. Clarence of Concord, but St. Clarence of Vienne is the patron saint of prisoners.
When the casting was changed from Bette Midler to Whoopi Goldberg, the main location was changed from Chicago to San Francisco, where the comedian had started her stand up career.
Screenwriter Paul Rudnick wrote the original script back in 1987 and Bette Midler was supposed to be cast for the role of Deloris. After Midler had left the project, the script underwent several re-writes by screenwriters Carrie Fisher, Eleanor Bergstein, Nancy Meyers, Jim Cash, Jack Epps, Jr., and Robert Harling. As Rudnick did not consider the final draft of the movie as his own work, the pseudonym "Joseph Howard" was chosen by him after his own suggestion for the writer's credit ("Screenplay by Goofy") had been rejected.
Deloris' girl group is named the Ronelles, a combination of the names of two other girl groups from the 1960s, the Ronettes and the Shirelles.
It is against government policy to hide agents or witnesses in identities posing as members of the clergy, Peace Corp, or reporters/ the media. Members of those professions are considered particularly vulnerable, and doing so would put them at risk as a whole.
On June 10, 1993, Donna Douglas and her partner Curt Wilson in Associated Artists Entertainment, Inc., filed a $200 million lawsuit against Disney, Whoopi Goldberg, Bette Midler, their production companies, and Creative Artists Agency, claiming that this movie was plagiarized from the book "A Nun in the Closet", owned by the partners. Douglas and Wilson claimed that they had developed a screenplay for the book in 1985, and submitted it to Disney, Goldberg, and Midler three times in 1987 and 1988. They also claimed that the movie contained more than 100 similarities and plagiarisms from the book and screenplay. In 1994, Douglas and Wilson declined a $1 million offer to settle the case. The judge found in favor of Walt Disney Pictures and the other defendants. Wilson stated at the time, "They would have had to copy our stuff verbatim for us to prevail."
The Reno, Nevada police station shown is the main post office in downtown Reno, with some real patrol cars parked outside for set dressing. The patrol cars were driven by officers working security on the set. The real police station in Reno didn't look as much like a police station to Director Emile Ardolino.
Sr. Mary Roberts is wearing a different habit to the other nuns. This is because she is not a full nun yet, she is a novice. When she takes her final vows she will then wear a full habit
Included amongst the American Film Institute's 2000 list of the five hundred movies nominated for the Top 100 Funniest American Movies.
During the concert for the Pope scene, there are several shots taken from the choir's viewpoint at the altar which shows the rear of the church. There are two shadowy figures, one short and one taller, dressed in black suits and standing stiffly in front of the two rear doors in much the same manner as the Blues Brothers, Joliet Jake John Belushi and Elwood Dan Aykroyd did at the rear of the mission church in The Blues Brothers (1980).
Lauren Holly auditioned for the role of Sister Mary Robert.
The soundtrack includes "Rescue Me". The same song is on the soundtrack to another Whoopi Goldberg movie, Jumpin' Jack Flash (1986).
When the marquee for the Moonlight Lounge is first shown at the beginning of the movie, the featured band name is the "Ronelles". In the scene where the nuns are going to rescue Sister Mary Clarence, the featured name of the band (with Deloris gone) is the "Leerons" ("Ronelles" rearranged and minus one L).
The movie never explains were Deloris gets the last name "Van Cartier" from. In the opening of the film, which takes place in 1968, Deloris's teacher refers to her as Deloris Wilson. We can deduce this is Deloris's real last name. Van Cartier either comes from a previous marriage that Deloris had that ended in divorce, or most likely, due to the phony sounding ring of the name, a stage name that she has adopted. Laughingly when she hears the last name Van Cartier, Reverend Mother in astonishment asks her if that's her real name to which a testy Deloris replies yes.
During the "My God" Number, Sister Lazarus has a solo and sings "As a matter of fact." After that, all the Nuns turn to their left and she turns to her right by mistake and then turns to her left and joins the rest of the Nuns, singing and looking into the camera, as if she knew she messed up.
Pedro Almodóvar turned down an offer to direct the movie.
Whoopi Goldberg and Max Grodénchik have played supporting characters on Star Trek series. Goldberg played Guinan on Star Trek: The Next Generation (1987), and Grodénchik guest starred as different characters in multiple episodes of the same series, before landing the role of Rom on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (1993). Coincidentally, both recurring roles had to do with running a bar.
When Eddie takes Deloris to the church, she asks him, "What am I gonna be? Quasimodo in the bell tower?", a reference to Victor Hugo's classic "The Hunchback of Notre Dame". Mary Wickes played a singing gargoyle in Disney's The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1996).
Is one of two movies released in 1992 that starred Harvey Keitel and featured the sisterhood. The other being Bad Lieutenant (1992).
Theatrical movie debut of Beth Fowler (Choir Nun).
Paul Rudnick, the original screenwriter, got his pseudonym "Joseph Howard" from the name of a character in a story he had written (Joseph) and his brother's middle name (Howard).
The dog outside the convent is credited as Al Finney. The actor Albert Finney played Pope John Paul II in the 1984 movie Pope John Paul II.
Whoopi Goldberg turned down a role starring alongside Rodney Dangerfield in Ladybugs (1992) in order to make this movie instead because she thought it would be a bigger hit. She proved right as Sister Act was one of the top 10 grossing movies of 1992 while Ladybugs flopped first on release but has gained a cult following since then.
In the closing scene, the drape hanging in front of the Pope's chair bears the arms of John Paul II.
Emile Ardolino had previously directed Three Men and a Little Lady (1990), the sequel to Three Men and a Baby (1987), which was directed by Leonard Nimoy. His son, Adam Nimoy, directed the episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation in 1992 that featured both Whoopi Goldberg and Isis Carmen Jones in her only other screen credit.
Spoilers
The key scene in which the choir of nuns begins "Hail Holy Queen" as a hymn and, in the second refrain, transform it into a pop version, is remarkably similar to a scene in the 1967 sitcom "The Flying Nun" ("Sister Socko in San Tanco" #2.14) in which Sally Field, Marge Redmond and Madeleine Sherwood begin singing "Gonna Build a Mountain" in a slow, reverent style and are interrupted by the Reverend Mother (Sherwood), who asks the band to "pick up the tempo." The music instantly snaps into a sixties pop version of the song. This program aired on ABC in prime time and Colgems Records released their version of "Gonna Build a Mountain" as a single, so it is very possible that it is not a coincidence.
When Deloris is to be shot by two of Vince's henchmen, she kneels to pray before striking each of them to run away. The chair in which she had been tied up is the same chair used in Star Trek: The Next Generation: Devil's Due (1991).
