Trivia / Sister Act

• Alan Smithee: The first film's credited writer, Joseph Howard, is actually a pseudonym for Paul Rudnick, who took his name off it after it was heavily rewritten (it would, ironically, go on to be the most financially successful film that Rudnick ever worked on). The finished product was written primarily by none other than Carrie Fisher (who was one of Hollywood's major script doctors in The '90s), but she didn't want credit either, resulting in Rudnick opting to use a pseudonym in lieu of his actual name.
• B-Team Sequel: The director of the first film, Emile Ardolino, suffered from AIDS and was replaced by Bill Duke for the sequel. Ardolino died one month before the sequel came out the following year.
• California Doubling: Mostly averted, with most of the main scenes shot on location in Reno and San Francisco, however a couple of the inner church scenes were filmed in a different church in Hollywood. ^note The church used in the film was St. Paul's Catholic Church, which was located in upper middle class Noe Valley. Some of the surrounding buildings were redressed during filming to give the appearance of a run down neighborhood.
• Edited for Syndication:
  • When the movie airs on Freeform, it is edited down to two hours with commercials. This results in the removal of multiple scenes, such as Deloris sneaking a tomato from the garden and the nuns eating ice cream together, as well as shortening the execution scene near the start and some of the chase sequences.
  • All TV airings of the movie also have a few edits to remove profanity. As Deloris is wrapping up "Heat Wave" at the beginning, her line, "You don't give a shit" is censored with microphone feedback. When Eddie introduces her to the Mother Superior, her line "I don't give a shit what you say" is redubbed to, "Don't give me that". During her first meal with the nuns, her line "It tastes like sh--" is edited to remove the partial swear (Freeform airings cut the entire sentence).
  • All TV airings of Sister Act 2 remove the credits sequence where the entire cast sings and dances to "Ain't No Mountain High Enough".
• Non-Singing Voice: Andrea Robinson dubbed Wendy Makkena's singing. Averted by the rest of the cast, who all did their own singing, including Whoopi Goldberg. However, this creates another problem in that Goldberg's thin, reedy voice is hardly credible even for a Reno lounge singer (a relic of the part being writen for Bette Midler).
• Real-Life Relative: Whoopi Goldberg's daughter Alex Martin appears as one of the children - saying the "Yo mama" joke about Skittles popping out when sitting on a rainbow.
• Referenced by...:
  • Animaniacs (1993): In "Video Revue", the Warners sing about the various movies in the video store. At one point, Dot sings "Ava joined with Zsa Zsa and they formed a Sister Act, but both were Unforgiven because neither one could act."
  • Rugrats (1991) has an episode titled "Sister Act". In this episode, Angelica feels left out now that she's the only one in her family without a younger brother or sister, and she expresses a desire to have one.
  • Young Sheldon: In "Ruthless, Toothless and a Week of Bed Rest", trying to convince a hesitant customer so he can get back to the secret gambling room, Georgie says that Goldberg as a singing nun is enough to make the movie worthwhile, and rings up the customer.
• Separated-at-Birth Casting: Isis Carmen Jones plays young Goldberg perfectly from the physical similarities to the mannerisms. She also plays a young Guinan (adult Guinan is played by Goldberg) in the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode "Little Rascals".
• Throw It In!: In the basketball scene in the sequel, Lauryn Hill started rapping spontaneously, which wasn't in the script. So they left it in.
• Uncredited Role: Carrie Fisher was an uncredited script doctor for the screenplay. Nancy Meyers and Robert Harling also did uncredited work on the script.
• What Could Have Been:
  • Pedro Almodóvar turned down an offer to direct.
  • Bette Midler was originally considered for the role of Deloris, but couldn't take it because of her busy schedule. The scene where the mobsters are trying to identify her apart from the other nuns originally would have had her Sizable Semitic Nose be the giveaway, but the scene was barely altered with Whoopi Goldberg's casting. Cracked notes that this makes the mobsters' failure to immediately single out the only black nun make them look like politically correct villains.
  • Lauren Holly auditioned for the role of Sister Mary Robert.
  • Phil Collins claims he was considered for the role of the theatre manager in his autobiography.
  • Lt. Eddie Souther was originally written for a white actor and was intended to be a potential love interest for Deloris. When Whoopi Goldberg was cast as the lead, Disney executives were worried that audiences would not accept an interracial romance (though apparently having a white, married boyfriend as the main antagonist was a-okay). The studio attempted to have Edward James Olmos cast as Souther as a compromise. Bill Nunn was eventually cast, but eventually any notion that Deloris and Eddie had more-than-platonic feelings for each other was omitted from the script.
• You Look Familiar: Whoopi Goldberg has played the Reverend Mother in the musical.

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