Whoopi Goldberg Remembers Sister Act Costar Maggie Smith After Her Death: ‘A Great Woman and a Brilliant Actress’

Whoopi Goldberg is paying tribute to the “brilliant” Dame Maggie Smith.

Shortly after Smith’s sons, Toby Stephens and Chris Larkin, confirmed the news of her death at age 89 on Friday, Sept. 27, Goldberg shared a heartfelt message about her late Sister Act costar on Instagram, alongside an image of the pair on set of their iconic film.

“Maggie Smith was a great woman and a brilliant actress,” Goldberg, 68, wrote in a short caption. “I still can’t believe I was lucky enough to work with the ‘one-of-a-kind.'”

“My heartfelt condolences go out to the family…RIP,” she concluded.

While Goldberg, 68, and Smith first worked together on the 1992 film — which also featured Kathy Najimy, Wendy Makkena and Mary Wickes — they later teamed up again on the film’s 1993 sequel Sister Act 2: Back in the Habit. In the films, Goldberg portrayed lounge singer Deloris who helps turn a nuns’ choir into a worldwide smash, as Smith played the memorable Mother Superior.

Goldberg previously revealed that she was “holding the part of Mother Superior” for Smith in the franchise’s potential third installment during an appearance on the Loose Women talk show in January 2023. At the time, she shared that she “just can’t do it with anybody but you.”

“So, if you need me to come over here and shoot it and do whatever we have to do, we will do whatever you want us to do,” she added. “But we don’t want to do it without you, Maggie.”

On Friday, Sept. 27, in a statement via publicist Clair Dobbs, Smith’s sons said that the distinguished actresses died “peacefully” in a hospital that morning.

“An intensely private person, she was with friends and family at the end,” the statement read. “She leaves two sons and five loving grandchildren who are devastated by the loss of their extraordinary mother and grandmother.”

“We would like to take this opportunity to thank the wonderful staff at the Chelsea and Westminster Hospital for their care and unstinting kindness during her final days,” Stephens and Larkin added. “We thank you for all your kind messages and support and ask that you respect our privacy at this time.”

Beyond her beloved role in the Sister Act films, the two-time Academy Award winner was also well known for her portrayals of Professor Minerva McGonagall in the Harry Potter series and Violet Crawley in Downton Abbey.

Goldberg has also previously opened up about how her former costar helped her through a difficult time in life, when she learned her mother Emma Harris was on life support following an aneurysm before her death in 2010. At the time, Goldberg was performing in the stage adaptation of Sister Act in London when Smith was paying her a visit.

As Goldberg wrote in her memoir, Bits and Pieces: My Mother, My Brother, and Me, she was waiting for a flight to the hospital as she shared memories of her mother with Smith for five hours.

“Having Maggie Smith be there, and being able to fall apart and having her say, ‘Listen, my friend. We’ll get you through this. We’ll get you through this. We’ll get you to the hospital so you can get her. Get you back to Berkeley so you can get home,’” Goldberg told PEOPLE earlier this year.

“We were up all night, just laughing and talking about stuff,” she continued. “And she had met my mom a couple of times. Just having somebody who got it, who understood, it’s everything.”