They like her! Sally Field gave another memorable acceptance speech on Sunday at the 2023 Screen Actors Guild Awards. Onstage to receive the SAG Life Achievement Award, the performer’s union top honor given to actors for “career achievement and humanitarian accomplishment,” Field gave her thanks to her peers for their recognition.
“In the fall of 1964, I was standing in front of a camera on a freezing cold beach in Malibu, and I said my first lines of dialogue as a professional actor," Field recalled. “A few months later, the show is picked up and all of a sudden I was a star of a television series, and I became a member of the Screen Actors Guild. I remember so clearly putting that paper card in my wallet, quietly thrilled to call myself an actor. ”
Field described discovering acting as a 12-year-old in school plays. “It was the one place I could be freely me,” she said. “When I got offstage, I felt shy and careful and hidden… but onstage, I never knew what I would say or do. I would surprise myself.
“Acting to me has always been about finding those few precious moments when I feel totally, utterly, sometimes dangerously alive,” she added.
Field started her career in television, starring in shows like Gidget and The Flying Nun in the ’60s. Recalling her struggle to transition out of situational comedies, she acknowledged the other women in the room. “I was a little white girl with a pug nose, born in Pasadena, California. And when I look around this room tonight, I know my fight, as hard as it was, was lightweight compared to some of yours. I thank you and I applaud you, and I know that for you, just like for me, it has not been easy. But you know what? Ah, easy is overrated."
By the ’80s, Field was a two-time Oscar winner after taking home best actress for Norma Rae and Places in the Heart. And who could forget her ’90s run: Steel Magnolias, Mrs. Doubtfire and Forrest Gump? Most recently, Field returned to her TV roots in Winning Time: The Rise of the Lakers Dynasty as Jessie Buss, and is currently starring alongside Jane Fonda, Rita Moreno and Lily Tomlin in 80 for Brady.
After a career-spanning montage of her most famous roles, Field took the stage to uproarious applause, and joked about the range of performances she's taken on over the years: “I've flown on wires and surfed in the ocean, rode on horses in wagon trains and fast cars. I've had multiple personalities, worked in a textile mill, picked cotton. I've been Mrs. Doubtfire’s employer, Forrest Gump’s mother, Lincoln’s wife, and Spider-Man’s aunt."
The ceremony, broadcast on YouTube.com/Netflix from the Fairmont Century Plaza in Los Angeles, reunited Field with former The Amazing Spider-Man co-star Andrew Garfield, who presented the award to “your fave, your mother’s fave and mine: Miss Sally Field,” he said.
“You evoke awe in every actor’s heart,” he said to an increasingly moved Field. “You're a north star for all of us.”
For proof, look no further than Dolly Parton, who told Garfield: “I guess in this case, SAG stands for Sally Always Great.”
Head here to see the list of winners.
