• About Us
  • Sasha Stone
  • Editor Ryan Adams
  • Clarence Moye
  • Contact Us
No Result
View All Result
Awardsdaily - The Oscars, the Films and everything in between.
  • Home
  • Oscar Predictions
    • Best Picture
    • Best Actor
    • Best Actress
  • Good As Gold
  • AD TV
  • Podcasts
  • FYC Gallery
  • Interviews
  • All News
  • Home
  • Oscar Predictions
    • Best Picture
    • Best Actor
    • Best Actress
  • Good As Gold
  • AD TV
  • Podcasts
  • FYC Gallery
  • Interviews
  • All News
No Result
View All Result
Awardsdaily - The Oscars, the Films and everything in between.
No Result
View All Result

Sally Field channeled grief over mother’s death into Lincoln

by Ryan Adams
February 28, 2013
in AWARDS CHATTER, Best Supporting Actress, News
21

Sally Field was featured on ABC Evening News tonight in a story that originally aired on Valentine’s Day.

Sally Field has been a beloved part of American pop culture for nearly a half-century. At 66, she has as many Best Actress Academy Awards as Meryl Streep. Pretty good for someone who began on the ABC sitcoms “Gidget” and “The Flying Nun.”

“When I started in the business, I started in situation-comedy, that’s kind of– those were it,” Field said. “People will say to me, ‘you made such wonderful choices in your life.’ I have? I had so few choices.”

Still, she was undaunted and unabashed in her desire to play Mary Todd Lincoln in Steven Spielberg’s “Lincoln.”

“I’m proud of the film, I’m proud of my work in the film, I’m proud I fought to get in it,” Field said.

Proud, too, of doing it all, deep in the midst of a heartbreak she has never talked about publicly before: Her mother’s death.

But this acclaimed performance, for which she pored through books on the troubled first lady and gained around 20 pounds, nearly didn’t happen, despite Spielberg’s initial enthusiasm for her to play the part.

“He actually asked me to be Mary Todd, I think it was 2005, but I knew even then, when I drove away… that there would be a lot of slip between cup and lip, ultimately,” she said.

Years of false starts followed. But when a script by “Angels in America” playwright Tony Kushner restarted the project, Field’s struggle began.

“I just knew that would be a battle then,” she said. “I’m 10 years older than Daniel [Day-Lewis], and Mary Todd was 10 years younger than Lincoln. I’m 20 years older than what Mary was. Steven said, ‘it’s not going to work.’ The good news is I didn’t kill myself that day because he called me the next day.”

The customarily reclusive Daniel Day-Lewis had offered to fly from Ireland to Los Angeles for the day to act with her, giving Field one final chance.

He walked across the room, and I was sitting as Mary and I did not rise until he was literally next to me,” she said. “And I rose, finally gave him my hand and he kissed it, and I said, ‘Mr. Lincoln’ and he said ‘mother.’ That’s what they called each other, and I lay my head on his chest, because I am much shorter than he, as appropriately so, and I whispered ‘thank you.’ He kissed the top of my head and said, ‘my honor,’ and it will be one of the things I remember forever and ever and ever.”

As she drove home, Day-Lewis and Spielberg called to say she had won the role.

“I knew then, that day, and just began to cry, of course. Saying, ‘thank you, thank you, I won’t let you down,'” Field said.

That performance as Mary Todd — sympathetic, subtlety emotional — has earned Field a Supporting Actress Oscar nomination and was achieved under challenging circumstances. Her mother died during filming, and on Field’s 65th birthday.

“My mother passed away while I was doing ‘Lincoln,’ which was a huge part of the whole experience,” Field said. “I had never really talked about it. It was huge, and everybody knew and I flew home and she’d been very ill so it’d been ongoing. My daily phone calls with her. It all folded into the batter, and of course the grieving and the things that I felt were tremendous.”

Tags: Best Supporting ActressLincolnSally Field
Ryan Adams

Ryan Adams

Next Post

Argo and Silver Linings win Ace Eddies, Les Mis and Brave take Cinema Audio Society awards

Sign up for Awards Daily's Breaking News

* indicates required

The State of the Race — Forget Your Troubles, Come On Get Happy

The State of the Race — Forget Your Troubles, Come On Get Happy
by Sasha Stone
February 25, 2021
12

‘Mank,’ ‘Mulan,’ ‘Ma Rainey’s’ Among Nominees for 25th Art Directors Guild Awards

‘Mank’ Co-Producer Peter Mavromates On Accentuating a 1930s World Through VFX

San Simeon Interior After VFX (Photo: Netflix)

by Clarence Moye
February 25, 2021
18

Marcell Rév On Capturing the Volatility of ‘Malcolm & Marie’

Marcell Rév On Capturing the Volatility of ‘Malcolm & Marie’

(Photo: Dominic Miller/Netflix)

by Joey Moser
February 25, 2021
0

‘Ma Rainey’s’ Team Reflects on George C. Wolfe’s Acclaimed Direction

First Look at Viola Davis and Chadwick Boseman’s Transformative Work in Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom

Ma Rainey's Black Bottom (2020): (L to R) Viola Davis as Ma Rainey, Director George C. Wolfe, and Chadwick Boseman as Levee. Cr. David Lee / Netflix

by Clarence Moye
February 25, 2021
2

Disney and Pixar’s Luca Gets a Trailer

Disney and Pixar’s Luca Gets a Trailer
by Sasha Stone
February 25, 2021
2

Woody Allen Doc Makes a Strong Case for the Prosecution but It’s Missing the Defense

Woody Allen Doc Makes a Strong Case for the Prosecution but It’s Missing the Defense
by Ryan Adams
February 24, 2021
34

Predict the Golden Globes!

Predict the Golden Globes!
by Sasha Stone
February 24, 2021
14

Preferential Ballot Experiment Results in – Nomadland Dominates, but Promising, Chicago 7 Hillbilly In It

Makeup Department Head Eryn Krueger Mekash on Transforming Amy Adams and Glenn Close for ‘Hillbilly Elegy’

Photo Courtesy of Netflix

by Sasha Stone
February 24, 2021
48

Composer Henry Jackman on His Ambitious Score for Apple’s ‘Cherry’

Composer Henry Jackman on His Ambitious Score for Apple’s ‘Cherry’

(Photo: Apple TV+)

by Joey Moser
February 23, 2021
0

Shorts: A Father Fights for Normalcy in ‘The Present’

Shorts: A Father Fights for Normalcy in ‘The Present’
by Joey Moser
February 23, 2021
0

Shorts: ‘White Eye’ Asks Who Is the Real Bicycle Thief

Shorts: ‘White Eye’ Asks Who Is the Real Bicycle Thief
by Joey Moser
February 23, 2021
0

Shorts: Two Kids Get Taken To the Edge of Something Sinister in ‘Da Yie’

Shorts: Two Kids Get Taken To the Edge of Something Sinister in ‘Da Yie’
by Joey Moser
February 23, 2021
0

Shorts: A Wily Young Girl Witnesses an Accident in ‘Bittu

Shorts: A Wily Young Girl Witnesses an Accident in ‘Bittu
by Joey Moser
February 23, 2021
0

Join us Facebook

AwardsDaily Crew

  • About Us
  • Sasha Stone
  • Editor Ryan Adams
  • Clarence Moye
  • Contact Us

ADTV Crew

  • ADTV Home
  • Megan McLachlan, Co-Editor
  • Clarence Moye, Co-Editor
  • Jalal Haddad, Senior Contributor
  • Joey Moser, Senior Contributor
  • Kevin Dillon
  • Shadan Larki
  • Ben Morris
  • David Phillips

Follow on Twitter

ADTV Twitter

  • Contact
  • About Us
  • Advertising on Awards Daily

© 1999-2021 AwardsDaily.com

No Result
View All Result
  • Home
  • Oscar Predictions
    • Best Picture
    • Best Actor
    • Best Actress
  • Good As Gold
  • AD TV
  • Podcasts
  • FYC Gallery
  • Interviews
  • All News

© 1999-2021 AwardsDaily.com