Sally Field Looks Back on 62 Years-and Reveals Why She's Not Done Yet (Exclusive)
Free tip if you ever meet Sally Field: Do not rave to her that she's had a legendary career. She'll just casually beg off the compliment.
"I don't know," she tells Parade in our exclusive cover story interview. "I've been here. I'm here. I've been here. I'm still here. I'm still here."
Okay, but it's true. Since first appearing as an apple-cheeked teen on the popular sitcomGidget 62 years ago, the actress has amassed 70 credits in projects that you know and love. Not only has she made audiences laugh in timeless classics like Smokey and the Bandit (1977) and Mrs. Doubtfire (1993), but she's also responsible for countless ugly cries courtesy of Steel Magnolias (1989), Forrest Gump (1994) and Lincoln (2012).
Field's success has also led to two Best Actress Oscars for 1979's Norma Rae and 1984's Places in the Heart. She's also garnered three Emmys for her performances in the 1976 TV movie Sybil, her 2000 guest arc on ER and in 2007 for the family drama Brothers & Sisters.
With a milestone birthday approaching-she turns 80 on Nov. 6-the California native is adding to her impressive IMDb profile with a movie that feels like a warm, welcoming embrace. In the upcoming Netflix film Remarkably Bright Creatures, Field plays Tova-a widowed cleaner working the night shift at a small-town aquarium who forges a special bond with a fellow loner (Lewis Pullman). Together, the two care for an aging mollusk named Marcellus and learn how to break free of their respective confines. The heartfelt tale is based on the 2022 bestselling novel of the same name and hits Netflix on May 8. "It's a unique story because it's about the human condition," she says.
While speaking via Zoom from her home in the Pacific Palisades, Field lovingly cradles her own remarkably bright creature-her adorable Cavapoo Dashiell "Dash" Hammett, named after The Maltese Falcon crime writer. "He's just the best little companion," she says. Field is also a proud mom to three grown sons: screenwriter and author Peter Craig, screenwriter/director Eli Craig and writer/producer Sam Greisman, and she has five "amazing" grandkids.
As for that remarkably durable career? Though Field insists she has yet to take on her defining performance, she's still game to discuss her greatest hits and more with Parade.
Parade: You haven't appeared onscreen in more than three years. Why was this the right role for you?
Sally Field: First of all, I was very predisposed to wanting to do it because I had this little creature come into my life in 2019. And this is about the profound connection that human beings have to creatures. But more than that, it's about family and healing and love.
Do you have a lot in common with Tova other than the animal connection?
Well, I'm the same age. But I'm not really sure. So much of what you see in the film is impromptu between Lewis Pullman and myself. So I don't know. I'm never ever able to say how much is me.
You've previously co-starred with Bill Pullman. Was it a little surreal working with his son?
No, no. Bill and I did something on stage [in All My Sons], which is very different than doing film. But the similarities are that Lewis is hugely talented like his dad. It runs in the family.
When you started off, what kind of career did you envision for yourself?
I wanted to be an actor. I studied to be an actor. It is my language with myself. It is how I have learned who I am, and I'm continuing to learn who I am. So I can't even look at it like that. It took me a long time to get out of situation comedy television in the 1960s. But I studied acting for a long time in the '70s and early '80s and found myself watching what other people were doing on the screen. And I went to The Actors Studio in New York.
What was it like hearing your name called for Best Actress for the first time?
It's hard to describe how all of that had gone down. Like I said, I worked so hard to get out of television. People wouldn't let me in a room to audition. It was such a battle to even get onto a list. But I told myself that I had the power to change within myself. I had to get better. Sybil was the beginning of the transition. But for Norma Rae, we premiered in Cannes and I had won a lot of awards for it. By the time I got to the Oscars, I was sort of numb. I couldn't feel anything, and it was almost like too much. That whole year was almost too much for me to calculate, to put in my head. I really am not good at that part. I'm not good at doing the whole glam stuff.
If you had to guess which movie of yours is the unofficial favorite among Millennials, what would you say?
[Pauses] Mrs. Doubtfire.
Agreed. Why do you think it still resonates? It can't just be Robin Williams in a dress.
The movie is about something really valid and important. It's a lot of laughter, but it's about the difficulties of divorce for children and how, ultimately, the mom and the dad can get divorced, and the kids will still be okay. Kids need to know this, and they need to know that sometimes divorce is the very best thing because sometimes when moms and dads feel they need to stay together for the kids, it's a bad message. You want your children to understand that finding a partner to support you and love you and grow with you and challenge you is a really wonderful thing, and if it isn't working, that's okay, too. Not every relationship is supposed to last till the end of time.
Related: The Moment Sally Field Knew This ‘Pretty Woman' Would Be a Superstar (Exclusive)
There are also no bad guys in that movie.
Yes, that is certainly something that Chris [Columbus] the director and Robin and I wanted to do. That's what we wanted to say to the kids. It's just life. And if you clamp down and stay on this one thing, you miss all of life's fabulous colors.
Was it at all strange for you to play Tom Hanks' mom in Forrest Gump considering that you were his peer in Punchline six years earlier?
No. It's a great moment for an actor. I was honored to be asked. I was playing younger than I was, and I was playing older than I was, and what's wrong with that? And in Punchline, I wasn't his love interest-I was his peer. I was a housewife, a mother, and he was this undisciplined kid shot from the cannons. Forrest Gump was a great work experience.
Related: 'Mama Always Said, Life Was Like a Box of Chocolates!'-25 Classic 'Forrest Gump' Quotes
What are some of your fondest memories working with all those incredible actresses in Steel Magnolias? There was Dolly Parton, Shirley MacLaine, Daryl Hannah, Julia Roberts...
Just like Mrs. Doubtfire and Forrest Gump and even Norma Rae and certainly Smokey and the Bandit and Steel Magnolias . . . these were just great, great experiences. With Steel Magnolias, we all had a wonderful time together. We adored each other, we fought with each other, we cared for each other, we would get together on the weekends and play games. It was a once-in-a-lifetime thing.
Could you sense that Julia Roberts would become such a big star?
Yes. I read with a whole lot of actors for that role. Julia had not done very much. I read with a lot of much more established actors, and after I read with Julia, I said, "We're done. We're done. There she is."
Was filming the movie's funeral scene just as traumatic for you as it was for audiences? Or is it another day at the office?
You don't just think of it as "Oh, it's just another day of the office." It takes a part of your soul. It costs you. It cost every one of us. And we get a great deal of return from it because we learn from it. We were certainly bonded in it, holding each other's hands the whole time. But it's not just a job.
Related: What Dolly Parton Told Julia Roberts on the Set of ‘Steel Magnolias' Left Her Speechless
Did you really turn down The First Wives Club?
I did turn it down. I loved all of those actors, but I have always had a problem with older women either wanting to get a date or looking to like, you know, have more sex with their husband. Or I just feel like there's more for women to say, so that was just never my cup of tea. For First Wives Club, first of all, I could never have been as good as... I think it was [Diane] Keaton that came in after me. I couldn't have done that role because I don't sing, and they all did that at the end. I would never have been as good. I mean, it was absolutely right for Keaton, not for me.
In that movie, Goldie Hawn memorably says that there are only three types of roles for women in Hollywood: babe, district attorney and Miss Daisy. Have you found that to be true?
No. I've been working for 62 years. I've never been a babe. I've never been an attorney. I've yet to be Miss Daisy, even though it's a magnificent role and a magnificent film. I'd actually love to do it. That's my feeling.
Gidget wasn't considered a babe back in the day?
Oh my god, are you kidding? She was the opposite. She was a tomboy. She just wants to surf.
Many years later, you did play iconic FLOTUS Mary Todd Lincoln. Have you seen Oh, Mary! on Broadway?
I went with Tony Kushner, who wrote Lincoln. He called me and said, "We have to go." It was right after it opened off-Broadway near my apartment in the West Village. And I said "Okay" and he called Steven Spielberg. So Steven and Tony and I went together. I thought it was brilliant! And they all came out and said hi to us.
Were you surprised that all three of your sons went into the business?
You don't think like that. I mean, certainly all I wanted for my kids was for them to find something that they needed to do. This is who they are. This is what they do. And Peter was writing always. He was a novelist before he was a screenwriter, and Eli was a serious mountain climber and extremist outdoorsman, and it translated into another dangerous arena, which is filmmaking and storytelling. Sam was always a storyteller.
Let's hear about your life in the Palisades.
My house almost burned down. I did this film a year ago. That fire was a year and a half ago, so I went back and forth to New York several times because I'm working on a play that I think goes into rehearsals at the end of August. But I can't tell you about it yet. So I've been back and forth many times. This is the life of an actor.
What was the last great movie that you've seen?
I saw a lot of them. One Battle After Another. Frankensteinwas fabulous. Hamnet was really, really, really, beautifully, beautifully done. They're all so different and so powerful and so beautifully done. And Remarkably Bright Creatures is one of those few films that comes out every year that talks to us about things we know, like sadness and then love and forgiveness.
What role do you consider to be your crowning achievement?
I hope I haven't done it. All performances, the films, the characters I've been lucky enough to portray always changed me. They never left me, but I was always different after and so they informed me, they have pushed me. They have been my best friend and my worst enemy. So I can't look at any of them-even the films that I will love. They are my friends. I can't pick one over the other there, and that wouldn't be fair. Even the rotten ones.
You really don't have a lot of duds.
I could tell you some. But we won't go into that!
As an actress, how do you feel about turning 80?
You're always changing. So I'm looking at what does 80 offer me? What can I do that I've never been before? What will there be for that 80-year-old actor that I didn't have as a 50-year-old actor or 40 or 30 or 20 or 17? So it's always a journey. But I'm grateful to be on it.
This interview has been edited and condensed for length and clarity.
Next, Sally Field Reveals the Real Reason ‘Mrs. Doubtfire' Still Hits So Hard 33 Years Later (Exclusive)
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This story was originally published April 29, 2026 at 7:30 AM.