It is revealing yourself through other characters that are written by somebody else. He invited, and sort of demanded, that you find your own pieces, as I say in my book ( In Pieces, which came out in 2018). To do the work well you really had to know yourself. From what I’ve heard of them they weren’t this. There are other people that went through various other forms of acting. I don’t know that there has ever been one quite like him or ever will be. It was what Lee’s language was, and finally I had a shorthand into all of the tools, a juggling act, an emotional juggling act that Lee taught so magnificently. … So he was part of the Actors Studio from the inception. And before that Cheryl Crawford and Bobby Lewis, who I ultimately worked with also later on. And I also had the great good fortune in my life to work with Marty Ritt (director of Norma Rae, Murphy’s Romance) And Marty had been a part of the Group Theatre which is what it was called before the Actors Studio. You know the Actors Studio or, in quotes, “method,” isn’t anything like this bad rap that it has accumulated. Oh, there’s no question it’s how I work and it’s just ingrained now. And it was very, very, very instrumental in who I became ultimately as an actor.ĭEADLINE: Yes, recently I heard Ellen Burstyn talking about it, and how now even about to turn 90, it is still a key part of her life and work.įIELD: Yeah. It profoundly changed my life because within a short matter of time, I met Lee and I began to work with Lee very seriously for many years. ![]() So going into an environment like that was very new. I never even had like a schooling experience outside of high school. She was a serious friend of mine forever and she said “I’ll be there, I’ll be waiting for you,” and I certainly was a very inward and shy person, didn’t have a lot of social goings-on anywhere. And Madeleine Sherwood, the Mother Superior (on Flying Nun), bless her heart, who had been a longtime Actors Studio member and very much advocate of it, she put a piece of paper in my hand and said be there. It was no longer in any form acting, nothing was real, and probably batted up against my young adulthood and I was seriously depressed. And then I was slammed into The Flying Nun where everything came to a screeching halt. So I never sat down during the day because I wanted to know “what are you doing?” and “what is this?” And it was the most unbelievably joyous experience. And then when I actually got into a professional situation Gidget was me. And the only way I could hear myself was when I was on stage, and that I found in seventh grade. We talk about it, that Oscar speech, and her visceral reaction to Cox’s opinion of the acting Method she swears by.ĭEADLINE: So in a weird way it was The Flying Nun, even with all the stigma that went with it for you, that led to the life- and career-changing decision to join The Actors Studio? ‘The Flying Nun’ SonyįIELD: Certainly it was a very troubled time in my life and acting had always been my only connection to me, because I was raised in the ’50s a little girl that was supposed to be all these supposed-to-be things, and I had kind of troubles in my own family and I was so shut down from who I genuinely was. But interestingly it was none other than that flying nun role that proved her entry into The Actor’s Studio and a life-changing experience. Who doesn’t like Sally Field? When I hopped on the phone with her this week I discovered how she was able to do the rare transition from a non-trained actor doing TV sitcoms early in her career like Gidget (which she loved) and The Flying Nun (not so much) to a two-time Oscar- and three-time Emmy-winning star. Of course that win led to her delivering one of the most famous of all Oscar acceptance speeches, the one where she exclaimed in near-tears, “You like me!” The Academy Museum’s tribute to the Actors Studio brought out the likes of Al Pacino, Robert De Niro, Ellen Bursty and coming up this Sunday none other than two-time Best Actress Oscar winner Field, who will celebrate the 75th anniversary recounting her own history at the Actors Studio in a conversation that will precede a screening of one of those films that earned her the Academy Award: 1984’s Places in the Heart. Student Academy Award Reveals 2022 Medalists ‘ Places in the Heart’ Sony Pictures
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