Sally Field is back. Not that she ever went away. But after igniting her career in ’60s sitcoms (Gidget, The Flying Nun), then going on to win the Best Actress Oscar twice, for her powerhouse heroines in Norma Rae (1979) and Places in the Heart (1984), she felt her stardom was fragile. You could hear the insecurity in her voice as she accepted her second Oscar and gushed the line that she’ll take to her grave – “I can’t deny the fact that you like me, right now, you like me!” And even after that win, as she wrote in her 2018 memoir, In Pieces, “I never saw myself as being an important, highly sought-after talent at the top of my game.” Over the years, Field has shone in supporting roles – in sisterhood ensembles (Steel Magnolias, 80 for Brady) and as wives and mothers in Academy Award-winning films (Mrs. Doubtfire, Forrest Gump, Lincoln) – and soldiered on in television. But it has taken four decades for her to land another dramatic lead role in a movie from a major studio.
Remarkably Bright Creatures, which is streaming on Netflix, has the 79-year-old Field firing on all cylinders as Tova, an irascible widow in a coastal village who forms a relationship with a giant Pacific octopus named Marcellus that lives in an aquarium where she works as a cleaner.
Written and directed by Olivia Newman (First Match, Where the Crawdads Sing), the film was adapted from the novel by American author Shelby Van Pelt, who was in turn inspired by the Oscar-winning 2020 documentary My Octopus Teacher. And as it turns out, Field was “attached” to the project before she was even aware of it – the author has said that she pictured Sally as Tova while writing the novel. Given the uncanny intelligence of octopi, and their shape-shifting knack for infiltrating small portals, it’s enough to make you wonder if this super-sentient species conspired to cast the movie.
The octopus, in fact, has a speaking role: Alfred Molina voices its thoughts as a curmudgeonly narrator. As corny as that sounds, it provides comic relief for a heartfelt drama of grief and loss. Tova is still mourning the death of her teenage son, when she forms an abrasive bond with a young rock musician (Lewis Pullman) who shows up in town like a stray cat. If this actor looks strangely familiar, it’s because his father is veteran actor Bill Pullman – who, in another tentacle of serendipity, co-starred with Field onstage in London’s West End seven years ago, in Arthur Miller’s All My Sons.
Remarkably Bright Creatures shows Field playing another smart, scrappy, big-hearted underdog who doesn’t suffer fools gladly. The role seems to come naturally. Along with her friend Jane Fonda, the California native is an ardent activist for women’s rights, gay rights and environmental causes. She didn’t use a ghostwriter for her laser-focused, well-reviewed memoir, which spans her early struggles, from escaping an abusive stepfather to her Oscars triumphs. Field, who is twice divorced with three sons, and weathered a stormy five-year relationship with Smokey and the Bandit co-star Burt Reynolds, now lives alone in the Pacific Palisades neighbourhood in Los Angeles.
I spoke with her in a video interview just before the film’s May premiere.
Zoomer: Hi Sally, it was a pleasure to see you in this film. I understand your involvement in Remarkably Bright Creatures goes deep – the book’s author said that she pictured you as her protagonist while she was writing the book.
Sally Field: Oh, did she? I didn’t know Shelby had visualized me as Tova. The project was first presented to me when the book was in galleys. It had not been published yet. I read a few chapters and said, “Yes, yes, I want to do this!” It just was a wonderfully complicated little story that needed to be dissected correctly. I’ve been a professional actor for 62 years. I’ve had production companies and I’m used to being a part of projects from the get-go, helping develop the screenplay and find who the filmmaker might be. So, it wasn’t anything unusual for me.
Z: Did you see any aspects of your character that became personal touchstones, reasons perhaps why Shelby might have imagined you as Tova?
SF: I don’t know. I’ve played a lot of mothers. I am a mother. I am a grandmother. I’m all those things. I don’t know why Shelby saw me in it. I do know why this initially resonated with me so strongly, even after only reading a few chapters.
Z: Why is that?
SF: In 2019, I’d worked the entire year in the U.K., in a play [All My Sons], and I was lonely. I wanted to go home. I did something in Philly. I wanted to go home. Then I was in D.C. doing something at the Kennedy Center and I arbitrarily went online and started looking at little dogs, always saying, “I can’t have a dog, I can’t have a dog.” Then “What am I, crazy? I can have a dog!” So I contacted this breeder in Southern California and said, “I know all your litters are promised a long time in advance, blah, blah, blah . . .” And she said, “Yes, long before they are born.” But there was this one little dog that was promised that the people didn’t want because he was a black one. And no one ever wants the black ones. He’s a Cavapoo. Most of the Cavapoos are multicolored. And this little guy was all black with a little white chin. And I just said, I’ll take him. He was eight weeks old, six pounds. And three weeks later, it was the pandemic. I had never had a dog and all of a sudden, this little creature and I were it. I had never been close to a creature, and he changed my life. He changed how I saw things.
Z: In what way?
SF: We were in shutdown. And for many, many months, I was alone. My children and grandchildren would drive by and wave because everybody was afraid to come in contact, especially with an older person. So in Tova’s relationship with Marcellus, this giant Pacific octopus, he becomes what my dog is to me. I talk to my dog about everything. I cry and laugh and laugh and laugh, and think to myself: “if anyone heard this going on, they would literally get the rubber room ready.” But I realized that creatures are incredibly important to human beings.
Z: Let’s talk about Marcellus, this creature with eight arms, nine brains and three hearts. He’s very convincing. And there are over 100 names in the visual effects credits. Did you play any scenes with a real octopus, or was it always an imaginary one? And what was that like, acting with a scene partner who wasn’t quite there?
SF: Well, I’ve played with a lot of actors who weren’t quite there . . .
Z: Ha!
SF: I’m hesitant to spoil the magic of what the piece is, to say how much of what you see of Marcellus is real and what is special effects. But all of acting comes from your ability to concentrate and hypnotize yourself – to think something is happening that isn’t happening.
Z: You’ve had a remarkable career. I don’t know where you would place this film in your body of work but Tova is your first dramatic lead role in a movie for a long time. And you really carry this film. Did you feel pressure? Was it tough? Does it get harder when you get older to do this?
SF: You know, it gets harder to go up and down stairs. But look, I’ve been doing this my whole life. And when I wasn’t starring in a film, I was in the U.K. at the Old Vic or I was on Broadway. I did several weird little limited series that we won’t even talk about because I didn’t like them. I’ve always been moving around a lot. It has never, ever, been easy for me to find roles that I wanted to do. And I’ve never done movies back to back. Even in the height of my movie career, I would do one every year-and-a-half.
Z: Acting on a movie set involves long hours and is a very physical job. As you get older, does that become more challenging? Afterwards, do you ever think, “Do I want to keep doing this?”
SF: I don’t know, I can’t answer that question. Yes, it’s what I do with my language, with myself. Roles change. Some are more physical than others. But I find what we’re doing now, in the few weeks to promote this, much harder than doing a film.
Z: Really?
SF: Much harder. Oh my God, yes.
Z: Why is it harder if you’re just sitting, talking?
SF: That’s hard, yeah.
Z: Let’s talk about Lewis Pullman. Your characters are well matched – they’re both volatile and kind of skittish. But I also felt that you were really clicking as actors and on an equal level though you’re way more experienced. Did that just happen? Did it develop over the course of the shoot?
SF: I had the opportunity to read with him early on, before we hired [the character] Cameron. And the minute he walked in, I just knew. We could start improvising immediately and playing. So much of what you see in the film is just Lewis and I sort of improvising our way through the scene. It was instant. We were living in what you were seeing. He is extremely talented. He has not even touched the areas that he can go in. He can be funny, he’s very much a dramatic actor, and he’s musical.
Z: You shot this movie on the B.C. coast, and the location really informs the look and feel of it – the fog alone! What was it like filming there?
SF: We shot in Vancouver, in Deep Cove, and all over. I love Vancouver so deeply. I just think it’s the most magnificent city. One of the reasons that I know it so well is my middle son, who lives in Vancouver, has a Canadian wife. I’m constantly asking him to look around for a condo or something that I could buy nearby or rent. I love Canada. I wish Canada would adopt me.
Z: You prepared for this role for a long time. But once you were shooting, in the moment, sort of between action and cut, what surprised you?
SF: I studied a long time to be an actor, and I’m always learning. But I know this, that you can never know where you’re going. There’s this wonderful quote [by dancer, writer and choreographer Agnes de Mille]: “We take leap after leap in the dark.” So everything should surprise you and nothing should surprise you because that’s the work. The minute you know where you’re going, it dies a little.”
