Sally Field honored with the 2023 SAG Life Achievement Award. Image Source: We Got This Covered

Sally Field is honored with the 2023 SAG Life Achievement Award.

The 2023 Screen Actors Guild Awards were held on February 26th, 2023, at the Fairmont Century Plaza in Los Angeles, and were live-streamed on Netflix's YouTube channel.

Andrew Garfield presented Sally Field with the 2023 SAG Life Achievement Award, and the two have collaborated on The Amazing Spider-Man films. He said that he got to play Peter Parker to Sally's Aunt May, and any intimidation he might well have felt from attempting to play the opposite titan of acting disappeared completely the moment his eyes managed to find hers. Andrew went say that Sally's kindness, sensitivity, creativeness, and sense of fun appear has kept her striving for the indefinable mystery at the heart of every character she has acted. He said that she is an epitome of truth, nobility, beauty, and dignity of the human soul, a North Star for everyone, particularly in encouraging, uplifting, and empowering women charting a heretofore uncharted path in an era of often uninspired and the one female roles.

The Spiderman actor said that Sally was Gidget, she was self-reliant, and she was possibly the first true female superhero. The tale of the Flying Nun in which she plays a nun who flies, and said kudos to the hat she's wearing and her small frame that she captures the wind and makes the miracle seem plausible. Andrew exclaimed that it's ludicrous before continuing to say that she encourages everyone to genuinely think that a massive creative life full of lushness, depth, self-deprecation, joy, pathos, and mystery is feasible, and she also shows everyone the way... miraculously and with humility. Andrew Garfield said that Sally never drinks her brilliance's Kool-Aid, and she never seems to get high on it, but mentioned that they are going to make an effort to see her tonight. "Your mother's and my favorite — Miss Sally Field."

Sally Field took the stage to accept the award, explaining that in the fall of 1964, she was standing in front of a camera on a cold beach in Malibu, and she spoke her first dialogue lines as a professional actor, describing that she was 17 and fresh out of high school. The performer went on to say that she didn't have an agent and was starting to work under the Taft-Hartley Act.

Sally explained a few months later that the show was picked up, and she was suddenly the star of a television series, which made her a member of the Screen Actors Guild. She recalls having to put that little paper card in her wallet, silently delighted to be able to call herself an actor; she found this stage when she was 12 years old, in 7th grade. She never left the drama department after that.

She went on to say that getting off stage Sally described herself as self-conscious, careful, and camouflaged, and she would think and rethink everything before telling or doing anything. On stage, however, was the sole time she could truly be herself, she hasn't never knew what she was going to say or do; she always amazed herself. The actress stated that she had been not looking for loud cheers or awareness, though both are praised at times. Anyway, it's never been about having to hide behind other people's characters. To her, acting has always been about trying to capture those few special memories when she feels complete, sometimes dangerously, alive.

So the task, Sally explained, was always to find a way to get there—to the work, if needed by clawing her way there. Finding it hard to break out of the box of situation comedy in the 1960s and 1970s required a fierceness she didn't even realize she possessed. But, in reality, she was a little white girl from Pasadena, California, with a pug nose. And, as she looks around this room tonight, she realizes that, as tough as her fight was, it was nothing, especially in comparison to some of them present in the audience.

The iconic actress also mentioned being a part of assignments that were so good that her hands shook the first time she read them, explaining that they opened up and revealed sides of herself that she would not have known otherwise. Sally Field added that she has flown on wires and surfed in the ocean, ridden horses, wagons, trains, and fast cars noting that she has had several personalities. Picking cotton in a textile factory was her job, she worked for Mrs. Doubtfire, Forrest Gump's mother, Lincoln's wife, and Spider-man's aunt. Sally said she has accomplished scenes in period dresses weighing 50 pounds and she has been fully dressed, semi-clothed, and barely dressed, jokingly addressing Jeff Bridges "Huh, Jeff?" "Don't you realize?"

While her journey, and the journeys of the other actors she spoke with, were not easy, Sally Field declared, "Easy is overrated" before stating that there isn't a day that goes by that she doesn't feel quietly delighted to call herself an actor. She appreciated everyone and thanked everyone for the immense honor bestowed on her by them, the people she most wished to be respected by in her life; Actors.

SAG President Fran Drescher shared a statement about the actress when she was announced as the recipient of the award and stated Sally is an excellent performer with an amazing variety and an uncanny knack to encapsulate any character. The statement continued that Sally Field has a long-lasting career since she's genuine in her performance and would always projects character and personality and humanity; she simply connects.

Congratulations.