Sally Field may be known for telling the Oscars crowd “You really like me!” when she won an Academy Award back in 1985, but this year, when her name was called at the Emmys for her role in TV movie , she seemed really taken aback.
“This wasn’t supposed to happen!” she said, looking over the applauding audience, as she accepted the Emmy for her lead role in the Netflix film.
In Remarkably Bright Creatures, based on the novel by Shelby Van Pelt and directed by Olivia Newman, Field stars as Tova, an elderly widow working as a cleaner in an aquarium, who has befriended one of its inhabitants — a giant pacific octopus named Marcellus (voiced by Alfred Molina). Then, when an accidental slip at work puts Tova out of commission for a few weeks, a young itinerant musician named Cameron (Lewis Pullman) takes on the cleaning job temporarily, and an unlikely friendship forms that may just blow open secrets and new beginnings for all involved.
Field also thanked her son Peter Craig, producer on the project who first suggested she might be interested in the role, and said, “I loved this project from page 1.” Field also got a laugh when she name- checked the novelist, saying “lovely Shelby Van Pelt, whatever her name is. Anyway, she knows what it is.”
She continued, “This story of an old woman, a young man, and an octopus doesn’t come around a lot,” and added her thanks to “Tony Lipp and Anonymous who ripped it out of the marketplace,” Netflix,a and Newman among others, before giving credit to all “who brought Marcellus this giant Pacific octopus to life. Unbelievable. Alfred Molina who gave it voice and Ashley Connor, oh my gosh the cinematopgrapher who made the Pacific Northwest another character. And it’s Canada! Bless Canada, our neighbors, our friends.”
She also gave Pullman his flowers as her supporting actor. “I wouldn’t be up here if not for the magical talent of Lewis Pullman who stood next to me the whole time.”
Then addressing the entire community in the room she said, “I have been so grateful and so proud to be a part of this community, the arts for 62 years or something. We’re the arts. We matter. Our voices matter. Our diversity, our unique storytelling, matters. We can’t let those voices be silenced or compromised or merged.”
Remarkably Bright Creatures had a total of three Emmy nominations. This is Field’s 4th Emmy win ever out of a total of 10 nominations and at 79, she is the oldest actress ever to win in this category. The last time she won was is 2007 for her role of Nora Walker in ABC drama series Brothers & Sisters.
Field was up against category mates Carey Mulligan for Beef, Sarah Snook for All Her Fault, Sarah Pidgeon for Love Story and Claire Danes for The Beast in Me and many predictions had the win landing either on Mulligan or Snook.
