Sally Field on ‘Spoiler Alert,’ Playing Tom Hanks’s Mom in ‘Forrest Gump,’ and the Upcoming ‘80 for Brady’

I was in the midst of shooting Mrs. Doubtfire when I got a call from my friend, Tom Hanks, who I had worked with before and we remained friends. He said, “I don’t want you to be insulted.” And I thought, Oh God, what’s he going to say? He said, “I want you to play my mother.” And I said, “Well, Tom, I wouldn’t be insulted.” I’m 10 years older than Tom, but I said, “I want to do it, Tom. I don’t care what it is. I want to do it.” Then I read the screenplay, and of course it’s Forrest Gump, it’s wonderful. I got to play younger than myself and older than myself.

Did you have a feeling that Mrs. Doubtfire was going to be as successful as it was? 

No. You never do. It gets in your way. You can’t do a role like that and think, Oh boy, this is important. You just have to do your work. You can’t think of anything else. Many times, and certainly at the beginning of my film career, I would be surprised when a movie would even come out because I was so focused on the daily existence of being on location or in this character. So you do the role and hopefully it’s the kind of experience that we all had in this little film.

When fans meet you, what is the role that they most want to talk about? Or what do they say when they encounter Sally Field in the wild, so to speak?

In the wild with my shotgun and my binoculars looking for elephants? It changes depending on where I am. I find myself rather shocked that more times than not, it’ll be somebody that comes up and says something about The Flying Nun. And I go, “Wait a minute, you weren’t alive when that was on. So I’m not really sure why you even know about that.”

How do you feel then being called an icon? 

I find it kind of shocking. And I’m not really sure what an icon is. What is an icon? Can you name what an icon is?

Yeah, it’s you. That's what I consider.

Oh, well, do I like being me? You know what? It’s better than a sharp stick in the eye. I’m glad that my almost 60 years of doing this work has somehow resonated. That certainly feels good. There’s no question about that. But it’s not something I think about very often.

What are the little things that you do on a daily basis that bring you a sense of happiness and structure? 

I walk my dog around the neighborhood. It’s funny because at the end of 2019, I had been working almost the whole year and was gone a lot from my family, and was missing home. I thought, I want to get a puppy. And then that other voice inside of me said, You can’t get a puppy.