"I Laughed So Hard They Had To Redo My Makeup" - Sally Field On The Set Of "Mrs. Doubtfire"

Hey everybody, welcome back. Thank you friends. Ladies and gentlemen, my guest tonight is a legendary Oscar and Emmy Award winning actor you know from Forrest Gump, Steel Magnolias, Mrs. Doubtfire and so much more. She now stars in Remarkably Bright Creatures. You can't just read people's text messages. Is that Avery from the paddleboard shop? Yes, yeah. Are the two of you dating? No, no, we're just texting. I mean barely, I'm just playing it cool. Whatever that means. How do you want me to respond? I don't want you to respond. I'm going to text her tomorrow. Put the phone down. What? If you have any hope of ever dating someone like Avery, you have to take her seriously. I do take her seriously. It's called flirting. I'm flirting. Flirting? What is flirting? Flirting is nothing. It's words and eyes and everything that matters takes time and effort. What is that? What? What is that? What? You're calling her. No, I'm not. Tova, hang up the phone right now. I didn't call her. Yes, you're calling her right now. I did not. Hang up the phone. It's Tova. No, no. Hello, Avery. Yes, did I call you or did you call me? Please welcome back to the Late Show, Sally Field. Take a load off Sally. Take a load off me. Take a load off Sally. Sally Field. Yeah. So wonderful to see you again. So good to see you again. Since the last time I saw you, you received the SAG Lifetime Achievement Award. Oh, yeah. Yeah. You said something that struck me when I read it. You said in the speech, quote, acting to me is about finding those precious moments when I feel totally, utterly, sometimes dangerously alive. I love that idea. Can you tell me about a time early on when you were hooked by that feeling about being dangerously alive? Well, yeah. I was born in 1946, just to name names here. Okay. So I was raised in the 50s, and little girls in the 50s weren't allowed to feel anything or do anything. They'd just sit and be like this, you know, and you couldn't, you know, you'd have to sit with your legs like this, and you'd be really nice and good, except I wasn't like that inside. I wasn't like that inside at all. I was filled with all sorts of things that were not acceptable whatsoever. And then I found this stage when I was 12 in the seventh grade, and it was a scene. I wasn't right for the scene, but I did it for the first time. I could finally hear my own voice. I could hear my own voice, and I could be all the things I really was. I could be mean. I could be angry. I could do really awful things to people. This sounds like the origin story of a serial killer. Or a great actress. Either one. It's a fine line. If I hadn't found this stage, that might have been me. It reminds me of this great quote. I think it's from Carl Walenda, which is, To be on the wire is life. All else is waiting. Oh, how great. How great. Yeah. Our leap after leap in the dark. Right. Yeah. So let's talk about some of these leaps. You also describe screenplays sometimes. You've read screenplays in the past. Yes, I do. So good that my hands shook the first time I read them. Yeah. What made your hands shake? Give me some examples. Wow. Gosh. Well, first one that my hands shook was Sybil. First time I read Sybil. I mean, I'm like. And is it like, oh, this is so good. This dialogue is so good. Or, oh, look at the challenge that I have ahead of me. It was that I didn't have it yet. Oh. And damn, I was going to get it. Wow. Yeah. And so it was just the magnitude of this craft that I had in my hands. I was going to get this or die trying. And luckily, I got it and got to keep going. Otherwise, who knows? Speaking of your great filmography, here you are with Robin Williams, Mrs. Doubtfire. Was he always cracking people up on set? Yeah, he was. Everybody would laugh. Everybody would like break in a scene? Yeah, but me. It drove him mad, actually, because I would never laugh. Ever. And everybody else was laughing and carrying out. You were too professional for that. It wasn't funny. It just wasn't funny. You stand your ground. And then once, we were at the tail end of the picture, and Robin was always trying something different to make me laugh. It was so unfunny, I can't begin to tell you. And then Pierce, wonderful Pierce Brosnan, was sitting at the table at the restaurant, and he made a fart noise on his arm, and I was gone. That was it. How did Robin take that? He said, that's all it took? I had to leave for a minute. I laughed so hard, they had to redo my makeup. Wow. I love it. Yeah. We have to take a quick break, Sally. OK. But don't go anywhere. We'll be right back with more Sally Field, everybody. Thank you.