What roles has Sally Field played that illustrate the range of her acting career?
Sally Field has played both Gidget and Mary Todd Lincoln — two roles that alone tell you everything about her extraordinary range. Across a career spanning more than 60 years, she has also starred as a flying nun in The Flying Nun and, most recently, as the lead opposite a CGI octopus in Remarkably Bright Creatures on Netflix, a role that earned her an Emmy nomination.
The breadth here is genuinely hard to match. From a perky teenage surfer in the 1960s to the deeply complex wife of Abraham Lincoln in Steven Spielberg's Lincoln — and every strange, bold choice in between — Field has consistently defied the limits of any single genre or era. As she told host Peter Sagal on Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me!, her career has included things so varied she herself would have a hard time remembering them all.
The Remarkably Bright Creatures chapter is the latest proof of that instinct for the unexpected. The Netflix series pairs Field with a co-star that required no onset chemistry — the octopus is fully CGI — yet the role still drew Emmy recognition, cementing her status as one of the few actors whose work transcends both the absurd and the deeply human.
"I've done such strange things that I would have a hard time remembering. But they would not be things that anyone else would remember either."
— Sally Field, on Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me!
About Sally Field
Sally Field is one of the most decorated actors in American entertainment history, with a career that has run continuously for more than 60 years. She has won two Academy Awards and three Emmy Awards — an achievement remarkable enough that it merits its own dedicated Wikipedia page. Her range is almost without precedent: she launched her career as the cheerful teenager Gidget in the 1965 TV series, then pivoted to play a literal flying nun throughout the late 1960s — a role that came with real physical demands, including being suspended on a 50-foot crane on set. Decades later, she delivered one of her most acclaimed dramatic performances as Mary Todd Lincoln in Steven Spielberg's 2012 film Lincoln. Most recently, Field stars in Remarkably Bright Creatures on Netflix, alongside a CGI octopus, a role for which she received an Emmy nomination — her third. Her appearance on Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me! in August 2026 was a testament to her enduring cultural presence and willingness to be playful about the sheer strangeness of her own résumé.
See also
Paula Poundstone's dog is named Dashiell Hammett, named after the famous crime writer. She mentioned the dog kept barking at a squirrel during the interview.
According to Sally Field, the octopus in Remarkably Bright Creatures was CGI, not a real animal. She noted it is hard to train an octopus for that kind of role.
Sally Field explained that filming The Flying Nun was painful because it was still the 1960s and there were no special effects — she was suspended by wires, sometimes on a 50-foot crane.