Sally Field Has No Interest In Typical Rom-Coms, Thank You Very Much

You’ll never see Sally Field make the first move — at least onscreen. In a new interview with People, published on May 7, the Oscar-winning actor revealed the role she has always turned down, which is basically any love story that requires her character to go after a man.

Promoting her new movie Remarkably Bright Creatures, Field sat down to reflect on her illustrious film and TV career, recalling her breakout role in 1965’s Gidget, her first Oscar win for 1979’s Norma Rae, and every major project that came afterward. However, she had no regrets turning down certain parts, specifically if it’s solely focused on the character’s dating life.

“I never take to stories about women that are trying to find a man,” she explained. “I didn’t like it then, and it doesn’t appeal to me now, because I think women are about so much more. Life is so much more complicated than that.”

That’s not to say that Field hasn’t done her fair share of rom-coms, but her choices typically have some sort of twist to make it more meaningful — or at least a little fun. She starred in the 1982 film Kiss Me Goodbye, where she plays a widow whose dead husband returns as a ghost when she tries to remarry, and Murphy’s Romance in 1975, where a man woos her and her son (as it should be).

In 2015, she played the titular role in the critically acclaimed comedy Hello, My Name Is Doris, where she becomes infatuated with her younger colleague (New Girl alum Max Greenfield). Yes, she technically does pursue him (and rightfully so), but the age gap, unusual workplace dynamics, and eccentricity of her character put a highly comedic twist on the rom-com trope.

Speaking to People, Field said she was more interested in tackling emotional fare, processing her own trauma through movies.

“Being a little girl raised in the '50s and having a very complicated childhood with my stepfather and even my mother at times, I was filled with rage,” she recalled. “And it was working with [acting coach] Lee Strasberg that allowed me to begin to tap into it, to not let it devour me.”