“I had to use that anger as my fuel,” she reflected.

Key points

Sally Field is reflecting on the difficulty of breaking into the Hollywood film scene.

The Steel Magnolias actress discussed the roles that were the most challenging for her to land during a new interview with THR.

“I fought hard for Sybil,” Field said of the 1976 miniseries that earned her an Emmy for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Special Program – Drama or Comedy. “That was a huge turning point.”

She elaborated further on the difficulty of securing her role in another 1976 project. “I fought hard to get into this movie, Stay Hungry,” she said. “That was the first [feature]. It was incredibly difficult to even get in the room.”Field said that she was extremely discouraged upon arriving at the audition. “Nobody wanted me there,” she said. “I could hear [director] Bob Rafelson in the back room yelling at Dianne Crittenden, the casting director, for even letting me sit in the waiting room because I was wasting his time.”

Field ultimately landed the role of Mary Tate Farnsworth, the female lead of the film, and said that she weaponized her fury at the situation to keep her motivated. “I had to use that anger as my fuel,” she said. “It was a long haul to get to my movie career and then to find the things I wanted to do.”

Stay Hungry follows a wealthy young man (Jeff Bridges) who buys a gym as part of a real estate scheme and falls in love with the facility’s receptionist (Field). The movie was a solid success, earning $24.8 million at the box office, and proved to be a key turning point in the careers of both Field and costar Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Field had only appeared in two movies prior to Stay Hungry. She had an uncredited role in 1962’s Moon Pilot and played a supporting role in 1967’s The Way West. She made a name for herself on the small screen in the teen comedy Gidget as well as in The Flying Nun in the 1960s, but struggled for years to make the jump to film acting.

The actress previously said that she only made it to the audition in the first place because of a recommendation from Jack Nicholson, who told Rafelson and Crittenden that she was “an undiscovered talent” after seeing her train at Lee Strasberg’s reputable Actor Studio. Nicholson had previously worked with Rafelson, who died in 2022, on Five Easy Pieces and The King of Marvin Gardens.

“I said to myself, ‘[My luck] will change when I’m good enough,’” she told PEOPLE. “And ultimately, in a weird way, it happened because I was acting at the studio so much.”

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Elsewhere in her THR interview, Field indicated that she still has to work hard to land roles despite having two Oscars under her belt. “Many times, the things that I finally, eventually did do, I found it. I came after it. Certainly Lincoln was one of them,” she said. “I fight like crazy. You don’t get delivered things, and at least women don’t and certainly not older women. You don’t get a whole box of chocolate, so to speak, and say, ‘Hmm, which one do I want today?’ It just doesn’t happen.”