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Sally Field was nominated for her 3-episode appearence in ER at the Actress in a Drama Series category at the SAGs in 2001.
It’s already hard to a supporting performance to be nominated at the category and a guest? Almost impossible.
Do someone think it’s plausible to happen again? Or maybe, at the curse of the years, almost happened with somebody else?
I discovered this yesterday and I’m really shocked.
ReplyVery interesting. I don’t know a lot about ER or that year’s potential nominees, so I have no explanation. Was this just supposed to be a very weak year? Anyway, if it happened once, I suppose something like this could happen again, although it’s definitely unlikely.
As Riley said, this is definitely a good find.
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There were 6 nominees that year:
Allison Janney for The West Wing (won)
Gillian Anderson for The X-Files
Edie Falco for The Sopranos
Sally Field for ER
Lauren Graham for Gilmore Girls
Sela Ward for Once AgainI don’t think it was a weak year because Lorraine Braco (The Sopranos), Julianna Margulies (ER) in her last season, Amy Brenneman (Judging Amy) were the biggest snubs I guess – I didn’t watched any of these shows. Lauren Graham and Sally Field probably were the nominees with least votes. The first one was in a WB show and never was nominated for an Emmy. But Sally’s clip that was showed was really something, probably the best of any series or motion picture at the cerimony – a lot of screams.
ReplyCopy URLI think the short explanation is that she’s Sally Field. Her performance as the bipolar mother of Abby (Maura Tierney) was highly acclaimed, got ravenous reviews and a lot of press; because again she’s Sally Field.
Her casting on “E.R.” was seen as a big get for the show and helped to give credibility to a new character played by Tierney who was in essence replacing Julianna Margulies popular character. I think the strength of her performance and the fact that she was a very famous film actress helped her get nominated.
Keep in mind that at the time, “E.R.” was still a massively popular show and was still generally acclaimed. It was only in the years following this that the show began a gradual and slow decline in both popularity and quality.
It is certainly odd that a guest-actress got a Lead nomination, but it can be best summed up with “She’s freaking Sally Field.”
ReplyCopy URLSome might dismiss the SAG nomination as a NAME-check only, but Sally Field greatly delivered in her guest arc as Abby’s bipolar mother. I’d never seen a guest arc quite like that before on television. At that point, I was still deeply into “ER” every week faithfully and wasn’t an awardswatcher of any sort. Something like this will likely never happen again. You have to be either lead or “supporting” that verges on lead for true attention with SAG/AFTRA voters. If you’re a guest, then you better be in many episodes. So yes, Sally Field was an effin’ boss back then, but the work was there to fully support this flukey nomination.
ReplyCopy URLSome might dismiss the SAG nomination as a NAME-check only, but Sally Field greatly delivered in her guest arc as Abby’s bipolar mother. I’d never seen a guest arc quite like that before on television. At that point, I was still deeply into “ER” every week faithfully and wasn’t an awardswatcher of any sort. Something like this will likely never happen again. You have to be either lead or “supporting” that verges on lead for true attention with SAG/AFTRA voters. If you’re a guest, then you better be in many episodes. So yes, Sally Field was an effin’ boss back then, but the work was there to fully support this flukey nomination.
To be fair, we’ve seen some nominees recently who are widely seen as being solidly supporting getting into SAG, several this year actually, such as Tony Shalhoub (who straight up won for a clear supporting role last year), Henry Winkler, Helena Bonham Carter, Andrew Scott, and Billy Crudup.
ReplyCopy URLLet’s Go Bucks
Something like this will likely never happen again. You have to be either lead or “supporting” that verges on lead for true attention with SAG/AFTRA voters. If you’re a guest, then you better be in many episodes. So yes, Sally Field was an effin’ boss back then, but the work was there to fully support this flukey nomination.
It already happened this year, Helena Bonham Carter is in three episodes of The Crown – 1, 2 and 10 (just like Sally Field), she is a background character in some of the rest, so I do not see any difference.
ReplyCopy URLIt already happened this year, Helena Bonham Carter is in three episodes of The Crown – 1, 2 and 10 (just like Sally Field), she is a background character in some of the rest, so I do not see any difference.
She’s in 8 episodes and is a supporting.
And Helena is also nominated w/ the cast, Sally Field was not.
ReplyCopy URLIt already happened this year, Helena Bonham Carter is in three episodes of The Crown – 1, 2 and 10 (just like Sally Field), she is a background character in some of the rest, so I do not see any difference.
Carter was never billed as guest, was in far more episodes than Field was, and was included in the respective SAG Ensemble nomination.
ReplyCopy URLI don’t think anybody is saying anything wrong about Sally Field, it just seems odd that a 3-episode performance is even elegible in what is already a ridiculous category. So, it must be very weird for anybody who doesn’t know this or wasn’t around back then. “When was Sally Field even a cast member in ER?”. Because you could never imagine it was for a 3-episode arc.
But regardless of performance, it was sort of a name check too, since I assume hundreds of actors have done similar amazing work in 3 episodes of a show, yet this sort of happened just once more:
Lily Tomlin was nominated for just 5 episodes of The West Wing as Actress and Cast. She had 1 episode the previous season, 4 the current season for the 2003 SAGs. But 5 in total since all of 2002 counts. She would go on to do more later, but only 5 had aired when she was nominated. Maybe a 6th aired by the time the ceremony came up.
Again, can this happen today? What are there rules for actors? Aren’t they supposed to be in a certain amount of episodes now? Anybody remember how she was credited?
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