"I think the first thing I did was several scenes from Romeo and Juliet"
About this Quote
There is something disarmingly offhand about Sally Field recalling her “first thing” as “several scenes from Romeo and Juliet.” It’s a humblebrag in work boots: she frames the beginning of her craft not as a cute school skit, but as a greatest-hit package of the canon. Not the whole play, not a single monologue, but “several scenes” - a detail that matters. It suggests an early, almost hungry immersion in emotional extremes, the kind of quick-cut rehearsal that forces a young actor to learn range fast: flirtation to panic, comedy to catastrophe, all in one sweep.
The line also performs a subtle identity claim. For an actress who broke through in a TV ecosystem that often treated young women as decorative, invoking Shakespeare is a way of asserting seriousness without sounding defensive. She doesn’t declare ambition; she lets the material do it. “I think” softens the memory, keeping it conversational, but it also telegraphs distance from a mythologized origin story. She’s not selling a destiny; she’s describing a beginning that’s both prestigious and oddly practical.
Contextually, it tracks with Field’s career-long tension between being underestimated and refusing to stay small. Romeo and Juliet is the training ground where sincerity is risky and melodrama is always one wrong choice away. Saying this was her first move hints that she learned early how to make big feeling read as truth - a skill that became her signature.
The line also performs a subtle identity claim. For an actress who broke through in a TV ecosystem that often treated young women as decorative, invoking Shakespeare is a way of asserting seriousness without sounding defensive. She doesn’t declare ambition; she lets the material do it. “I think” softens the memory, keeping it conversational, but it also telegraphs distance from a mythologized origin story. She’s not selling a destiny; she’s describing a beginning that’s both prestigious and oddly practical.
Contextually, it tracks with Field’s career-long tension between being underestimated and refusing to stay small. Romeo and Juliet is the training ground where sincerity is risky and melodrama is always one wrong choice away. Saying this was her first move hints that she learned early how to make big feeling read as truth - a skill that became her signature.
Quote Details
| Topic | Art |
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