Two-time Oscar winner Sally Field picked up an Emmy at the Peacock Theater in Los Angeles on Monday, September 14, 2026, and used part of her time at the microphone to thank a country that is not her own.
“Blessed Canada, our neighbors, our friends,” Field said in her acceptance speech at the 78th Primetime Emmy Awards. A room packed with stars roared back at her.
The line from Field, 79, landed as President Donald Trump pushes a campaign against Canada that has featured a trade war and an executive order renaming Lake Ontario “Lake America” — a document he signed standing beside a map that already carried the new label.
A Record Broken by Eight Months
The award honors the top female lead in a movie or a limited or anthology series, and Field took it for playing Tova Sullivan in the Netflix film “Remarkably Bright Creatures.” Stunned as she reached the stage, she squealed before saying a word. “This is not supposed to happen,” she said. “I love this project from page one.” She warned the crowd she had very little time — “I gotta talk really, really quick” — and added that “the story of an old woman, a young man and an octopus doesn’t come around a lot.” Director Olivia Newman and cinematographer Ashley Connor drew her thanks, as did the artists who animated Marcellus the giant Pacific octopus. She closed with co-star Lewis Pullman, who “stood next to me the whole time.”
Field is now the oldest winner the category has had, at 79 years and 10 months. She passed Jessica Tandy, who was 79 years and two months when she won for “Foxfire.” The other nominees were Carey Mulligan for “Beef,” Sarah Snook for “All Her Fault,” Claire Danes for “The Beast in Me” and Sarah Pidgeon for “Love Story: John F. Kennedy Jr. & Carolyn Bessette.”
It was her 10th Emmy nomination and her fourth Emmy win, after “Sybil” in 1977, “ER” in 2001 and “Brothers & Sisters” in 2007. She has also won Academy Awards for best actress for “Norma Rae” in 1979 and “Places in the Heart” in 1984, plus an Oscar nomination for her Mary Todd Lincoln in “Lincoln” in 2012.
A Warning About the Paramount Merger
Field had a second target that night. “I have been so grateful and so proud to be a part of this community, the arts, for 62 years or something,” she said, then pivoted to the proposed $111 billion combination of Paramount and Warner Bros. Discovery.
“We’re the arts, we matter,” she said. “Our voices matter. Our diversity, our unique storytelling matters. We can’t let those voices be silenced or compromised or merged.”
Much of the industry seated in front of her is rattled by the deal. Skydance, run by Paramount CEO David Ellison, the son of Oracle billionaire Larry Ellison, was folded together with Paramount Global in 2025. Netflix had a deal of its own to buy Warner Bros., but Ellison outbid it in March with a higher offer for all of Warner Bros. Discovery. Regulators still have to sign off on joining the two legacy studios, and the attempt has attracted antitrust objections. A creative community that says a merger on that scale would destroy an enormous number of jobs has protested it as well.
Praise for Vancouver After the Show
Backstage, Field circled back to Canada. “Remarkably Bright Creatures” was shot in Deep Cove, in British Columbia, and she said the setting had mattered to her. “This film was about things that matter to me greatly about friendship, family, and home,” she told reporters, “and that it was on Canada, our neighbors, magnificent Canada, that I felt so welcomed.”
“Yes, let’s hear it for Vancouver. It’s a filming city, and honestly, guys, let’s keep our friendships. Let’s keep our neighbors close.” On the two countries’ relationship, she said: “Fight for it. Stand up for it. Don’t give it away. Resist.”
Mariska Hargitay hosted the ceremony, which aired on NBC and streamed live on Peacock. Viewership came in at 6.7 million, down nearly 10 percent from last year. The same evening, Matthew Rhys made Emmy history, the first performer to carry off two lead acting Emmys in one night, for “Widow’s Bay” and “The Beast in Me.” No man before him had claimed all three top acting prizes.
The telecast nodded north more than once, and Field’s shout-out was not the only instance. Michael J. Fox, the “Back to the Future” star who hails from Burnaby, British Columbia, accepted the Bob Hope Humanitarian Award for his advocacy on Parkinson’s disease, an illness he was diagnosed with in 1991.
