Sally Field, a two-time Oscar winner, picked up an Emmy at the Peacock Theater in Los Angeles on Monday, September 14, 2026 — and gave over part of her time at the microphone to praising a country that isn’t her own.
“Blessed Canada, our neighbors, our friends,” Field said while accepting her award at the 78th Primetime Emmy Awards. The star-packed room answered with a loud ovation.
Field, 79, offered the line while President Donald Trump presses a campaign against Canada that has run from a trade war to an executive order renaming Lake Ontario “Lake America.” He signed that document standing next to a map that already carried the new label.
Beating a Record by Eight Months
The category honors the top female lead in a movie or a limited or anthology series, and Field took it for her turn as Tova Sullivan in the Netflix film “Remarkably Bright Creatures.” She looked stunned as she reached the stage, squealing before she began. “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 noted that “the story of an old woman, a young man and an octopus doesn’t come around a lot.” Her thanks went to the director Olivia Newman, the cinematographer Ashley Connor, the artists who animated Marcellus the giant Pacific octopus, and her co-star Lewis Pullman, who “stood next to me the whole time.”
At 79 years and 10 months, Field is now the oldest winner the category has had, moving past Jessica Tandy, who was 79 years and two months when she won for “Foxfire.” The category also included 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.”
The trophy was Field’s fourth Emmy win, arriving on her 10th Emmy nomination, after honors for “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 playing Mary Todd Lincoln in “Lincoln” in 2012.
A Warning Over the Paramount Deal
Canada was not the only subject on Field’s mind. “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 shifted 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 has been unsettled by that deal. Paramount CEO David Ellison, the son of Oracle billionaire Larry Ellison, combined his Skydance with Paramount Global in 2025. Netflix had a deal of its own in place to buy Warner Bros., but Ellison outbid it in March with a higher offer for all of Warner Bros. Discovery. Putting the two legacy studios together still needs a regulatory green light, and the attempt has attracted antitrust objections along with protest from a creative community that says a merger on that scale would destroy an enormous number of jobs.
Backstage, a Word for Vancouver
Backstage, Field came back to Canada. The production shot “Remarkably Bright Creatures” 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 relationship between the two countries, she added: “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, pulling 6.7 million viewers, down nearly 10 percent from last year. Matthew Rhys made Emmy history on the same night as the first performer to take home two lead acting Emmys on a single evening, for “Widow’s Bay” and “The Beast in Me,” and as the first man to claim all three top acting prizes.
Field’s shout-out was not the telecast’s only nod north. 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. He was diagnosed with the illness in 1991.