Nicholson deemed her “an undiscovered talent” after he saw her working with a famous acting coach and suggested her to a casting director.

Sally Field reveals how Jack Nicholson saved her career when she ‘couldn’t get in a room to audition’

Nicholson deemed her "an undiscovered talent" after he saw her working with a famous acting coach and suggested her to a casting director.

By Wesley Stenzel

Wesley Stenzel

Wesley Stenzel is a news writer at **. He began writing for EW in 2022.

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May 9, 2026 6:47 p.m. ET

Sally Field; Jack Nicholson. Credit:

Michael Buckner/Variety via Getty; Tom Wargacki/WireImage

- Sally Field says she "couldn't get in a room to audition" after starring on the sitcom *The Flying Nun*.

- To improve her acting skills, Field studied at the reputable Actor Studio in Los Angeles.

- Field recalled Jack Nicholson seeing her training there and deeming her "an undiscovered talent," which led him to suggest her to a casting director.

Sally Field credits one Hollywood icon for her big break in the film industry.

The *Norma Rae* actress looked back on the early days of her career in a new interview, explaining how she "couldn't get in a room to audition" after starring in three seasons of the ABC sitcom *The Flying Nun*.

"I couldn't get on the list," she told PEOPLE. "They thought they already knew what I was. 'No, thanks. We don't want any of that.'"

In response, Field resolved to improve her craft to overcome the "rotten" and "unfair" treatment she received from the industry. "I had to say to myself that if I wasn't where I wanted to be, I had to get better," she said. "It had to be that it was on me to make it different. I felt if I wasn't doing that, then I was just handing them all the power."

Sally Field on 'The Flying Nun'.

Courtesy Everett Collection

To hone her skills, Field studied at Lee Strasberg's reputable Actor Studio in Los Angeles, where Jack Nicholson was one of numerous "wonderful actors, really working actors" getting coaching. "Everybody used to come," she recalled. "It was packed. You couldn't get in."

Field said Nicholson witnessed her training under Strasberg and passed her name along as "an undiscovered talent" to director Bob Rafelson and casting director Dianne Crittenden, who eventually cast her in the 1976 dramedy *Stay Hungry*.

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

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"My theory was right," she reiterated. "I worked at the Actors Studio for so long — and it was so hard — that Jack had seen it and the word spread."

*Stay Hungry* starred Jeff Bridges as a young man from a wealthy family who gets swept up in a suspicious business deal involving the purchase of a small gym, where he meets a charming receptionist (Field) and an Austrian bodybuilder (Arnold Schwarzenegger).

Schwarzenegger won the Golden Globe for his work in the film in the now-defunct Best Acting Debut in a Motion Picture category, even though he'd already appeared in movies like *Hercules in New York* and *The Long Goodbye*. The movie also helped Field escape comedic typecasting after *The Flying Nun* as she launched a successful dramatic acting career that led to two Oscar wins in the next decade.

Sally Field at the Los Angeles premiere of 'Remarkably Bright Creatures' on April 30, 2026.

Michael Buckner/Variety via Getty

However, the experience of making *Stay Hungry* wasn't entirely positive for Field. In her 2018 autobiography, *In Pieces,* she claimed that Rafelson asked her to remove her top and kiss him during the audition process.

"In the midst of casually talking about the work, he told me to take my top off so he could see my breasts, saying since there was a nude scene in the film, he needed to figure out how to shoot me," Field said (via PEOPLE). "Ignoring the sharp jab of emotion that shot through me, I removed my shirt as casually as he had made the request, then sat for his approval with my eyes closed."

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She alleged that Rafelson then said, "Okay, Sal, the job is yours. But only after I see how you kiss. I can't hire anyone who doesn't kiss good enough."

Rafelson denied the allegations to *The New York Times* in 2018, four years before his death in 2022. "It's totally untrue," he said. "That's the first I've ever heard of this. I didn't make anybody kiss me in order to get any part."**

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