Two-time Oscar winner Sally Field spent part of her time at the Emmy microphone thanking a country that was not her own. She collected her trophy Monday, September 14, 2026, at the Peacock Theater in Los Angeles, and turned her attention north: TheWrap quoted her line as “Blessed Canada, our neighbors, our friends,” while The Daily Beast rendered it as “Blessed Canada, our friends.”
The remark, delivered during her acceptance speech at the 78th Primetime Emmy Awards, brought a loud ovation from a room packed with stars.
Field, 79, was speaking at a moment when President Donald Trump is pressing a campaign against Canada. That campaign has run from a trade war to an executive order that renames Lake Ontario “Lake America.” He signed that document while standing next to a map already bearing the new label.
Her tribute is being framed as the front end of a wider wave of U.S. entertainers voicing support for Canadians amid the trade war.
A Category Record Broken by Eight Months
Voters handed her the prize for a movie or a limited or anthology series’ top female lead, citing her performance as Tova Sullivan in the Netflix film “Remarkably Bright Creatures.” She squealed and looked stunned as she reached the stage. “This is not supposed to happen,” she said. “I love this project from page one.” Warning the crowd that she had almost no time — “I gotta talk really, really quick” — she added that “the story of an old woman, a young man and an octopus doesn’t come around a lot,” then ran through her thanks. Named were director Olivia Newman, cinematographer Ashley Connor and the artists who animated Marcellus the giant Pacific octopus, along with co-star Lewis Pullman, who “stood next to me the whole time.”
Field credited Connor with turning the film’s Pacific Northwest setting into “another character” in the drama, before noting that the movie was actually shot in Canada. “Remarkably Bright Creatures” was released on Netflix in May.
Winning at 79 years and 10 months made her the oldest winner in the category, moving her past Jessica Tandy, who was 79 years and two months old when she took the prize for “Foxfire.” Also in the category 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.”
The trophy was Field’s fourth Emmy win, out of 10 career Emmy nominations, following honors for “Sybil” in 1977, “ER” in 2001 and “Brothers & Sisters” in 2007. She won Academy Awards for best actress for “Norma Rae” in 1979 and “Places in the Heart” in 1984, and drew another Oscar nomination for playing Mary Todd Lincoln in “Lincoln” in 2012.
A Warning About the Paramount Merger
Canada was not her only topic. “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 has been unsettled by that deal. Skydance, the company run by Paramount CEO David Ellison, son of Oracle billionaire Larry Ellison, was folded into Paramount Global in 2025. Netflix then lined up a deal of its own to buy Warner Bros., only for Ellison to outbid it in March with a higher offer for all of Warner Bros. Discovery. Regulators have yet to give the green light that Joining the two legacy studios requires, and antitrust objections have piled up alongside protest from a creative community that says a merger on that scale would destroy an enormous number of jobs.
Praise for Vancouver After the Show
Backstage, Field came back to Canada. “Remarkably Bright Creatures” was shot in Deep Cove, in British Columbia, and the setting had mattered to her, she said. “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.”
At the backstage press conference on September 14, she said of the city, per The Daily Beast: “Let’s hear it for Vancouver. It’s a stunning, stunning city.” She also said: “So all of that will add up to something. These are the things that really matter to me and probably to all of us. Friendship, family, and home. Fight for it. Stand up for it. Don’t give it away. Resist.”
Mariska Hargitay, the first woman to host the show in 15 years, ran the evening, and NBC carried the ceremony while Peacock streamed it live. Viewership came to 6.7 million, down nearly 10 percent from last year. Matthew Rhys shared the night, making Emmy history 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 the first man to claim all three top acting prizes.
Jean Smart won her fifth straight Emmy for “Hacks” at the same September 14 ceremony, her eighth trophy overall, tying the all-time performer record. Rhea Seehorn won for “Pluribus,” and Allison Janney won Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama Series for “The Diplomat.” Reba McEntire honored Dolly Parton, and Macaulay Culkin mourned his late “Home Alone” co-star Catherine O’Hara.
Field’s shout-out was not the telecast’s only nod north. The Bob Hope Humanitarian Award went to Burnaby, British Columbia, native Michael J. Fox, the “Back to the Future” star, who accepted it for his advocacy on Parkinson’s disease. A diagnosis of the illness came to him in 1991.
