What Have I Done? What Came Over Me?

Who am I? It was wonderful—I loved every minute of it. But at 78 years old, Sally Field has nothing left to prove. Two Oscars, decades of unforgettable roles, and a reputation as one of Hollywood’s most beloved actresses—her legacy is secure. Yet, behind the applause and the heartfelt performances lies a side of Sally the public rarely sees: a side that remembers every betrayal, every insult, and every co-star who crossed the line.

Now, with the weight of age and wisdom behind her, Sally Field is finally revealing the names of the six actors she hated working with the most. These weren’t petty spats or fleeting disagreements. They were deep, bruising clashes—some on set, others behind the scenes—that shaped the course of her career and haunted her long after the cameras stopped rolling.

You might think you know Hollywood, but this list will change everything.

The Heartbreaker: Burt Reynolds

Their romance was tabloid gold. Sally Field and Burt Reynolds—the power couple of the late ‘70s. Onscreen, they were electric: charming, playful, irresistibly charismatic. Smokey and the Bandit became a cultural phenomenon in part because their chemistry seemed so real. But behind the curtain, the truth was far more unsettling.

Sally once called Burt controlling—a man who thrived on dominance and dismissed anyone who threatened his spotlight, even her. He constantly belittled her, mocked her looks, questioned her intelligence, and diminished her acting ability in subtle but cutting ways. He’d offer backhanded compliments in interviews, then return home to icy silences or passive-aggressive remarks.

In her memoir, In Pieces, Sally peeled back the glossy Hollywood veneer. She revealed how Burt wouldn’t allow her to speak freely, how he’d interrupt her mid-sentence and override her decisions both professionally and personally. He wanted her next to him, smiling—silent. She described feeling like a prized possession, something to be shown off, not someone to be cherished.

Worse, he manipulated her emotions. One minute he’d be charming and affectionate, the next he’d withhold love as punishment. Over time, her sense of self began to erode. Even at the height of her fame, she often felt invisible standing beside him. “I never felt truly seen,” she admitted. “I was there, but not me—not the full me.”

Despite the years they spent together, Sally later confessed she was never sure who the real Burt Reynolds even was. The man the public adored was not the one who came home at night. And yet, she tried. She gave everything she could to make it work. “I wanted to love him. I did love him. But he hurt me.” He may have been the Bandit to the world, but to Sally, he was heartbreak in disguise.

And he was only the beginning.

The Egomaniac: Tommy Lee Jones

On the set of Back Roads, Sally Field arrived with high hopes. It was a gritty, offbeat script—a chance to dig into a character with real depth. She was ready to collaborate, to create something meaningful. But instead of connection, she was met with a wall of silence. And that wall’s name was Tommy Lee Jones.

From day one, Sally described him as dismissive—not just professionally, but personally. He barely acknowledged her during rehearsals, offered no small talk, and refused to engage in the usual actorly back-and-forth that helps build trust on a demanding shoot. He came to set, hit his marks, delivered his lines, and left. No warmth, no respect—just ice.

For an actress who had built her career on emotional authenticity and openhearted performances, Jones’s behavior was disorienting. She wasn’t just acting opposite a cold character—she was acting opposite a cold person. Co-stars are supposed to lift each other; he made her feel like dead weight. Sally later revealed that she would try to initiate conversation between takes, ask questions about their characters, even crack light jokes to ease the tension. Jones wouldn’t bite. Sometimes he wouldn’t even look at her.

She said he treated her as though she didn’t belong on set with him, as if she were beneath him. Critics panned Back Roads when it came out, citing a lack of chemistry between the leads. What the public didn’t know was that the problem wasn’t the script—it was the emotional chill between takes. “We were supposed to play two broken people learning to love, but I was playing alone,” Sally once said.

Though she remained professional throughout filming, she admitted the experience drained her. The set wasn’t just cold—it was isolating. For Sally, who thrives on connection, that kind of emotional distance felt like sabotage. After Back Roads, she never worked with Tommy Lee Jones again. When asked about the experience in later years, she never lashed out, but the subtle frost in her words said enough. She never forgot how cold a set could feel.

But not all her feuds were silent.

The Scene-Stealer: Robert Blake

During their time filming Say Goodbye, Maggie Cole, Sally Field came face-to-face with one of the most volatile personalities she’d ever encountered: Robert Blake. Known for his intense method acting and erratic mood swings, Blake didn’t just bring unpredictability to his performances—he brought it to every corner of the set.

From the start, Sally struggled to find rhythm. Blake would change lines without warning, go off script mid-scene, and sabotage carefully planned takes by throwing in unscripted behavior. What might have seemed like creative spontaneity to him, Sally saw as pure chaos. She accused him of undermining her at every turn—not just in front of the camera, but behind it as well.

Worse, his behavior wasn’t limited to her. Crew members reported frequent outbursts, verbal tirades, and sudden mood shifts that created a hostile environment for everyone involved. One day he’d be quiet and focused, the next shouting at a lighting technician or storming off set over a minor disagreement.

Sally, already balancing the pressures of a demanding role, found herself playing peacekeeper just to keep the production afloat. But it was a losing battle. The tension bled into every scene, and the cracks soon became impossible to hide. Eventually, the project collapsed—the film was shelved before it ever made it to air, a casualty of on-set dysfunction that had spiraled out of control.

For most actors, that would have been a professional setback. For Sally, it was deeper. She later described the experience not just as disappointing, but traumatic. “There are actors who act,” she said, “and there are actors who try to make everyone else small so they feel big. Blake was the second kind.”

The words weren’t just sharp—they were personal, and they carried the weight of a woman who had endured more than just artistic differences. She walked away from Say Goodbye, Maggie Cole with one vow: never again would she tolerate chaos disguised as genius.

But not all feuds started on set. Some began during awards season.

The Bitter Rival: Shirley MacLaine

The world saw them as a dream duo in Steel Magnolias—two Hollywood icons sharing the screen in a story about love, loss, and resilience. But behind the scenes, the dynamic between Sally Field and Shirley MacLaine was anything but heartwarming.

From the moment cameras started rolling, tensions simmered. Sally approached the film with emotional sensitivity, deeply connecting to her role as M’Lynn, a grieving mother. She wanted honesty, vulnerability, nuance. But Shirley approached it like a battlefield. Colleagues whispered that she treated every scene as a power play, constantly bragging about her Oscar-winning past, dismissing direction, and interrupting takes to inject herself into moments that weren’t hers to steal.

On set, Sally tried to remain gracious. She smiled through gritted teeth, hit her marks, and kept her focus. But privately, she was exhausted. One particularly emotional scene took 17 takes—not because Sally couldn’t nail it, but because Shirley refused to play it straight. She kept adding sarcastic quips, turning raw grief into comedic fodder, as if undercutting Sally’s emotional performance was part of the script.

Years later, Sally would only briefly allude to the clash in interviews, saying that Shirley brought a cloud of chaos wherever she went. It wasn’t said with bitterness, just clarity. It wasn’t just a conflict of styles—it was a clash of egos. Shirley needed to dominate the room; Sally simply wanted to serve the story. And the damage lingered long after the final cut. While audiences cried at M’Lynn’s heartbreaking monologue, Sally knew the real pain had happened off camera. She never forgot the sting.

But the next actor didn’t just bruise her ego—he shattered her trust.

The Manipulator: James Woods

Their work on Kiss Me Goodbye was supposed to be light-hearted—a romantic comedy with a quirky twist, designed to charm audiences and offer a breath of levity. But from the start, Sally Field sensed something off. That something was James Woods.

Woods, known for his brilliant but brooding intensity, brought with him a kind of energy that turned playful scenes into psychological warfare. He didn’t just deliver lines—he dissected them, challenged the director, and often rewrote dialogue on the spot without warning. Every rehearsal became a battleground.

Sally, always a collaborative and emotionally honest performer, found herself steamrolled. She later described Woods as intellectually intimidating—the kind of man who used big words and sharp phrasing not to engage, but to assert dominance. On set, he’d question the script, critique the direction, and even comment on her performance mid-scene, creating an atmosphere of tension that stifled creativity.

But what disturbed Sally the most happened off camera. Woods, she said, would casually suggest that she wasn’t giving enough, that her heart wasn’t in it. He accused her of phoning it in during an emotionally demanding shoot day—a remark that cut deeper than he realized. To Sally, it felt less like criticism and more like sabotage. He wasn’t pushing her to be better; he was trying to make her feel smaller, less sure of herself. And after years of carving out respect in a male-dominated industry, it was a bitter pill to swallow.

She would later reflect on the experience not as an acting challenge but as a psychological minefield. “It wasn’t the role that wore me down,” she said. “It was having to constantly defend my worth.” From that set, she walked away not just exhausted but transformed. She made herself a quiet vow: never again would she allow herself to be silenced by a man who mistook condescension for brilliance.

Only one name remains—perhaps the most surprising of them all.

The Unexpected Villain: Dustin Hoffman

To the public, Dustin Hoffman is a legend: an actor synonymous with excellence, with roles that earned him Oscar gold and critical reverence. But to Sally Field, he was something else entirely—not a mentor, not a collaborator, just a bitter disappointment.

They never co-starred in a feature film, but their paths nearly crossed in the early 1980s during auditions for a now-forgotten project that never made it past development. For Sally, it was supposed to be a promising opportunity. Instead, it turned into one of the most demeaning experiences of her career.

During the chemistry read, Sally said, Hoffman dominated the room before she even walked in. He cracked jokes with the producers, made pointed remarks about the script, and when she finally began her reading, he interrupted multiple times—not to help, not to collaborate, but to correct her delivery, comment on her choices, and question her interpretation of the character in front of everyone.

She wasn’t just being critiqued—she was being humiliated. In Sally’s words, it felt like auditioning for a man who’d already decided you weren’t enough. She described feeling like a schoolgirl, not a two-time Emmy-winning actress who had already proven herself on stage and screen.

The sting deepened when, later that week, she heard from a mutual contact that Hoffman had bragged about sabotaging the audition. He reportedly said the chemistry wasn’t there and that he’d made sure of it. To Sally, that wasn’t just unprofessional—it was cruel.

It took time for her to make peace with what happened. For weeks she questioned herself, wondering if she had somehow fumbled the opportunity. But with distance came clarity: the problem hadn’t been her performance. It had been Hoffman’s need to control the room, to prove he was the smartest man present—even if it meant stepping on someone else’s voice.

She later called it one of the most humiliating moments she’d ever endured professionally, and it changed her forever. From that point on, Sally made a vow: no more working with men who mistook arrogance for genius. And she kept that promise.

The Wisdom of Scars

Today, Sally Field stands as a survivor—not just of Hollywood’s relentless spotlight, but of the battles that shaped her behind closed doors. She has endured heartbreak, humiliation, and sabotage, but she has also found her voice. Her story is not just one of triumph, but of truth. The names on her list are more than cautionary tales—they are reminders that even the brightest stars carry shadows.

And after all these years, Sally Field finally gets to decide which stories—and which people—get to follow her into the light.