Lewis Pullman on Working with Icon Sally Field: ‘One of Greatest Joys’ (Exclusive)

Sally Field and Lewis Pullman are dishing on “Remarkably Bright Creatures.”

“Extra’s” Terri Seymour spoke with the pair, and Lewis raved over working with Sally, calling it one of his "greatest acting experiences."

While Lewis said it was “amazing” to work with Sally, she quipped, “You just gotta say it was hell on wheels.”

When Lewis called Sally “an icon,” she stayed humble, responding, “What the hell is an icon?”

Lewis quipped, "That’s exactly the kind of thing an icon would say.”

What was the greatest gift that Lewis took from working with Sally?

He told Sally, “I think you were always very encouraging to me of following my instincts and my gut and listening to my gut and not silencing it.” 

“You’d see me stewing and you’d be like, ‘You have a thought. Say it,’” Pullman recalled. 

Sally spoke about acting opposite a puppet (or nothing at all) and how Marcellus the octopus felt real to her. 

She pointed out, “Many actors I’ve worked with are like working with a puppet… He was there in my mind, so it didn’t matter whether it was real. You don’t know how much was real or how much wasn’t real… He was real to me. I had lived with him in my head and my heart for so long.”

“Acting is hypnotizing yourself that something is real that isn’t real,” Sally explained. 

Sally also elaborated on recent comments about knowing instantly that Julia Roberts was the perfect actress to play her daughter in their 1989 film “Steel Magnolias.” 

Field said, “She was Julia, was unique, and again — like Lewis — I have to say this, you know, there was an instant ability to improvise and to play and to be present. It's exactly what happened with Lewis. You just know. I have been fortunate enough to have several opportunities to read with a character that I'm gonna be playing opposite with and, you know, with some lovely actors. And then that one person walks in. And maybe they're not known at all, like Julia at the time, and you go, 'Whoa, look no further, guys. Look no further.'"

Sally elaborated, "In Julia's case, she and I don't look like mother-daughter. You know, she's very tall and I'm not. But we just linked. It just was instant and there it was. That's the way I felt about [Lewis]. The moment we even said hello, bam, we just became."