Sally Field reveals heart-felt reason behind infamous 'You like me!' Oscar speech

It’s often mocked as one of the most of the most gushing and cringe-worthy Oscar speeches ever made.

But Sally Field’s ‘You like me!’ speech, made when she picked up the Best Actress gong at the 1985 Academy Awards, has been frequently misquoted and ‘taken out of context’ since, she says, revealing that it actually came from a very personal place.

Speaking to The Hollywood Reporter, as part of its ‘Awards Chatter’ podcast, she explained that the speech came after decades of professional setbacks, constant criticism and personal doubt.

Having been an actress from the age of 12, and sometimes forced into roles by her ‘volatile’ stepfather, actor and stuntman Jock Mahoney, she often felt that she was not attractive or talented enough to be a leading actor.

“The tough part of this business is that you get your soul, your self, your person, thrashed, examined and tossed out… It becomes a real challenge to pick yourself up and dust yourself off,” she said.

So when her name was called for her role in Depression-era drama ‘Places In The Heart’, her second Best Actress Oscar after ‘Norma Rae’ in 1979, she was determined to make a speech that meant something, saying that the first time around, she was ‘in a bubble’.

“If you get pieces of the good, of the accomplishment, then you have to allow yourself to feel it. Otherwise all you feel is the negative, is the beat up part, is the trashing part… and some part of you will close up shop,” she said.

“So I just said to myself, ‘I’m going to feel this, I’m gonna feel it, whatever it is’.”

When she got on stage, however, the show producers had introduced a new system where a red light was flashed in winners’ faces on stage to let them know to wind up their speeches.

“Now they play the orchestra, they try to be gentle. But [then] they had a huge, red, glaring light that started flashing in your face,” Field recalled. “So it was like, ‘Aaa!’ It was like the police are coming after you, you know? So I panicked. I went, ‘Oh, I’ve gone on too long!’ I said nothing… and I had to get off.”

The speech is often mis-quoted as “You like me, you really like me!”

However, in full, she actually said: “I haven’t had an orthodox career, and I’ve wanted more than anything to have your respect. The first time I didn’t feel it, but this time I feel it — and I can’t deny the fact that you like me, right now, you like me.”

The speech was later parodied extensively, notably in ‘The Mask’ by Jim Carrey, Madonna at the MTV Awards in 1989, and by Field herself in ‘Legally Blonde 2’, but she adds that it’s ‘interesting’ that she’s been pilloried for it.

“An interesting item in the world, certainly for me, is how easily people want to trash that emotion or ridicule it or misquote it and make fun of it. And what it really is is raw emotion,” she said.

Field is currently getting awards buzz for her role in indie comedy ‘Hello, My Name Is Doris’.

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