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A Scene from “Lincoln”: (left to right) Elizabeth Keckley (Gloria Reuben), Mary Todd Lincoln (Sally Field) and Abraham Lincoln (Daniel Day-Lewis).

History has portrayed Mary Todd Lincoln as a troubled, combative woman who was so difficult even Abraham Lincoln, the man who brought the nation together after the civil war, could barely deal with her.

Meanwhile, history has pegged Sally Field as a likeable, talented actress who has played roles ranging from an inspirational union organizer in “Norma Rae” to a super-hero’s loving aunt in “The Amazing Spider-Man.”

So how did the seemingly genial Field end up playing the combative First Lady–and score a Golden Globe nomination for best supporting actress to top it off?

Speakeasy recently chatted with Field about portraying the wife of the Great Emancipator, and working opposite Daniel Day-Lewis, who plays the title role in “Lincoln.”

Mary Todd Lincoln was a woman who was so troubled that Abe Lincoln had trouble dealing with her. What make you decide that you wanted to play that role?

Who wouldn’t want to play that role? What actress wouldn’t want to play that role? She is an unbelievably complicated, underexamined, misunderstood and incredibly important woman in American history. Then you top that with Tony Kushner’s text, Steven Spielberg’s masterful direction and you stand across from the likes of Daniel Day-Lewis who is arguably our finest living actor.  Why wouldn’t I want to do that?

What’s it like working with Daniel Day-Lewis, given how deep he gets into his roles?

Well I’m deep into my character as well, so I never notice. I do the work I’m supposed to do. I never noticed what he was doing except that he was my darling Mr. Lincoln and that’s all I knew…I work very much like he does.

What did Lincoln see in Mary Todd Lincoln?

They had been together a very long time. She found him when he was a very young lawyer. She was highly-educated and came from a very powerful political family in the South. She was politically savvy and recognized his brilliance and really decided he was the one she was going to marry and that he was going to be president. I believe they were drawn to each other  because they had places in each other that were very similar. They each carried a great dark side, and she served him from the beginning because she was so emotional.  “Everything she felt she showed all over her face all the time”–That’s what they said about her. And what she said about him is that “he showed the least what he felt the most.” In a lot of ways she served him because she was the one who felt everything. There were two sides of this  coin that became Abraham Lincoln.

Do you think history has given her bum rap?

I think she has had a bum rap. I think it comes from the fact that there haven’t been any real examinations of her. There are a number of really good books, and if you really read them all, and I did, you come away with a consensus of feeling that she was pretty spectacular. Yes, a colorful and troublesome and sort of understandably so. I think she made it harder on herself because she wouldn’t play by the rules and be the good little woman upstairs and shut up. But that really served Abraham Lincoln. Had there not been a Mary Todd, there would not have been an Abraham Lincoln. I do think in some ways they had to exaggerate her shortcoming because he  became so mythological. It served the myth.

In the age of 24 hour news channels and social media, how would Mary Todd Lincoln have fared in the White House?

It’s hard to say. She would have had a more active role, and it wouldn’t have been looked at so askance. She would have had certain arenas that were hers to work in, and so she would have been helpful. As it was, she was fighting for a place to put her excellence. She was unbelievably smart and repairing the White House ,which was literally a pigsty when they were there, became her issue because she felt the country needed a symbol of something sturdy and strong and noble and worth fighting for. So of course  she spent too much money because the allotment to fix the White House was nothing—it was a little bit—and yeah she made it harder for her self. She lacked the womanly finesse they they thought at the the time was required.

What else are you up to?

Right now I’m just trying to shuffle these calls and get Christmas done, which is the bigger panic. Basically that’s where my head is at now.

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