The Amazing Spider-Man’s Sally Field and Martin Sheen on Why They Never Watch Dailies

When the respective careers of Sally Field and Martin Sheen are considered, the word “legacy” should immediately come to mind. With the combined acting careers of both incredible actors, there is more than one hundred years of experience in which to boast.

In the new Marc Webb film, The Amazing Spider-Man, Field and Sheen portray two integral characters to the “Spider-Man” franchise: “Aunt May,” and “Uncle Ben.” Despite the incredible continued success of both actors, both Field and Sheen recognize the major pull of insecurity for all actors.

Field and Sheen recently spoke with Ed Symkus of GateHouse News Service about how they handle doubts associated with being an actor.

The beginning stages of any actor’s career are often marked with passionate encouragement to embrace one’s image on screen. On-camera acting classes far and wide play back actors’ “takes,” in order to provide a way to learn from prior mistakes.

However, Sally Field expressed how this can be destructive while working on set. “It’s not a good idea for actors to watch dailies, because the whole task of an actor is to not have any actual mental vision of yourself outside of yourself, because then you start imitating yourself. That’s the difficult thing even about watching a film that you’ve done, because you become aware of your own physicality.”

Martin Sheen seemed to agree with Field’s opinion. “I agree that it’s a mistake for actors to continue to see themselves… Watching myself on television, for example, I always warned the family what was coming. I could control the audience when a television came on.”

Sheen went on to explain that he takes a different approach when movies come out. “With movies, I prefer to go after it had opened, and see it with an audience to get an honest reaction. ”

Field went on to explain that she believes that actor self-awareness can sometimes be destructive to future roles. “You see young actors who start out and seem so free and easy and natural. Then all of a sudden, third or fourth movie down the line, they look posey, they’re all careful with what they’re doing. Like Marty, for instance (laughs).”

To this, Sheen joked, “Yeah, I was so good until I became successful.”