Sally Field recalls suffering from depression while starring on The Flying Nun

Variety

"It was a job," Field tells Variety of her 1967-1970 ABC sitcom. "And I learned to survive things. It’s important to learn how to survive things, things you like, things you don’t like. I just had to put my head down and go to work and do the very best job I could. And those are the times when you realize that there’s a reason why you’re eating so much but trying to hide. You’re trying to cover up your depression. But at that point in my life I didn’t have the skills to recognize what was happening to me … and being able to see what your dreams are." She adds: "It wasn’t until The Flying Nun that Madeleine Sherwood, who played Mother Superior, took me by the hand because she recognized what was going on with me at the end of the first season and took me to The Actors Studio, where I began to work with (director) Lee Strasberg. It was this big transition into my recognizing I wanted to be a real actor."