Sally Field, on Texting With Abraham Lincoln Sally Field has been reluctant to say goodbye to Mary Todd Lincoln. "She won't leave, not for a long time," Ms. Field said this morning, from a hotel in Los Angeles. But as a newly minted best supporting actress nominee, playing the wife to Daniel Day-Lewis's Lincoln, she can relive her performance for weeks to come. Ms. Field, a two-time Oscar winner, has been outspoken about having to campaign for this role with the director, Steven Spielberg. "I've always told him that this battle needed to happen," she said, "because it was the beginnings of me finding the character and it was the beginnings of Steven and Daniel understanding who she was." "She was very feisty," Ms. Field added. She had a substance to her that demanded to be heard, she was incredibly powerful in her own way, she was brilliant complicated, and you needed that kind of weight. She came in a little tiny package" - her height is variously described as between 4-foot-11 and 5-foot-2. (Ms. Field is 5-foot-2 but gained 25 pounds to play the part) - "and to stand across from the unrelenting, searing brilliance of Daniel Day-Lewis, I needed to find that kind of fire." Mr. Day-Lewis, the frontrunner in the best actor category, stayed in character throughout production. He communicated as Lincoln even when the cameras weren't on him. Ms. Field did, too. "My son, when I was finished shooting, said, 'Oh thank God, I don't have to talk to that weird woman on the phone anymore,'" she said. But Ms. Field actually prefers to communicate via text. And yes, she and Mr. Day Lewis sent each other some anachronistic messages. "He knew how raw my work was and then many times, he would, after the day was over, he would, as my darling, would send some sort of sweetness, as Mary and Abe," Ms. Field said. After a scene in which Mary Todd delivers a long monologue to Tommy Lee Jones (another supporting actor nominee, for his portrayal of Thaddeus Stevens, a radical abolitionist Republican) and others, Mr. Day-Lewis - or Abe - wrote "a wonderful text," Ms. Field said, "within the vernacular, because he's brilliant at it." It said, in part: "Radical nothing! Mary Todd, you beat them all. "In other words, 'Great work for the day,'" Ms. Field said. I needed that.