Sally Field’s Arrest Came Just Days After Accepting 2019 Kennedy Center Honors

Sally Field was one of the honorees at the 42nd annual Kennedy Center Honors just days before her arrest in Washington D.C. The actress, along with singer Linda Ronstadt, music group Earth, Wind & Fire and Sesame Street, were honored with the award during Sundays show in Washington.

The ceremony, which is set to air Dec. 15 at 8 p.m. ET on CBS, features a performance by Carrie Underwood and Tom Hanks taking the stage to honor Field. “It’s mindboggling,” Field said told Reuters receiving the award during the event’s red carpet. “It’s about a lifetime of accumulated resonance in the culture, and that’s sort-of hard to wrap your brain around.”

Hanks reportedly slipped back into his character from the 1994 film, Forrest Gump, and addressed Field with a “Hey Mama,” causing laughs from the audience.

On the carpet, the Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood star praised his co-star. “Sally just disappeared. She was just always the mom,” Hanks told USA TODAY. “(It’s) funny, when you work, you see each other, you have a cup of coffee in the hair and makeup trailer, you go over the day’s work and what your life has been like. Because we were friends prior to that, there was no maintenance to it, there was no work. There was just that pure, fabulous sharing of the day’s requirement as actors.”

Less than a week after the big day, Field became the latest in a series of high-profile celebrity arrests in Washington D.C. while protesting inaction surrounding climate change with Jane Fonda’s activist group.

Field was shown on a social media video as she was cuffed (zip-tied) and led away from the steps of the U.S. Capitol building by police. Fonda’s organization, Fire Drill Fridays, posted video footage of the incident and thanked the Oscar winner for her part in the demonstration. Field and the others taken into custody will likely be charged with crowding, obstructing or incommoding, which is a misdemeanor.

Fonda began the Fire Drill Fridays protests back in October and was arrested four times before she had to keep her distance as she faced a longer stay in jail if her charges kept increasing. The 81-year-old actress spent one night in jail.

Many of Fonda’s famous friends have since started showing up to the protests, including Good Place star Manny Jacinto, much of the cast of Grace and Frankie, Young Sheldon‘s Iain Armitage and others.