Melanie Field on A League of Their Own Role, Rosie O’Donnell

Melanie Field grew up taking part in sports activities, although she tells POPSUGAR she wasn’t significantly good at them. She would spend Sunday afternoons watching video games on TV together with her dad, avoiding homework whereas he defined the principles of baseball or soccer. She by no means would have guessed that she’d sooner or later be the one on display taking part in baseball. Field stars as Jo Deluca in Prime Video’s “A League of Their Own,” an adaptation of the 1992 film, which she’s lengthy adored.

“To be plus-size on tv is already such a surreal factor for me as a result of it is one thing I by no means, ever anticipated rising up,” Field says. “The illustration was simply not there. I had no purpose to consider that there was anywhere for me on display.”

There have been a handful of exceptions to that rule, although, when Field was a child within the ’90s. She can title them in fast succession: Roseanne Barr, Ursula the Sea Witch, Queen Latifah, and Rosie O’Donnell. So Field had a “full fan-girl second” when she discovered O’Donnell was going to look within the “A League of Their Own” collection. The comic would not reprise her function from the unique movie however fairly performs a brand new character, Vi, a lesbian bar proprietor.

Field remembers the primary time she noticed O’Donnell on set. “[I] walked into the inexperienced room the place she was sitting, and she or he was speaking to somebody, so I waited my flip, after which we locked eyes,” she says. “And I’m not making this up. She checked out me and she or he stated, ‘Oh, you are the me of the present,'” that means her function as Doris within the unique. “It was fairly apparent that my character nodded towards Rosie,” Field says. “So her saying that — I used to be identical to, ‘Is that the best praise I may ever obtain? You’re the me.’ Oh my God.”

“We had a good time on set and sharing tales and simply listening to about her expertise on the film,” Field remembers of their experiences collectively. “And she’s a extremely, actually beneficiant individual. She knew how enthusiastic we have been about it and shared a ton of tales with us. Just having her stamp of approval on the entire thing as such an iconic member of the unique solid, it was precisely what we wanted.”

Ultimately, Field’s character, Jo, is fairly totally different from O’Donnell’s Doris. Jo, who — like many of her teammates — is queer, is one of the Rockford Peaches’ most important stars, and she or he hits monster residence runs everywhere in the ballpark. “To get to play a fats athlete is so empowering,” Field says. “She’s not the gradual one on the group, or the one who’s not that good. She’s the star. She is so good. And I simply felt a lot pleasure having the ability to inhabit that, and to have the ability to put the imaginative and prescient of that on digital camera.”

“I would like Jo to be a fats hero,” Field explains. “I would like her to be somebody who stands in her identification and who she is, and will get chicks, and f*cks, and bats.” Field calls the function “extremely satisfying.”

“She is so pure, and real, and humorous, even when she is not attempting to be. Loyal. Like she’s so lovable,” Field says. As an actor, she felt like Jo’s “advocate,” watching her develop into her energy over the course of the season. She had her personal inner pep speak for Jo. “You actually can stand on your individual two toes, and also you’re freaking good,” Field says. “You are a great baseball participant, and also you should be a star in a league.”

There’s one scene the place a male heckler attracts consideration to Jo’s weight whereas she’s within the batter’s field, and Field thought lengthy and onerous about how her character would react. “It’s lifelike that they could poke enjoyable at that, however I simply [wanted it] to be actually clear that Jo doesn’t have a posh about her physique,” she says. Jo has insecurities, however they don’t seem to be about her physique’s form or her means to mash dingers for her group.

Field additionally cherished exploring the dynamics between Jo and the opposite characters on the Peaches, particularly D’Arcy Carden’s Greta. Jo and Greta are lifelong queer greatest pals residing out their baseball goals as their friendship strikes by way of pressure and battle. “I really like the dynamics that we discovered,” she says. “They’ve gone by way of quite a bit collectively, and type of like trip or die, bosom buddies, no one will get in between us. And by way of the course of the collection, we had quite a bit of enjoyable and heartbreak, exploring what it is like for these two folks to be on this new atmosphere, and to be uncovered to a complete new group of chosen household.”

“I additionally actually love Jo and the homosexual women,” Field says, mentioning, particularly, Jo’s relationships with Lupe (Roberta Colindrez) and Jess (Kelly McCormack). All three characters hate that the league forces them to put on skirts and clothes 24/7 or face steep fines. Field says it provides them an on the spot connection. “That type of homosexual, queer camaraderie and friendship is as attention-grabbing to me as seeing queer love tales . . . and I had quite a bit of enjoyable exploring that with these women.”

All episodes of “A League of Their Own” are streaming now on Prime Video.