Sally Field will play Abraham Lincoln’s wife and widow, Mary Todd, in Steven Spielberg’s re-telling of the famous assassination.

Though the two names have been present in Hollywood for decades, and both have earned much praise for their work, Sally Field and Steven Spielberg have never worked together before. The director released a statement saying he is “excited to be working with Sally [Field] for the first time.”

“I’ve admired her films, and she has always been my first choice to portray all the fragility and complexity that was Mary Todd Lincoln.”

A Kentucky native, Mary Todd lived to see the untimely death of her husband and two of her four children. Some evidence suggests that she had a volatile personality, leading to depression and public outbursts. The Civil War greatly split Kentuckians all around the state, and some of Mary Todd’s family found themselves at odds with President Lincoln's policy. Todd was seated with her husband during that fateful performance of Our American Cousin at Ford’s Theatre.

Daniel Day-Lewis will star in the flick as Lincoln. “To have the opportunity to work with Steven Spielberg and Daniel Day-Lewis and to play one of the most complicated and colorful women in American history is simply as good as it gets,” Sally Field told reporters. Field is a two-time Academy Award winner (Norma Rae, Places in the Heart).

She’ll also be playing Aunt May in The Amazing Spider-Man, the new reboot of the franchise.

The movie is scheduled to debut in 2012.