Sally’s role of a lifetime

Sally Field spent more than a decade trying to land the role of Mary Lincoln in Steven Spielberg’s new bio-pic, “Lincoln,” out this week. We find out how she did it in the new issue of New York magazine.

She started lusting for the role before Doris Kearns Goodwin had even finished writing “Team of Rivals,” the book that inspired the movie.

Spielberg promised to consider Field for the role after he acquired the movie option in 2001. Years later, a table read with Liam Neeson went well, but then he dropped out of the project. “Shortly after that,” Field tells the magazine, “I heard Daniel Day-Lewis came onboard, and I went, ‘Uh-oh.’ ”

The math was against her. By then, she was 15 years older than Mary Lincoln had been in 1865 and 10 years older than Day-Lewis; in real life Mary was a decade younger than her husband.

Spielberg rejected her after a screen test. But she pleaded. And when Day-Lewis agreed to audition with her, the director gave her one more chance.

The magazine writes: When the day arrived, she was led to a seat in the studio lobby. “I heard commotion,” she remembers, “and looked up, and across the lobby came my darling Mr. Lincoln. He smirked at me, and I smirked right back. I gave him my hand, I looked up and said ‘Mr. Lincoln,’ and he said ‘Mother.’ That’s what they said to each other.

“I felt this audible hush in the room.” For the next hour or so, they improvised as the first couple. She got the role.

Aim higher, girls

Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor stopped by “Sesame Street” the other day to school Muppet Abby Cadabby, a helium-voiced fairy-in-training, about what a career really is.

Listen up, girls.

A career is “a job you train for, or prepare for and plan on doing for a long time,” Sotomayor told Abby. “Pretending to be a princess is fun, but it is definitely not a career. You can go to school and train to be a teacher, a lawyer, a doctor, an engineer, and even a scientist.”

Abby was so impressed with Sotomayor’s important job as a judge that she decided to trade in her tiara for a gavel. (Abby being Abby, it was probably pink.)

Another Kardashian caper

Poor Rob Kardashian, forever lost in the giant shadow cast by all those Kardashian sisters of his. But he’s stepping into his own now.

Rob’s new line of men’s socks, called Arthur George, just debuted at Neiman Marcus stores. The snazzy Egyptian cotton socks — in checks, stripes, argyles and other playful prints — cost $30 a pair. Women’s socks are coming.

Perez Hilton spied Rob wearing a pair at a recent L.A. Clippers game, “accessorized with Air Jordans and a glass of Johnny Walker on the rocks. Now that’s what we call swag.”

Avert your eyes

The poster for “Movie 43,” a giant ensemble comedy with several directors, is the outline of a woman’s body with the movie title serving as part of her bikini bottoms.

But don’t let that distract you. Check out all the A-listers in the movie: Halle Berry, Kate Winslet, Elizabeth Banks, Gerard Butler, Richard Gere, Terrence Howard, Hugh Jackman, Liev Schreiber, Emma Stone and Uma Thurman, to name but a few. It hits theaters Jan. 25, 2013.