MOMENTS

Fox cuts away as Sally Field speaks her mind on war

Sally Field, honored for her portrayal of Nora Walker, the matriarch of ABC’s “Brothers & Sisters,” used her time onstage for an antiwar statement.

“At the heart of Nora Walker, she is a mother,” Field said. “So surely this belongs to all the mothers of the world. May they be seen, may their work be valued. . . And to especially the mothers who stand with an open heart and wait, wait for their children to come home, from danger. . . from war.”

“And let’s face it,” added Field, whose character’s son was deployed at the end of last season. “If the mothers ruled the world, there would be no goddamn war in the first place!”

But viewers missed most of her last sentence, as Fox cut away to the back of the auditorium. A network publicist said Field was bleeped out because of her use of “god” and “damn” together.

“That’s too bad,” Field said of the bleeping. “I shouldn’t have said the ‘god’ in front of the ‘damn.’ ”

“Sopranos” creator David Chase offered his own wry twist as he accepted the HBO show’s award for drama series. Gangsters, Chase said, “are out there taking their kids to college and . . . putting food on the table. And hell, let’s face it, if the world and this nation was run by gangsters . . . “ Chase paused and shrugged. “Maybe it is.”

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O’Quinn is tickled pink by his victory

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Why, you ask, did Terry O’Quinn choose a bright pink shirt to go with his black suit on the night he won the television industry’s most notable award?

“Because it’s not white,” the soft-spoken actor said backstage, still visibly affected by the adulation. “They say it takes a brave man to wear hot pink.”

As for keeping his sanity, he credits “the hovering specter of poverty and my wife. You can’t live with the illusion it’s going to last forever. You’re on a good run, you hope it’s going to last.”

Nominated twice, the “Lost” actor collected his first Emmy. O’Quinn, a fan favorite from the time viewers saw his paralyzed character walk after the plane crash, said that just before his win was announced he had thought to himself, “As soon as this award is done, I get to go to the bathroom.”

Wrong!

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Actors trace deep ‘Roots’ in TV history

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Cicely Tyson was a stern presence backstage. She stopped one reporter who referred to the cast of “Roots” as “you guys” (“Leslie Uggams and I are ladies,” the eminent actress said). Then she got into a strange exchange with LeVar Burton.

“Long-form television is dead . . .” Burton began.

Tyson put her hand on his chest and interjected: “Well, ‘Roots’ was the first miniseries, there was no miniseries before ‘Roots.’ ”

Burton casually corrected her: “Well, it wasn’t the first.”

“It was the first,” Tyson said emphatically.

The two then went off to the side of the stage, out of earshot of reporters, to debate television history, with Burton saying that “Rich Man, Poor Man” preceded the 1977 landmark miniseries on the legacy of slavery in America. (He was right.)