Sally Field believes that our age changes but not our character.

“We are all just the same,” she said during a recent interview. “If you and I met, and we were in our 20s, we could close our eyes and say, ‘We are going to be sitting at a table 35 years from now, and we will still be the same person.' Your body changes.”

The petite actress, a vibrant and youthful-looking 69, lamented the “tremendous ageism” toward women in this country. “In Europe, they are so appreciated and revered. With women, especially in this industry, there is always a feeling of,‘What have you been doing with yourself?' I say, ‘What do you mean, what have I been doing with myself? I'm still here.'?”

Proving her point, Field gives a lovely performance in the new indie comedy-drama “Hello, My Name is Doris.” In the film, directed and co-written by Michael Showalter (“Wet Hot American Summer”), Field plays the 60-something Doris, a true eccentric with a boring job at an online magazine populated with millennials who take her for granted.

After the death of her domineering mother, whom she long cared for in their cluttered little house on Staten Island in New York, Doris is looking for love — in all the wrong places. She behaves like a giddy teenager when she thinks the company's young art director John (Max Greenfield) is interested in her.

The actress, who earned Oscars for her memorable turns in 1979's “Norma Rae” and 1984's “Places in the Heart,” was Showalter's top choice for Doris.

“Doris is a funny, vulnerable, fierce, sexy, odd, intense character,” Showalter said. “I don't think there are very many actresses besides Sally who could do justice to all of the different things that are that character. It was, like, ‘Sally Field would be amazing, but she would never do it.' To my utter delight, she responded to the part.”

“We knew this would be hard to pull off,” Field recalled of her first meeting with Showalter. “He kept saying it walks a fine line between comedy and drama. It isn't just sort of a comedy and a drama because a lot of movies do that. It's a Greek drama and a screwball comedy. Some of those transitions are butted right up against each other.”

Making matters more complex, Doris lives in her own world and constantly fantasizes. “She has been cut off from the world,” Field said, “and she doesn't really recognize that there is a world out there. She gets her clothes from thrift stores, off the streets, out of bags, and kind of plays dress-up for herself. She has no connection with how she is going to be looked at.”

“She lives in a time capsule, in a way,” Field added.