Amy Adams
Amy Lou Adams (born August 20, 1974) is an American actress. Known for both her comedic and dramatic roles, she has been featured three times in annual rankings of the world's highest-paid actresses. She has received various accolades, including two Golden Globe Awards, and has been nominated for six Academy Awards, seven British Academy Film Awards, and two Primetime Emmy Awards.
This article is about the American actress. For other people, see Amy Adams (disambiguation).
Adams began her career as a dancer in dinner theater, which she pursued from 1994 to 1998, and made her film debut with a supporting part in the dark comedy Drop Dead Gorgeous (1999). She made guest appearances in television and took on "mean girl" parts in low-budget feature films. Her first major role was in Steven Spielberg's biopic Catch Me If You Can (2002), but she was unemployed for a year afterward. Her breakthrough came when she portrayed a loquacious pregnant woman in the independent comedy-drama Junebug (2005), for which she received her first Academy Award nomination.
The musical fantasy film Enchanted (2007), where Adams played a cheerful princess-to-be, was her first success as a leading lady. She followed it by playing other naïve, optimistic women in films like the drama Doubt (2008), and subsequently played more assertive parts to positive reviews in the sports film The Fighter (2010) and the psychological drama The Master (2012). From 2013 to 2017, she portrayed Lois Lane in superhero films set in the DC Extended Universe. She won two consecutive Golden Globe Awards for Best Actress for playing a seductive con artist in the crime film American Hustle (2013) and painter Margaret Keane in the biopic Big Eyes (2014). Further acclaim came for playing a linguist in the science fiction film Arrival (2016), a self-harming reporter in the HBO miniseries Sharp Objects (2018), and Lynne Cheney in the satire Vice (2018).
Adams' stage roles include the Public Theater's revival of Into the Woods in 2012 and the West End theatre revival of The Glass Menagerie in 2022. In 2014, she was named one of the 100 most influential people in the world by Time, and featured in the Forbes Celebrity 100 list.
Early life
Adams was born in Vicenza, Italy,[1] to American parents Kathryn and Richard Adams, while her father was serving at the U.S. Army's Caserma Ederle military complex.[2][3] She has four brothers and two sisters.[4] After moving from one army base to another, she and her family settled in Castle Rock, Colorado when she was eight.[3] After leaving the army, her father sang professionally in nightclubs and restaurants.[4][5] Adams has described going to her father's shows and drinking Shirley Temples at the bar as among her fondest childhood memories.[6] The family was poor; they camped and hiked together, and performed amateur skits written by her father or sometimes by her mother.[3][5][7] Adams was enthusiastic about the plays and always played the lead.[8]
Adams was raised as a Mormon until her parents divorced in 1985 and left the church.[5][9] She did not have strong religious beliefs, but has said that she valued her upbringing for teaching her love and compassion.[4] After the breakup, her father moved to Arizona and remarried, while the children remained with their mother.[3][7] Her mother became a semi-professional bodybuilder who took the children with her to the gym when she trained.[5][7] Adams has compared her uninhibited early years with her siblings to Lord of the Flies.[4] Describing herself as a "scrappy, tough kid", she has said she fought frequently with other children.[10]
Adams attended Douglas County High School. She was not academically inclined, but was interested in the creative arts and sang in the school choir. She competed in track and gymnastics, harbored ambitions of becoming a ballerina, and trained as an apprentice at the local David Taylor Dance Company.[4][8] She disliked high school and kept mostly to herself.[5] After graduation, she and her mother moved to Atlanta.[5] She did not go to college, to her parents' disappointment, and she later regretted not pursuing higher education.[3][11] At age 18, she realized she was not gifted enough to be a professional ballerina, and found musical theater more to her taste.[4] One of her first stage roles was in a community theater production of Annie, which she did as a volunteer.[3] To support herself, she worked as a greeter at a Gap store.[8] She also worked as a waitress at Hooters,[5][12] but left the job when she saved enough money to buy a used car.[13]
Career
1994–2004: Dinner theater and early screen appearances
Adams began her professional career as a dancer in a 1994 dinner theater production of A Chorus Line in Boulder, Colorado.[3][14][15] The job required her to wait on tables before getting up on stage to perform. She enjoyed singing and dancing, but disliked waitressing and ran into trouble when a fellow dancer, whom she considered a friend, made false accusations about her to the director.[16] Adams said, "I never really knew what the lies were. I only knew I kept getting called in and lectured about my lack of professionalism."[3] She lost the job but went on to perform in dinner theater at Denver's Heritage Square Music Hall and Country Dinner Playhouse.[14] During a performance of Anything Goes at the Country Dinner Playhouse in 1995, she was spotted by Michael Brindisi, the president and artistic director of the Minneapolis-based Chanhassen Dinner Theater, who offered her a job there.[14][17] Adams moved to Chanhassen, Minnesota, where she performed in the theater for the next three years.[17] She loved the "security and schedule" of the job, and has said that she learned tremendously from it.[16][17] Nonetheless, the grueling work took its toll on her: "I had a lot of recurring injuries—bursitis in my knees, pulled muscles in my groin, my adductor and abductor. My body was wearing out."[13]
During her time at Chanhassen, Adams acted in her first film—a black-and-white short satire named The Chromium Hook.[17] Soon after, while she was off work nursing a pulled muscle, she attended the locally held auditions for the Hollywood film Drop Dead Gorgeous (1999), a satire on beauty pageants starring Kirsten Dunst, Ellen Barkin, and Kirstie Alley.[3] Adams was cast in the supporting part of a promiscuous cheerleader.[4][8] She felt that her character's personality was far removed from her own and worried about how people would perceive her.[18] The production was filmed locally, which enabled Adams to shoot for her role while also performing Brigadoon on stage.[19] Encouragement from Alley prompted Adams to actively pursue a film career, and she moved to Los Angeles in January 1999.[13][17] She described her initial experience in the city as "dark" and "bleak",[4] and she pined for her life back in Chanhassen.[16]
Personal life
Adams met actor and painter Darren Le Gallo at an acting class in 2001, and they began dating a year later while collaborating on a short film titled Pennies.[3][185] They became engaged in 2008, and she gave birth to their daughter, Aviana, in 2010.[186][187] Seven years after their engagement, the couple married in a private ceremony at a ranch near Santa Barbara, California.[188][189] Adams said in 2016 that she appreciates the numerous sacrifices Le Gallo had made as the primary caregiver for their family.[9] They reside in Beverly Hills, California.[190] She has described her family life as "pretty low-key", and has said that her routine involves going to work, taking her daughter to the park, and having weekly date nights with her husband.[5]
Adams finds little value in being a celebrity and maintains that the "more that people know about me, the less they'll believe me and my characters".[189] She attracts little gossip or tabloid attention, and strives to keep a healthy work-life balance.[5][191] She makes an effort to remain unaffected by her fame, believing that it would hinder her ability to play roles with honesty. Adams has spoken about suffering from insecurity and a lack of confidence from a young age and how motherhood had made her calmer.[5][9] She frequently breaks into song when stressed at work.[7] She has joined other actors in calling for equal pay for women in the film industry, but she finds that actresses are too often asked to explain the gender pay gap and feels the questions should be directed instead to producers.[7][192]
Having experienced difficulty in her early years in the film industry, Adams works closely with underprivileged students at New York City's Ghetto Film School.[193] Variety honored her for her work with them in 2010.[194] She supports the Trevor Project, a nonprofit organization that helps troubled LGBT teenagers, and served as a presenter for the 2011 event "Trevor Live".[195] In 2013, she launched the book The Beauty Book for Brain Cancer to help raise money for brain cancer charities Snog and Headrush.[196] The following year, she attended a charity event at the UCLA Medical Center, Santa Monica, to raise funds for sexually abused children.[197] In 2020, Adams teamed up with actress Jennifer Garner to launch the campaign #SaveWithStories to promote children's education during school closures due to the COVID-19 pandemic.[198] Adams is an ambassador for The RightWay Foundation, a charity that provides employment and mental health services to former foster youth.[199]