Biography
Amy Adams was born in Aviano, Italy, but grew up in Vicenza, Italy, the
daughter of American parents Kathryn and Richard Adams, who was a U.S.
serviceman stationed in Italy. She grew up as one of seven children in Castle
Rock, Colorado and was raised in the Mormon religion, although her family left
the church after Adams' parents divorced when she was 11 years old.
Throughout her years at Douglas County High School, she sang in the school choir
and trained as an apprentice at a local dance company with ambitions of becoming
a ballerina. However, after graduating from high school, she decided that she
was "never going to be that good, no matter how hard she worked" and
entered musical theater, which she found was "much better suited to her
personality".
To support Adam's community theater habit, Adams worked at Gap as a greeter and at
Hooters as a hostess and a waitress, a fact that became her "entire press career
for a while." Earlier she also was an employee at Penny Robins, a dance
shop. She began working professionally as a dancer at Boulder's Dinner
Theatre and Country Dinner Playhouse, where she was spotted by a Minneapolis
dinner theatre director, Michael Brindisi. Along with her family, Adams moved to
Chanhassen, Minnesota, where she continued to work at Chanhassen Dinner
Theatres. While she was off work nursing a pulled muscle, Adams auditioned for
the satirical 1999 comedy Drop Dead Gorgeous, which was being filmed in
Minnesota, and was cast in her first film role. Persuaded by her Drop Dead
Gorgeous co-star, Kirstie Alley, Adams moved to Los Angeles, California in 1998. Shortly after, she was cast in Fox Network's television series spin-off
of Cruel Intentions, Manchester Prep, in the role of Kathryn Merteuil. The
series did not live up to the network's expectations and following numerous
script revisions and two production shutdowns, it was canceled. The filmed
episodes were then re-edited to be released as the direct-to-video film, Cruel
Intentions 2.
From 2000 to 2002, Adams appeared in a series of small films like Psycho Beach
Party while guest-starring on television series such as Charmed, Buffy the
Vampire Slayer, Smallville and The West Wing. She then appeared in Steven
Spielberg's Catch Me if You Can as Brenda Strong, a role that was "supposed to
be big break" but she "was unemployed for a year after that". However, Adams
stated that it "was the first time she knew she could act at that level with
those people. To be believed in by Steven Spielberg... it was a huge confidence
booster". She starred in The Last Run in 2004 as well as voicing
characters on animated television series King of the Hill. In the same year, she
was cast in the television series, Dr. Vegas, in the role of Alice Doherty but
was later fired after a contract dispute.
Right after Amy Adams left Dr. Vegas, she received the script for Junebug, a
low-budget independent film, and auditioned for the role of Ashley Johnsten on
the following day. Director Phil Morrison decided to cast Adams as the
innocent and talkative Ashley after "Lots of people looked at Ashley and
thought, 'What's the sorrow she's masking?'" and the fact that Adams "didn't
approach it from the angle of 'What's she covering up?' was key."The film
was shot in 21 days in Winston-Salem, North Carolina and premiered at the 2005
Sundance Film Festival, where she won the Special Jury Prize for her
performance. After the theatrical release of The Wedding Date, in which
Adams appeared alongside Debra Messing and Dermot Mulroney, Junebug was released
in theaters by Sony Pictures Classics. Adams received further numerous critical
accolades and awards for her performance in Junebug, including the National
Society of Film Critics award for Best Supporting Actress and the Independent
Spirit Award for Best Supporting Female. She was also nominated for Best
Supporting Actress - Motion Picture at the 12th Screen Actors Guild Awards and
Best Supporting Actress at the 78th Academy Awards. The Academy of Motion
Picture Arts and Sciences invited Adams to become a member in 2006.
Although Junebug had a limited audience, Adams' critically-acclaimed performance
in the film helped to increase interest in her acting career. Adams went on to
appear in films like Standing Still and Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky
Bobby, and played the recurring guest role of Katy on the television series The
Office. After providing the voice for Polly Purebred in Walt Disney Pictures'
Underdog, Adams starred in Disney's 2007 big-budget animated/live-action feature
film, Enchanted. The film, which co-stars Patrick Dempsey, Idina Menzel, Susan
Sarandon, and James Marsden, revolves around Giselle, who is forced from her
2D-animated world to real-life New York City. Adams was amongst 300 or so
actresses who auditioned for the role of Giselle, but she stood out to director
Kevin Lima because her "commitment to the character, her ability to escape into
the character's being without ever judging the character was overwhelming". Enchanted was both a commercial and critical success, with
critics calling it a star-making vehicle for Adams the way Mary Poppins was for
Julie Andrews. For her performance, Adams received a Golden Globe Award
nomination for Best Actress - Motion Picture Musical or Comedy and a Critics'
Choice Award nomination for Best Actress. At the 2008 Saturn Awards she won the
Best Actress award for her role in Enchanted. Three of the film's songs were
nominated for Best Original Song at the 80th Academy Awards. After Enchanted,
Adams appeared in Charlie Wilson's War as the title character's administrative
assistant, which saw her co-starring with Tom Hanks, Julia Roberts, and Philip
Seymour Hoffman.
The success of Enchanted increased Adams' media exposure during the 2007/2008
film awards season. At the 80th Academy Awards ceremony, she presented the award
for Best Original Score and performed "Happy Working Song", one of the nominated
songs from Enchanted, live on stage. "That's How You Know", originally performed
by Adams in the film, was sung by Kristin Chenoweth at the ceremony. In an
interview, Adams remarked that it was "perfect" for Chenoweth to perform the
song since Chenoweth "was a huge inspiration for how she approached
Giselle". As well as appearing on the covers of Interview, Elle and the
Hollywood issue of Vanity Fair, which named her as one of the "10 fresh faces of
2008", Adams hosted the seventh episode of the 33rd season of Saturday Night
Live in March 2008. In the episode, she played various characters, including
Heidi Klum as well as singing "What is This Feeling?" from Wicked in a mock
battle with SNL cast member Kristen Wiig during the opening monologue.
Amy Adams starred in three films in 2008: Sunshine Cleaning, Miss Pettigrew
Lives for a Day and Doubt. In Sunshine Cleaning, an independent film that was
shot in and around Albuquerque, New Mexico from February to March in 2007, Adams
plays a single mother who starts her own crime scene clean-up business in order
to make enough money to send her son to a private school. The film premiered at
the 2008 Sundance Film Festival as one of the most anticipated titles but
received somewhat mixed reviews and wasn't sold to a distributor as quickly as
expected. In Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day, a 1939-set film, Adams plays Delysia Lafosse, an aspiring American actress living in London whose life is
changed after meeting a governess named Miss Pettigrew, played by Frances
McDormand. The film received generally favorable reviews, with critics
praising the performances of Adams and McDormand. Adams' role was noted to
be similar to her joyful and naïve characters in Junebug and Enchanted; Carina
Chocano of Los Angeles Times stated that "Adams is amazingly adept at playing
smart playing dumb", while Kirk Honeycutt wrote that "Adams more or less
reprises her princess from 'Enchanted,' only with a beguiling touch of ditzy
naughtiness". When asked whether she is in danger of being typecast, Adams said,
"Not at this point... Right now I'm just doing what I enjoy and I've done some
different films, I've done some different types of roles. I've done drama this
year, we had a film at Sundance ('Sunshine Cleaning'), but I enjoy playing
upbeat characters, I really do because you take your characters home with you
whether you intend to or not." In another interview, Adams said, "I think I just
respond to those kinds of characters... They're so layered, and I love the fact
that they've made this choice to be joyful... I really identify with that sense
of hope." In Doubt, an adaptation of John Patrick Shanley's play of
the same name, Adams stars as Sister James alongside Meryl Streep, Philip
Seymour Hoffman and Viola Davis.
Following Doubt, Adams will appear in Julie & Julia with Streep, which is set to
be released in 2009, as a frustrated temp secretary Julie Powell, who decides to
cook all of the recipes in Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking.
She will then portray Amelia Earhart in Night at the Museum 2: Escape from the
Smithsonian and will co-star with Mark Ruffalo in the upcoming Noah Baumbach
movie Greenburg.
This Amy Adams Biography Page is Copyright © 2004 - 2009 Chuck Ayoub