Amy Adams Bio
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.
Early Life and Background
Adams was born on August 20, 1974, in Aviano, Italy, to American parents Kathryn and Richard Adams, while her father was serving in the U.S. Army. She has four brothers and two sisters and is the middle of seven children. After moving from one army base to another, she and her family settled in Castle Rock, Colorado when she was eight. After leaving the army, her father sang professionally in nightclubs and restaurants. Adams has described going to her father’s shows and drinking Shirley Temples at the bar as among her fondest childhood memories. The family was poor; they camped and hiked together and performed amateur skits written by her father or sometimes by her mother. Adams was enthusiastic about the plays and always played the lead. Adams was raised as a Mormon until her parents divorced in 1985 and left the church. She did not have strong religious beliefs but has said that she valued her upbringing for teaching her love and compassion. After the breakup, her father moved to Arizona and remarried, while the children remained with their mother. Her mother became a semi-professional bodybuilder who took the children with her to the gym when she trained. Adams has compared her uninhibited early years with her siblings to Lord of the Flies. Describing herself as a “scrappy, tough kid,” she has said she fought frequently with other children.
Path to Hollywood
Adams attended Douglas County High School in Colorado. 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. She disliked high school and kept mostly to herself. After graduation, she and her mother moved to Atlanta. She did not go to college, to her parents’ disappointment, and she later regretted not pursuing higher education. At age 18, she realized she was not gifted enough to be a professional ballerina and found musical theater more to her taste. One of her first stage roles was in a community theater production of Annie, which she did as a volunteer. To support herself, she worked as a greeter at a Gap store and also worked as a waitress at Hooters, but left the job when she saved enough money to buy a used car. Adams began her professional career as a dancer in a 1994 dinner theater production of A Chorus Line in Boulder, Colorado. 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. 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.” She lost the job but went on to perform in dinner theater at Denver’s Heritage Square Music Hall and Country Dinner Playhouse. 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 Chanhassen Dinner Theater, who offered her a job there. Adams moved to Chanhassen, Minnesota, where she performed in the theater for the next three years.
Amy Adams Career
Early Career (1994–2004)
During her time at Chanhassen, Adams acted in her first film—a black-and-white short satire named The Chromium Hook. 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. Adams was cast in the supporting part of a promiscuous cheerleader. She felt that her character’s personality was far removed from her own and worried about how people would perceive her. The production was filmed locally, which enabled Adams to shoot for her role while also performing Brigadoon on stage. Encouragement from Alley prompted Adams to actively pursue a film career, and she moved to Los Angeles in January 1999. In Los Angeles, Adams auditioned for whatever parts came her way, but she was mostly given roles of “the bitchy girl.” Her first assignment came within a week of her relocation in the Fox television series Manchester Prep, a spin-off of the film Cruel Intentions, in the lead role of Kathryn Merteuil. Following numerous script revisions and two production shutdowns, the series was canceled. Adams later said a controversial scene in which her character encourages a girl to masturbate on a horse was the primary reason for its cancellation. The three filmed episodes were re-edited and released later in 2000 as the direct-to-video film Cruel Intentions 2. Despite a negative critical reception, Nathan Rabin of The A.V. Club wrote that Adams plays her “alpha-bitch role with vicious glee largely missing from Sarah Michelle Gellar’s sterile take on the character.” Adams next had a supporting role as the teenage nemesis of a movie star in Psycho Beach Party (2000), a horror parody of beach party and slasher films. From 2000 to 2002, Adams appeared in guest roles in several television series, including That ’70s Show, Charmed, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Smallville, and The West Wing. Following brief roles in three small-scale features of 2002—The Slaughter Rule, Pumpkin, and Serving Sara—Adams got her first major role in Steven Spielberg’s comedy-drama Catch Me If You Can.
Breakthrough (2005–2007)
Disillusioned by her firing from Dr. Vegas, Adams, aged 30, considered quitting acting altogether after completing work on the independent comedy-drama Junebug, which had a production budget of under $1 million. Directed by Phil Morrison, the film featured her as Ashley Johnsten, a perky and talkative pregnant woman. Morrison was impressed with Adams’s ability to not question her character’s inherently good motives. She connected with Johnsten’s faith in God and spent time with Morrison in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, where the film is set, attending church. She described making the film as “the summer I grew into myself,” and after dyeing her hair red for the role, she decided not to go back to her natural blonde color. Junebug premiered at the 2005 Sundance Film Festival, where Adams won a special jury prize. For her performance, Adams won the Independent Spirit Award and Critics’ Choice Award for Best Supporting Actress and received an Academy Award nomination in the same category. Later in 2005, Adams had supporting parts in two critically panned films—the romantic comedy The Wedding Date and the ensemble coming-of-age film Standing Still. Also that year, she joined the cast of the television series The Office for a recurring role over three episodes. In Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby (2006), a sports comedy from Adam McKay, Adams played the romantic interest of Will Ferrell’s character, a role which critic Peter Travers deemed “quite a comedown” from her part in Junebug. After voicing in Walt Disney Pictures’ animated comedy film Underdog (2007), Adams starred as a highly optimistic and joyous character named Giselle in the musical romantic comedy Enchanted. The film grossed over $340 million worldwide, and Adams was nominated for the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Motion Picture Comedy or Musical. Following the success of Enchanted, Adams took on the part of Bonnie Bach, Congressman Charlie Wilson’s assistant in Mike Nichols’ political comedy-drama Charlie Wilson’s War.
Notable Works and Milestones
Adams’s signature works include her roles in Junebug, Enchanted, and American Hustle, which earned her critical acclaim and several awards.
Amy Adams Award Nominations
Throughout her career, Amy Adams has received numerous nominations for prestigious awards, including six Academy Award nominations, seven British Academy Film Awards, and two Primetime Emmy Awards.
Amy Adams Awards Won
Amy Adams has won various accolades, including two Golden Globe Awards for Best Actress in a Comedy or Musical for American Hustle and Big Eyes.
Amy Adams Family
Amy Adams is married to actor and painter Darren Le Gallo, with whom she has a daughter named Aviana, born in 2010.
Personal Life
Adams maintains a low-key family life in Beverly Hills, California, where she enjoys spending time with her husband and daughter. She has expressed a commitment to balancing her career and family responsibilities.
