Amy Adams

Amy Adams

Born August 20, 1974 in Vicenza, Veneto, Italy

Birth Name Amy Lou Adams

Height 5' 4" (1.63 m)

Mini Bio (1)

Amy Lou Adams was born in Vicenza, Veneto, Italy, to American parents, Kathryn (Hicken) and Richard Kent Adams, a U.S. serviceman who was stationed at Caserma Ederle in Italy at the time. She was raised in a Mormon family of seven children in Castle Rock, Colorado, and has English, as well as smaller amounts of Danish, Swiss-German, and Norwegian, ancestry.

Adams sang in the school choir at Douglas County High School and was an apprentice dancer at a local dance company, with the ambition of becoming a ballerina. However, she worked as a greeter at The Gap and as a Hooters hostess to support herself before finding work as a dancer at Boulder's Dinner Theatre and Country Dinner Playhouse in such productions as "Brigadoon" and "A Chorus Line". It was there that she was spotted by a Minneapolis dinner-theater director who asked her to move to Chanhassen, Minnesota for more regional dinner theatre work.

Nursing a pulled muscle that kept her from dancing, she was free to audition for a part in Drop Dead Gorgeous (1999), which was filming nearby in Minnesota. During the filming, Kirstie Alley encouraged her to move to Los Angeles, where she soon won a part in the Fox television version of the film, Cruel Intentions (1999), in the part played in the film by Sarah Michelle Gellar, "Kathryn Merteuil". Although three episodes were filmed, the troubled series never aired. Instead, parts of the episodes were cobbled together and released as the direct-to-video Cruel Intentions 2 (2000). After more failed television spots, she landed a major role in Catch Me If You Can (2002), playing opposite Leonardo DiCaprio. But this did not provide the break-through she might have hoped for, with no work being offered for about a year. She eventually returned to television, and joined the short-lived series, Dr. Vegas (2004).

Her role in the low-budget independent film Junebug (2005) (which was shot in 21 days) got her real attention, including an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress as well as other awards. The following year, her ability to look like a wide-eyed Disney animated heroine helped her to be chosen from about 300 actresses auditioning for the role of "Giselle" in the animated/live-action feature film, Enchanted (2007), which would prove to be her major break-through role. Her vivacious yet innocent portrayal allowed her to use her singing and dancing talents. Her performance garnered a Golden Globe Award nomination for Best Actress in a Motion Picture Musical or Comedy.

Adams next appeared in the major production, Charlie Wilson's War (2007), and went on to act in the independent film, Sunshine Cleaning (2008), which premiered at the 2008 Sundance Film Festival. Her role as "Sister James" in Doubt (2008) brought her a second Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress, as well as nominations for a Golden Globe, a Screen Actors Guild award, and a British Academy Film award. She appeared as Amelia Earhart in Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian (2009) and as a post-9/11 hot line counselor, aspiring writer, amateur cook and blogger in Julie & Julia (2009).

In the early 2010s, she starred with Jason Segel in The Muppets (2011), with Philip Seymour Hoffman in Paul Thomas Anderson's The Master (2012), and alongside Clint Eastwood and Justin Timberlake in Trouble with the Curve (2012). She played reporter Lois Lane in Man of Steel (2013) and con artist Sydney Prosser in American Hustle (2013), before portraying real-life artist Margaret Keane in Tim Burton's biopic Big Eyes (2014).

In 2016, she reprised her role as Lane in Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (2016), and headlined Denis Villeneuve's science fiction drama Arrival (2016) and Tom Ford's dark thriller Nocturnal Animals (2016). In 2018, she received another Oscar nomination, her sixth, for starring as Lynne Cheney in the biographical drama Vice (2018), opposite Christian Bale as Dick Cheney.

Spouse (1)

Darren Le Gallo (2 May 2015 - present) ( 1 child)

Trade Mark (6)

Long strawberry blonde hair

Often plays optimistic characters with cheerful dispositions

Her wide-eyed expressions

Sparkling blue eyes

Her bright smile

Extreme versatility in roles

Trivia (59)

Worked in a Hooters Restaurant until soon after she turned 18, when they started making her wear the customary outfits.

Alumna of the Chanhassen Dinner Theatere in Minnesota. Appeared there in many productions including "Brigadoon" and "Good News".

Is one of seven children of Kathryn (Hicken) and Richard Kent Adams.

As a gesture of support to the U.S. troops, she privately gave her first-class seat to an American soldier who was on the same flight from Detroit to Los Angeles in 2014. She gladly took a seat in standard coach.

She was born in Italy and raised in Castle Rock, Colorado.

Her father was in the military and was also an amateur actor.

Was born on the U.S. military base located in Aviano, Italy, but spent part of her childhood in the U.S. military base located in Vicenza, Italy.

Invited to join the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) in 2006.

In elementary school, she was diagnosed with ADHD and prescribed Ritalin, which she still takes as an adult. Attended and graduated from Douglas County High School in Castle Rock, Colorado.

Sang in the school choir at Douglas County High School.

Is a trained dancer.

Her brother, Eddie Adams, works for the tabloid show TMZ.

Once worked at Gap, a clothing store chain.

Met her boyfriend, Darren Le Gallo, in 2001 in an acting class.

Has made two movies back-to-back starring Meryl Streep: Doubt (2008) and Julie & Julia (2009). In the latter, she has no scenes with Streep.

Named one of People magazine's 100 Most Beautiful People in the World (2008).

         

   

 Engaged to Darren Le Gallo on July 24, 2008.

During a red carpet interview at the 81st Academy Awards, she claimed to suffer from extreme stage fright and claustrophobia.

Enjoys singing karaoke.

Mother, with husband Darren Le Gallo, of a daughter Aviana Olea Le Gallo (b. May 15, 2010).

Was 1 month pregnant with her daughter Aviana when she completed filming on The Fighter (2010).

Returned to work 3 months after giving birth to her daughter Aviana in order to begin filming On the Road (2012).

Was in attendance at the wedding of her Sunshine Cleaning (2008) co-star and best friend Emily Blunt to John Krasinski (July 10, 2010).

Was in consideration for the role of Dagny Taggart in Atlas Shrugged: Part I (2011) after Charlize Theron dropped out of the project. But eventually passed on the role.

Her performance as Ashley Johnsten in Junebug (2005) was named the sixth best performance of the decade in Paste magazine's 25 Best Movie Performances of the Decade.

Her favorite films include Gone with the Wind (1939), The Wizard of Oz (1939), Casablanca (1942), Vertigo (1958), The Shawshank Redemption (1994), Paulie (1998) and O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000).

Has appeared in the series episode, Smallville: Craving (2001), which is about the early life of Clark Kent before he became Superman. She later went on to play Superman's main love interest, Lois Lane, in Man of Steel (2013). Is one of several actors who guest starred on the series and returned in the Superman film, along with Alessandro Juliani, Tahmoh Penikett and David Lewis.

Was offered the role of Annabel Richter in A Most Wanted Man (2014), but passed.

Best friends with actress Emily Blunt. The two became very close while filming Sunshine Cleaning (2008).

As of 2019, the longest she has gone without an Oscar nomination, since her first one, is six years, between American Hustle (2013) and Vice (2018).

Wanted to be a singing nurse as a child.

Meryl Streep taught her how to knit.

Was admittedly so distracted by co-star Lee Pace while filming Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day (2008), since "he just looked so dashing", that the director had to ask him leave the set.

Did her own singing in The Muppets (2011), Enchanted (2007) and Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day (2008).

Second actress with red hair to portray Lois Lane (preceded by Noel Neill).

Her ancestry includes English, as well as smaller amounts of Danish, Swiss-German, and Norwegian, and more distant Welsh, German, Irish, Scottish, and Scots-Irish/Northern Irish.

Named one of Time magazine's 100 Most Influential People in the World. [April 2014]

Has starred alongside two different actors who have played the role of Bruce Wayne/Batman: Christian Bale in The Fighter (2010), American Hustle (2013), and Vice (2018); and Ben Affleck in Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (2016).

Through her sixth generation great-grandparents Thomas and Elizabeth Shipp is a fifth cousin twice removed of Harry S. Truman. Through the same Shipp ancestors is a seventh cousin once removed to both Johnny Depp and John Edwards.

Auditioned for Lois Lane twice before being cast in Man of Steel (2013). She first auditioned for the cancelled project "Superman Flyby" and Superman Returns (2006).

She was awarded a Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6280 Hollywood Boulevard in Hollywood, California on January 11, 2017. Introduced by her Arrival (2016) co-star, Jeremy Renner, and director, Denis Villeneuve.

Amy is so often mistaken for friend Isla Fisher that Isla and her prankster husband Sacha Baron Cohen once pasted Amy's face over Isla's on their custom holiday greeting cards with the message, "Season Greetings from Sacha, Isla and the Kids." Apparently, no one noticed.

As of 2019, she has appeared in five films that have been Oscar nominated for Best Picture: The Fighter (2010), American Hustle (2013), Her (2013), Arrival (2016) and Vice (2018).

Adams, Leonardo DiCaprio, Tilda Swinton, Marion Cotillard, Emma Thompson, Tom Hanks, Daniel Brühl and Jake Gyllenhaal are the only actors to receive a Golden Globe, SAG, BAFTA and Critics' Choice Award nomination for the same performance and then fail to be Oscar-nominated for it: for their performances in Arrival (2016), The Departed (2006), We Need to Talk About Kevin (2011), De rouille et d'os (2012), Saving Mr. Banks (2013), Captain Phillips (2013), Rush (2013) and Nightcrawler (2014), respectively.

Is just 10 years younger than Laura Linney, who played her mother in Nocturnal Animals (2016).

Was set to play Janis Joplin in the biopic "Janis Joplin: Get It While You Can" in 2010, when Fernando Meirelles was attached to direct it. In 2013, Meirelles was replaced by Lee Daniels, who was later replaced by Jean-Marc Vallée in 2014. In 2015, the project was halted by lawsuits involving the production companies. On January 22, 2017, Jean-Marc Vallée announced that the project has been cancelled during an interview with Collider.

Friends with Bradley Cooper.

Tenth highest paid actress of 2017 with $11.5 million.

She and Leonardo DiCaprio where both 28 years old when they portrayed teenage lovers in Catch Me if You Can. Adams considered that film a turning point in her career.

She and Gal Gadot are the first live action Lois Lane and Diana Prince/Wonder Woman to be onscreen together.

Her daughter Aviana weighed 7 LBs at birth late Saturday night May 15th 2010.

Was co-star for 14 Oscar nominated performances: Christopher Walken for Catch Me If You Can (2002); Philip Seymour Hoffman for Charlie Wilson's War (2007); Meryl Streep, Philip Seymour Hoffman and Viola Davis for Doubt (2008); Meryl Streep for Julie & Julia (2009); Christian Bale and Melissa Leo for The Fighter (2010); Philip Seymour Hoffman and Joaquin Phoenix for The Master (2012); Christian Bale, Bradley Cooper and Jennifer Lawrence for American Hustle (2013); and Michael Shannon for Nocturnal Animals (2016). Of these, Christian Bale and Melissa Leo for The Fighter (2010) were the only two to have won. She co-starred with Philip Seymour Hoffman for all three of his Best Supporting Actor nominated performances.

She had considered quitting acting before doing the film Junebug (2005).

She didn't attend drama school or study acting.

Kept her trademark red hair in the role of Lois Lane, thus Lois' and Lana Lang's usual hair tones from the comics are switched in Man of Steel (2013) and the subsequent DC movie universe - Lois is a redhead and Lana Lang is a brunette.

The first job she ever had (at age 12) was selling licorice at a rodeo in Ogden, Utah, while staying with her grandparents. She later worked as a 'greeter' at The Gap store in the Lenox Mall in Virginia-Highland, Atlanta, where she once had rare opportunity to greet Whitney Houston as she entered the store. Whitney didn't take too kindly to Amy's cloying store formalities and quickly requested a different salesperson to assist her.

For a time Amy's teenage crush was future co-star Leonardo DiCaprio during his stint in Growing Pains (1985).

She is the first Academy Award nominee to play Lois Lane.

Considered for the role of Lydia Mercer on Man on a Ledge (2012) which eventually went to Elizabeth Banks.

Personal Quotes (19)

I have worked with some of the meanest people in the world. You can't do anything to intimidate me.

I think that I've always been attracted to characters who are positive and come from a very innocent place. I think there's a lot of room for discovery in these characters and that's something I always have fun playing.

[on singing at the Academy Awards] It's nerve-wracking! I'll be up there, singing the song in front of billions of people - oh, and Daniel Day-Lewis! And Cate Blanchett.

 I'll be going to Taco Bell when the ceremony is over. Mexican food cures me.

[on being stereotyped as the naïve one] 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.

[on working at The Gap] Whitney Houston came in. Someone dared me to do "the Gap act" on her. You know, the Gap act. So I went up to her like I didn't know who she was, and I said, "Hi, I just wanted to let you know about our sale items and make sure to check out our new colors." She looked at me like I was crazy.

Thirty was a big deal for me. It was the age where I reevaluated everything - how I approached life and how I thought about myself. When I look at my 20s, or when I look at any period in my life, I think about how much time I've wasted trying to find the right man. It's like, if I could go back and do it again, I would have taken guitar lessons or something. I would have put my energy into something that paid off in the end, instead of trying to improve myself for men. Oh, the time and the energy, trying to impress somebody who was actually a big jerk, you know? But the truth is, once you have a great man in your life, it allows you - or at least for me - to look at yourself and grow as an individual. And gosh, if I had known I was going to find this, my 20s would have been completely different.

[2011] I was a hostess at Hooters, and that was sort of fun. I was 17, and then when I was 18, I waited [tables] for about a month. I wasn't cut out to be a waitress, and I certainly wasn't cut out to be a Hooters waitress. That was a short-lived ambition. Everyone would agree, if they could see me, Hooters isn't necessarily the best way to describe me. 

[on the era in which The Master (2012) is set] We were a society in transition. Women were given responsibility in wartime, and then it was back to the kitchen and take care of your man. The perception of what what was available to women was so different.

[on letting her career be influenced by childhood favorites] I'm like the luckiest girl in the world. I've gotten to be a princess, I've gotten to work with the Muppets. A lot of my childhood dreams about who I wanted to be when I was a grown-up, I at least get to play them in movies. And Lois Lane is one of them. So I'm just excited. I hope I bring something that people enjoy.

[on having the Muppets as co-stars] To see them when they're not animated was really upsetting.

I grew up as a Mormon and that had more of an impact on my values than my beliefs. I'm afraid I will always feel the weight of a lie. I'm very hard on myself anyway.

 Religious guilt carries over too. You can't really misbehave without feeling badly about it. At least, I can't.

I had an existential crisis at the Oscars, sitting next to Sean Penn and Meryl Streep, and being like "What am I doing here? I don't belong here." I felt like it could all be taken away.

I was one of seven, and we took a lot of road trips - long road trips. And this was before iPhones and iPads and DVD players in cars. I remember how novel it was when I got my own Walkman so I could listen to music. It's going to sound silly, but one of my favorites was the Out of Africa (1985) soundtrack. I loved watching the scenery go by to that music. I thought it would be a beautiful ballet.

I've always really loved action films, but I don't see myself as a superhero girl, so my Lois Lane is a mere mortal full of imperfections.

Man of Steel (2013) was an opportunity to be in a genre film without having to train... I always want to defeat supervillains - it's just the chicken-and-broccoli diet that I'm not into.

[on her character Sydney Prosser in American Hustle (2013)] (She) is the most miserable human being I've ever played. She is not - happy. I'm used to playing people that, even if they're survivors, there's some sort of light in them. I don't know that she has that, necessarily... I think I like playing happy people.

[on her role in Her (2013) with Joaquin Phoenix] It's a friendship love. Joaquin and I were able to create a male-female friendship on camera, and you don't get to explore that very often without undertones and overtones. We're friends, and you really believe that. Or I believe that. I can't speak for anyone else.

[speaking to Robert Ito about American Hustle (2013)] I want to say the f-word so much in this interview, because these characters are in such a f'd-up situation. [But] I think it's rude. Mormon upbringing. I'll say it in film. But that's a character. I just won't say it in print.

[on being on Smallville (2001)] As an actress people always tease me like: if there's anything you can do to make yourself unattractive you will do it. You'll read it in the script and then you'll like find out in the middle that she has a limp, and you'll be like "Oh my God! This is this is the best role I've ever seen!" And you have a prosthetic nose coming out the side of your face. And I would be like: I want to be interested in that role because I feel like things are so focused on beauty. Anybody can be beautiful.