Interview with Amy Adams

By Katey Rich

It's fair to say that Amy Adams was born to be a cartoon character. The saucer eyes, the effortless energy, the voice that seems somehow rounder, softer than everyone else's. She used all of that to her great advantage in Enchanted, but when it came to her latest movie, Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day, she mostly needed one thing princesses never have in short supply (unless they're under a wicked curse, of course): energy. Turns out, Amy Adams was probably born with that too.

"I worked at the Lenox Mall in the Gap," Adams told a group of journalists about her time living in Atlanta. "I wanted to work in the stockroom, but I was just too peppy. I tried, they were like 'No you have to be at the front of the store. You are the only person who will literally talk to everyone who comes in the store.' "

In Miss Pettigrew Adams plays Delysia Lafosse, an up-and-coming American actress who is scraping out a living in London. She wears beautiful dresses and flounces around like she owns the world, but depends on her two suitors to survive. Nick (Mark Strong) is a wealthy nightclub owner, and owns the apartment where Delysia stays; Phil (Tom Goldman) is the son of a wealthy financier who is producing a play that may give Delysia her big break. Then of course there is Michael (Lee Pace), a penniless piano player who is also the only man who loves her for who she is.

Though Adams has, by most accounts, "made it" in show business, she's quick to remember that Delysia's situation is never so far away. "Well, as Delysia would have learned, there's no such thing as stability and security." She also says she identifies with Delysia's drive to succeed as an actress, though maybe not with her methods. "I can understand her reasons for wanting it. I don't even know that she wants to be a star. What she wants is security, she wants stability. That I definitely can relate to, that feeling of wanting some sort of certainty, and some control over your destiny."

Playing the Miss Pettigrew of the title is Frances McDormand, as a dowdy governess who lies her way into becoming Delysia's social secretary with absolutely no experience in the job. But when it came to being on the set, of course, McDormand was the seasoned pro. "You can learn so much," Adams says about working with her Oscar-winning co-star. "I go in there going 'I know that you know more than I do, and I want to learn from you." Adams makes an effort to always be the first one to the set, she says, but was constantly beaten by McDormand. "I'm like 'How is it that you continue to beat me to set?' And she looked at me and says, 'I never leave.' Then, of course, I couldn't leave set!"

Adams, who started out in the theatre, said that McDormand helped her achieve a theatrical, physical style of acting, like what you would find in the 30s screwball comedies that Miss Pettigrew resembles. "It was something I really wanted to accomplish, that style of acting. It was very intentional. [Frances] was being so physical, and you understood that this was such a physical movie. You want people to get caught up in the whirlwind of this day. It's Delysia's world, which is just moment to moment to moment."

Though she vanquished Susan Sarandon's wicked queen in Enchanted, Adams says she has always looked up to veteran actresses; after acting alongside McDormand and now Meryl Streep in the upcoming Doubt and Julie & Julia, Adams says she has no lack of role models. "I've been really fortunate. At one point in my life I really wanted female mentors, and working with Frances and working with Meryl, following by example, I feel like I've gotten that wish."