Amy Adams turns 50: “Indie Queen” with six Oscar nominations

In 2002 she played the lover of Leonardo DiCaprio (49) in “Catch Me If You Can”, the role of the heavily pregnant Ashley in the independent film “Junebug” (2005) earned her her first of six Oscar nominations and most people know her as the princess in the Disney film “Enchanted”. Amy Adams has taken on a wide variety of roles and genres over the course of her career. On August 20, the jack-of-all-trades celebrates his 50th birthday.

“Nothing can intimidate me anymore”

Amy Adams was born the daughter of a US soldier at the military base in Vicenza, Italy. She grew up with six siblings in the US state of Colorado. After his military career, Adams’ father worked as an entertainer in nightclubs, which is how his daughter first came into contact with acting.

After graduating, she finally took her first steps into the business in the hospitality industry – a formative experience and the best school for the tough showbiz in Hollywood, as she explained: “I’ve worked with some of the meanest people in the world – nothing intimidates me anymore.”

Adams was not intimidated by the biggest names. After all, in the course of her career she met Meryl Streep (75) and Clint Eastwood (94), among others – and at the very beginning of her career she had to smooch Leonardo DiCaprio. After she got her first small film role in the satire “Gorgeous” in 1999, several supporting roles followed. In 2002, Stephen Spielberg (77) cast her as the Hollywood star’s mistress in his gangster comedy “Catch Me If You Can”.

Difficult career start

The film made Amy Adams known to a wider audience. Nevertheless, it did not boost her career as expected – she was even unemployed for a year, as she revealed. Today, she draws positivity from her failures: “I’m actually quite happy about it. I was able to lead a normal life as an adult, beyond success and fame. I’m no longer afraid of failure,” she told the newspaper.

At the time, however, she was still thinking about giving up acting altogether and just making one last film. This film was, of all things, the low-budget film “Junebug” – and it earned Adams her first Oscar nomination and the title of “Indie Queen”, the queen of indie films. The end of her career was thus a thing of the past.

Double career in Hollywood

Adams still holds the title today, although she has long since appeared in major blockbusters, including roles in the Disney films “Enchanted” (2007) and “The Muppets” (2011) and the superhero film “Batman v Superman” (2016). “I am the luckiest girl in the world. I got to be a princess, I got to work with the Muppets. Many of my childhood dreams of who I wanted to be when I grew up, I can at least play in films,” she raved at CinemaCon in 2011.

Meanwhile, she was always cast in smaller films such as “Her” (2013) or “Dear Evan Hansen” (2021) – a real Hollywood double career. Considering the different genres in which Adams can be seen, double career is still a huge understatement. “I’m lucky that I’ve been able to get to know different films and different genres with different challenges,” she explained.

Six Oscar nominations

Amy Adams does not shy away from difficult roles. She finds roles that challenge her particularly exciting, she emphasized in the “: “And if a role scares me, I know that I have to play it.” Her versatility earned Adams a total of six Oscar nominations for best supporting or leading actress. “Junebug” was followed by “Doubt” (2009), “The Fighter” (2011), “The Master” (2012), “American Hustle” (2013) and “Vice” (2019). Only fourteen other actresses were nominated for five Oscars before their 40th birthday, including Meryl Streep and Audrey Hepburn (1929-1993).

In addition, Adams was nominated for a Golden Globe nine times and took home the award for “American Hustle” and “Big Eyes” (2014). In 2017, her achievements were honored with a star on the famous Walk of Fame. For several years, she was also in the top ten highest-paid actresses in the world.

Engaged for seven years

Despite her long career with its ups and downs, Amy Adams has remained scandal-free over the years. Her colleagues on set highly value her for her sense of humor, and her love life is also rather monotonous by Hollywood standards: she has only had one man since she met Darren Le Gallo (50) in an acting class in 2001. The couple got engaged in 2007, and their daughter was born three years later. It would be another five years before they got married in May 2015.

Amy Adams treats her role as a mother and wife like she does her career, in which she has always remained true to herself despite setbacks and great successes. She said to: “I allow myself to be flawed. The illusion of perfection is an illusion anyway.”