Amy Adams Rewatches Enchanted, Man of Steel, Arrival & More

They sent me the script and they're like,

They wanna talk to you about Charlene.

And I was like,

Charlene gets in the fist fight Charlene?

[people fighting]

And they're like, yeah, yeah, and I was like, I feel seen.

Hi, I'm Amy Adams,

and we're gonna watch a few scenes

from throughout my career.

Right, let's get going here.

[upbeat music]

♪ You must remind her or she'll be inclined to say ♪

♪ How do I know he loves me ♪

♪ How do I know he's mine ♪

I just remember what a dream it was to be in Central Park.

Like I didn't go to New York until I was 24,

and I remember the first time that I found Central Park.

It just felt like very specific energy, specifically magic,

this idea of an oasis inside of this huge bustling city,

and the intention behind it

to create the space for everybody.

And so to get to go and do a musical number in this place

that had become so special to me

was really, really such a treat.

Like a dream.

Like a dream come true.

♪ Little bit every day ♪

♪ That's how you know ♪

♪ That's how you know ♪

Patrick's reaction throughout this whole scene,

I think that's my husband's favorite part of the movie.

I don't dance

♪ Dedicate a song with words meant just for you ♪

And I really don't sing.

He was such a great foil to her optimism.

You know, his like cynicism and disbelief

at what he's seeing.

He just towed that line so perfectly.

♪ With the little things he'll do ♪

♪ That's how you'll know ♪

Aw, she's a baby.

That was the director's daughter, Kevin Lima's daughter,

and that's the choreographer down there

in the patterned shirt next to Patrick.

At the time, I mean, I hadn't been professionally singing

for a long time, and I was more of somebody

who was like featured in the chorus, not really a soloist.

And this one just had like rapid fire,

not a lot of room for breath.

And so technically it was like the hardest one

to sort of get down.

But yeah, it'd be fun to try to sing it again

'cause since then I've done a lot of karaoke,

and I think I could tackle this one now.

[Interviewer] You wanna try now?

I feel pretty confident.

No. [interviewer laughing]

I mean, I do sort of, but then I will regret it.

Like I'm the kind of person that's like,

yeah, I'm totally gonna do that.

And then I'm like, why did I do that?

♪ That's how you know ♪

♪ That's how you know ♪

♪ He's your love ♪

♪ That's how she knows that you love her ♪

Enchanted is probably one of the films of mine

I've seen the most,

in sharing it with nieces and nephews

or them wanting to watch it with me,

my daughter watching it.

And it was nice to revisit it.

Sort of before we did Disenchanted,

I spent a lot of time with it,

and I was like, I really, I really like this movie.

You know?

It's nice to have distance from it

and to be able to see it for the absolute joy that it was.

It was so much fun making,

[upbeat music]

I need you to send a message to the other sites.

I actually came to this role,

I had just finished a really challenging production,

and I was like, I need a break.

I don't wanna read anything.

I'm getting ready to go do another production.

And so I was like, I'm not, I don't wanna read anything.

And very smartly, my team of amazing women said,

you can do that right after you read this.

And so I got to meet with Denis,

and he just had a beautiful way of talking about it.

And he clearly is gifted visually

and has a wonderful way

of creating like an emotional resonance

inside of very surreal worlds, you know,

but they feel so grounded and so real.

But aside from that, he's so respectful

and so thoughtful, so open.

He has an emotional intelligence

that is really beautiful to witness.

He said that although he sees it

with the science fiction element,

that it's a mother's story.

And I think that really resonated with me.

[wind blowing]

One of them had, it's weird,

I don't wanna give spoiler alerts,

but I suppose if, go watch Arrival.

If you see this, and you don't want any spoiler alerts,

go watch Arrival.

One of them is no longer.

He expired.

So I think, I can't remember if this is Abbott or Costello,

which I feel really strangely bad about.

And he's sort of explaining to me like what's going on

and who my daughter is.

[deep breathing]

I don't, I don't understand.

First off I was devastated,

and it made me look at the story so differently,

and then I immediately went back and read it again,

kind of in the same way that I was talking about

like wanting people to see it again with a new perspective

and saw the whole character in a different perspective

'cause I had thought her as a person in mourning,

and so I worked really hard to build up her backstory

and her future story.

So she was a really fun character to work on.

[upbeat music]

Skank. Skank.

Don't call me Skank.

I'll rip that nasty hair right outta your fucking head.

I'm his mother and his manager.

You're not my manager anymore,

and I'm not waiting for Dickie, okay.

I'm not getting any younger.

I know you don't understand it, but I had nine kids,

and I love one of you the same.

Melissa is so good in this.

You got a funny way of showing it letting him get beat up,

letting him get his hand broken.

[Woman] You're fucking busted.

You're crazy.

Fucking busted.

They're so good.

[people fighting]

It was unlike anything

that was sort of being put in front of me at that time.

And I was in Ireland doing Leap Year, I remember,

and they sent me the script,

and they're like,

They wanna talk to you about Charlene.

And I was like, Charlene gets in the fist fight Charlene?

[people fighting and yelling]

And they're like, yeah, yeah.

And I was like, I feel seen.

I was like, I'm one of seven kids.

So like we grew up kind of tough and really like,

you know, you never back down, you know,

so I, that was like a world, I mean not exactly,

but I understood that world.

So it was nice to get to sort of step into

a different type of role,

move in a different direction than some of the roles

that I'd played before that were a little bit more wide-eyed

or naive, and I'm really grateful

that I had that opportunity to do that.

[upbeat music]

[Lois] Why are you surrendering to Zod?

I'm surrendering to mankind.

There's a difference.

You let them handcuff you.

Wouldn't be much of a surrender if I resisted.

I don't know what it was about Superman growing up,

but I just loved it.

He was so earnest.

There was an idealism,

this idea of like just somebody with the best of intentions

that, you know, always tried to fight for the right.

I mean, I love that idea.

Lois was one of my favorite characters growing up.

I would pretend to be her.

What's the S stand for?

It's not an S.

On my world, it means hope.

Well here it's an S.

I really like the challenge of working in

these like really large sets

that require a lot of imagination

and a lot of world building

and get to work on this set with Henry and Michael Shannon

and all the other actors.

I was really just soaking it in.

One of the things I like about the superhero cannons is

for me it's kind of, it's almost like theater in a way.

It's like different people take on the role,

and the role doesn't belong to one person.

[Interviewer] What advice would you give

Rachel Brosnahan, who is gonna be the next Lois Lane?

Oh, just have fun.

Just have fun, and I'm sure she will.

She's wonderful, and I hope she gets to bring

her sense of humor to it.

She's got such a great sensibility, such a good actress,

but also such great natural comedic timing,

and I hope we get to see some of that in it.

[upbeat music]

[Julia] I'm sure you all remember

because it was only a few days ago

that I had a meltdown over my aspic

and vowed to transform myself into a better human being.

And then I was trussing the Poulet à la Normande.

I don't know how to type,

still don't how to type.

[Julia] Chicken livers and cream cheese.

And it fell on the floor

and the stuffing fell out into a big, gooey mess.

I haven't seen the scene in so long.

[Julia] Crazy!

Worse than the last.

The wonderful thing about working with somebody

who's written a memoir

is you have this really great resource material.

Also at some point imagination has to take over

'cause you're sort of assuming

a lot of unwritten and unspoken.

But I really loved the difference between her experience

with cooking and sort of coming to herself and her identity

and paralleling that with Julia Child

while she was spending her time in France

and writing the novel.

Bonjour.

Bonjour, Madam.

And you can really tell

that Nora Ephron has a love of food in this

because the way that the food is treated as a character

is really beautiful,

and it's kind of where I started to really focus on cooking

in my life.

So it was a a great gift.

I learned how to poach an egg,

and I know, that's the thing I probably use the most.

My daughter really likes poached eggs,

so that's been the most useful.

And an omelet.

Eggs, eggs and omelets.

[upbeat music]

You know, sometimes when I travel,

I use the name Frank Taylor.

That's my secret.

Frank Taylor?

Yeah, Frank Taylor, you know?

Frank Black, you know?

Frank Black?

Yeah, it doesn't matter.

Why are you saying all this?

This is a real baby.

Both of us.

I'm not a doctor.

I never went to medical school.

I'm not a lawyer or a Harvard graduate or a Lutheran.

I ran away from home a year and a half ago when I was 16.

Frank, you're not a Lutheran?

Brenda. [people laughing]

Sweet, sweet Brenda.

I have enough money to last us for the rest of our lives.

Well, Leo is very, very gifted as an actor.

I think we all know that.

But working with it and seeing it,

it's like so natural out of him.

It's really kind of a wonder to witness.

There's this beautiful moment.

He's climbed out the window, we're making plans.

There's like lace, and it's beautifully lit.

You're gonna take a taxi cab?

I'm gonna take a taxi.

You're gonna be there at 10:00 a.m.

I'll be there at 10:00 a.m.

No matter what.

In two days.

Two days, Brenda.

And I have such a visceral memory of it.

And then the dollar bills kept hitting Leo in the face,

like in the middle of the face.

And of course that's the time I decided

that that was the funniest thing.

And I just collapsed into giggles

on the set with Steven Spielberg.

I'm like holding up production

'cause I cannot get it together.

'cause every time a dollar bill hits him in the face,

I'm like, that's it.

I just, I don't know why.

Just watching him get hit.

That is my one regret, although it's not so bad.

But I did have to pull it together.

I think he got to the point where he saw the humor in it,

and I think it was the one that landed directly,

but he stayed super focused,

which then I thought was even funnier.

Wait, please, before you go, please tell me your name.

Please tell me.

Frank William Abagnale Junior.

And then I remember that was the day

that I got to work with Tom Hanks as well

'cause he came in and we had a scene that we did later on,

and that was pretty cool.

I just never thought I would be working

with that caliber of artists across the board

from Steven Spielberg to Tom Hanks and Leonardo DiCaprio.

It was like a fever dream, and I was so grateful,

and it was like pivotal in my life to have that opportunity

and get to do that.

[upbeat music]

Oh, we need some crunchy snacks, right?

Hi. Oh, hi.

Oh my God, Sally, what are you doing here?

I'm visiting my mom for the weekend.

Baby, this is Sally.

Yeah, Sally took over your mom's job at the gallery

after you were born.

Oh, he's super cute.

Do you just love getting to be home with him all the time?

I think it's so much bigger than just sort of one aspect

of motherhood or parenthood or relationships.

And I think that's what I loved so much about doing it.

It's an examination of community and society

and identity and relationships.

And one of the things that really drew me to it,

aside from the parenthood and motherhood aspect

is the deep need for relationship and communication,

and her relationship with her husband is really true,

very authentic.

If you've seen, if you've seen the movie,

I apologize to my husband for saying that,

but it's very, it rings very true.

And Scoot McNairy did a wonderful job

at sort of playing this person

who has all of the best of intentions

and just maybe not all of the information.

I would love to feel content,

but instead I feel like I'm just stuck

inside of a prison of my own creation where I torment myself

until I'm left binge eating Fig Newton's at midnight

to keep from crying.

And I feel like societal norms and gender expectations

and just plain old biology

have forced me to become this person that I don't recognize.

And I'm just angry all the time.

Like all the time.

You know, and I would love to direct

some of my own artwork

towards a critique of the modern day systems

that articulate this,

but my brain just doesn't function

the way that it did before I had the baby.

And I'm dumb now.

I didn't wanna talk through that 'cause she talks.

There's not a lot of breaths in that monologue.

So I was just letting it kind of be.

That's one of the things Mari did, which I really love,

is the book had such a strong inner dialogue,

and so she was able to sort of bring

this inner monologue out

through these conversations with herself.

A lot of her truth being espoused there

and really giving voice and speaking that,

which we should not speak about

is just like deep dissatisfaction and insecurities.

[upbeat music]

It's always so surreal to see sort of like a retrospective.

I'm reminded of the wonderful people

I've gotten to work with

and that I'm so grateful to have worked with.

I wanna go back and see some of the movies.

I'm kind of like, oh, I haven't seen,

I don't know when I've seen Julia and Julia last,

and I know my daughter wants to see it,

so maybe we'll put that on the playlist.

But yeah, it always feels somewhat nostalgic, right?

And I think it's that year, like I turned 50 this year,

so like everything feels like a retrospective

but also like a new beginning

'cause I feel really, really focused on looking forward.