What Amy Adams Learned In The Doghouse

In Nightbitch, Amy Adams goes for broke — and we’re not just talking about eschewing makeup. Adams throws vanity out the window, embracing the everyday body horror of matrescence in gory detail, then ratchets it up to an 11 (there will be pus). She even grew her own chin hairs for the role — and while more significant changes, like the extra nipples studded down her torso, required outside intervention — early viewers have expressed shock at her dedication. “I’ve had some pretty funny interactions,” Adams, 50, says. “I’m very comfortable with myself at this point in my life, and I knew that people were going to have thoughts about it, but I really love what we were able to capture.”

The story, adapted from Rachel Yoder’s novel of the same name, follows Adams’ Mother (as in the book, she goes unnamed), an artist suffocating in the role of dutiful stay-at-home mom and in a kind of postpartum-perimenopausal purgatory. Though she loves her toddler-aged son, caring for him round-the-clock with only the perfunctory help from her husband pushes her to the brink, mentally and physically — so much so, she begins to suspect that she’s turning into a dog.

Has she lost it? The film, out Dec. 6, suggests the opposite: As givers of life, women are inherently mythical. In a clip shared exclusively with Bustle, Adams’ character is overcome by this epiphany in the midst of a conversation about childbirth, and drops a bombshell on the other women in her mommy group: “Do you ever feel like the big secret is that we are gods?” For a moment, they’re skeptical. Then the realization dawns. “I am pretty powerful.”

For Adams, who shares a 14-year-old daughter with husband Darren Le Gallo, the role offered a chance to return to the early years of motherhood. “Even holding a child, it’s like you immediately go back into the posture, and it was really wonderful to get to revisit those times,” she says. But more importantly, it set her on a path to what she calls “radical acceptance” — a difficult mindset to achieve for any woman, let alone one in the public eye. “I’m not judging myself anymore,” she says. “I mean, I still will, but then I confront myself with that and say, ‘Hey, let’s stop the negative self-talk and let’s just accept it for what it is.’

“I used to get done with interviews and I would just go over everything I said. And now I just don’t, and I enjoy interviews a lot more now,” she says with a convincing gives-no-f*cks smile.

Check out the clip below — and hear more from Adams, who discusses her relationship with her own daughter, how audiences are reacting to Nightbitch, and the perennial interest in another genre-bending film, 2016’s Arrival.

Like in the book, your character doesn’t have a name. She’s just Mother, and it’s very much an everywoman’s story, set in an everytown. Did that change how you wanted to play the character?

I think her situation is very specific, but it was important to me to try to be as authentic and truthful as possible to her situation and her reality, and I think in telling the truth in that way, people can identify with it because they sense there’s an intention of [authenticity]. It sounds weird to have an intention of authenticity because an intention would remove it being authentic, but I think it also speaks so much to where the character’s at in her life, where she feels that her identity is wrapped up in that. And she doesn’t have a singular identity outside of Mother in that moment. That’s why she starts to have this internalized ferocity.

Yeah. And we’re particularly bad at identifying ourselves outside of our careers and responsibilities to each other.

I’ve been there.

You talked about wanting to see people identify with the character. Do you have an ideal viewer for the film?

What’s been so great about the response — I’ve been so curious because I know the responses have been very polar opposites at times — but there doesn’t seem to be a singular audience. I know absolutely women are identifying [with it], even women without children are coming up to me and saying, “I don’t have kids, but I’ve been in this place in my life during different times of transition.” And we’re getting a lot of really positive feedback from men as well. A man that I know who’s raising his kids by himself came up to me and he goes, “I never thought I’d say this, but I’m Nightbitch.” I was like, “You actually — I think I’ll give you that.”

My husband, when he saw it, echoed a lot of what I’m hearing from a lot of men — really identifying with the relationship aspect of the story. When communication breaks down and we’re not authentically expressing our needs and frustrations, how it can just erode the relationship.

Since the movie isn’t in wide release yet, the reactions thus far are from a relatively small audience. In the past, how have you known once a movie’s out in the world that it’s connected with audiences — not just critics and reviewers, but people?

I can usually tell when I’m in airports. If people are coming up to you in airports, I feel like it’s connected.

What’s your biggest airport hit?

Meaning what do people come up to me about? It’s really varied and kind of surprising. I get a lot of people coming up to me depending on where I am in the country. I’ll get Trouble with the Curve. I get a lot of Leap Year, a lot of Enchanted, and then Arrival seems to be the one that people really respond to.

That’s a good one.

Yeah. I like all the movies I’ve done for different reasons, but Arrival holds a special place in my heart.

Why?

I think the experience of making it with Denis [Villeneuve]. He was a really wonderful director to work with. The set was so surreal and so quiet and what was happening on set really translates to the film, that sense of otherworldliness, so it just sits differently. But I get something from each film.

Obviously, Nightbitch is a movie that’s interested in women’s self-actualization beyond their roles as wives and mothers, and it’s coming out at a time when women’s rights are under threat. I wonder if you think about how a movie is going to be received given the political tenor of the moment.

I mean, in our current political tenor, it’s hard not to be aware of how this movie might hit. I’m just approaching it with a lot of curiosity and openness to people’s thoughts and experiences. I think what this movie celebrates is women having the agency to pursue joy in whatever manner that is. If your joy is staying at home and raising your kids? Great. Just pursue whatever that joy is for you. I think that it really supports that as opposed to expressing that there’s just one way to do it. Everybody’s experience is so different and so singular. We really embrace that with this film because all the women making this film all have different realities in their life.

I also think that the film finds a way to say — not exactly that you can have it all — that you can find ways to have multiple things.

I forget who told me this — and it might’ve been Susan Sarandon — it’s like, “You can have it all, but you can’t have it all at the same time.” So I’ve always thought about that and creating balance in my life and creating a lot of space for the things that I need to do, and it’s been great with my daughter. And now that she’s a teenager, she is starting to understand that, and it’s really wonderful to be in this place with her.

Now that she’s in this place, what is it that you want for yourself in the next couple of years?

I just want to be as present as possible in each moment. I am very aware that she’s — I’m going to start crying — she’s going to go to college and she’s going to leave me. That’s starting to hit really hard, so just really creating times for us together.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.