Amy Adams is poised to get an Oscar nomination for her upcoming movie Nightbitch
Amy Adams has been a series of different characters over the course of her career.
From Lois Lane and Enchanted’s Giselle, to Amelia Earhart and Dr. Anna Fox, there doesn’t seem to be a role that she can’t play.
And now, in Adams’ first horror since her supporting role in 2000’s Psycho Beach Party, the Golden Globe Award-winning actress is Mother in Nightbitch.
Scoot McNairy stars as Adams on-screen husband, with Love Life actress Zoë Chao as one of Mother’s mom friends.
Nightbitch is based on the 2021 book of the same name that was penned by Rachel Yoder – a dark comedy horror about a stay-at-home mom who gives up her career to look after her child while her husband continues to work.
But things take an unusual turn when Mother (Adams) begins to really lean into maternal instincts, which go on to manifest in canine form.
Yep. Adams turns into a dog in Nightbitch… or does she?
Directed by Marielle Heller, Heller said she wanted to leave the question of if Mother really turns into a dog or not in the movie down to the viewer.
Amy Adams plays a burnout stay-at-home mom in Nightbitch (Searchlight Pictures)
“I think it’s kind of nice if everybody gets to make their own conclusion,” she told UNILAD.
“I sort of love the ambiguity that I felt in the book when I read Rachel’s book. And so the aim of the movie was also to not fill in all of the answers for you, but I’ll leave a certain amount of that up to discussion.”
Heller, who is a mother herself, went on to note that when you have a child there’s an ‘instinct that takes over’.
“When I had my son, suddenly I felt these like instincts of like, I’ll protect him at all costs,” the director said.
Marielle Heller and Amy Adams at the LA premiere of Nightbitch (Amy Sussman/Getty Images)
Heller went on: “There’s like something deep, animalistic inside that’s ancient, that’s coming through me, that’s telling me how to do this job of being a mother, and I think that’s what I’ll say about how much the dog stuff, just it comes from that place of admitting we’re animals.”
Elsewhere, Adams revealed how she prepared for playing the unusual role that sees her eat food out of a bowl like a dog with her son.
Speaking to UNILAD, Adams explained that there had to be ‘a willingness of openness’.
“I think one of the great things of this role is that the preparation was really just a willingness to be open,” she explained.
Some have suggested that Adams might be poised for an Oscar nomination for the film (Steve Granitz/FilmMagic)
“I did all the preparation as far as, like, all my normal work of digging into the character’s past and building a life and creating a reality in which she could exist in this way. But then [Heller] did such a great job at doing like tonal shifts and then also working with the kids and working with the dogs.”
Adams added: “It was just a real lesson in flexibility and being open.
“That was sort of how I prepared – it’s just mentally understanding to expect the unexpected and be open to it, which is sort of like parenthood.”
