By Ellen McCarthy
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, March 20, 2009

Ten days after the Academy Awards, with two Oscar nominations in the bag, one Vanity Fair cover spread under her belt and three films set for release in the next six months, Amy Adams has this to say about her life: "It appears so much different when an outsider sees in."

It appears glamorous and charmed. And easy.

Adams won critical acclaim, and that first Oscar nod, with the 2005 indie favorite "Junebug." Two years later, "Enchanted" turned the redhead into a beloved fairy tale princess. Mike Nichols gave her a role in 2007's "Charlie Wilson's War," and the next year John Patrick Shanley cast her opposite Philip Seymour Hoffman and Meryl Streep in "Doubt," for which she was once again named an Oscar nominee.

"Yes, I get to do a lot of really fantastic things at this point in my life," she says by phone from Los Angeles. "But there were a lot of years where it didn't look quite so glamorous -- very recently."

Years that made her newest role, as a struggling single mom who starts a crime-scene cleanup business in "Sunshine Cleaning," not altogether foreign.

It's important here to note that Adams, 34, spent almost a dozen years trying to make it as an actress when "Junebug" finally came along. That she took a job at Hooters to pay the rent and worked in dinner theaters in Colorado and Minnesota for six years before mustering the courage to move to Hollywood.

"I definitely had to struggle to make ends meet," she says. "But I think I was always okay with the struggle. I really enjoyed what I did."

In "Sunshine Cleaning," an independent film that caught critics' attention at the Sundance Film Festival, Adams is teamed with Emily Blunt and Alan Arkin, who play her sister and father. Together the three are an imperfect family scraping to get by in a dusty New Mexico town.

"I thought it was a really interesting story line, and I thought the exploration of family dynamics and of sisters was very appealing," she explains.

Adams says her decade of odd jobs and only semi-reliable work certainly helped prepare her for the role -- and for the changes success has brought to her own life.

"I think at this point I can safely say, 'Yeah, I'm very glad for those years.' It really helped inform who I am," she says. "It helps you keep it in perspective."

But, she adds: "If you'd asked me then, I would've said, 'No. I'd rather just have it easier.' "

Life is different now, Adams says, but it's not without challenges. These days the actress who worked for so long to get in the spotlight sometimes wishes she could shake it.

"It's a change in the sense that there's a little less privacy wherever you go," she says. "You get a sense of people watching you and that can be uncomfortable, because I enjoy being a voyeur. And it's harder and harder to be a voyeur to the world the more recognizable you become."

But Adams considers herself lucky to have had time to develop real friendships before fame struck. She met her fiance, Darren Le Gallo, in acting class and has been with him for more than six years. "I don't have as much time to spend on myself and my friendships as I would hope," she says. "But I'm really fortunate that I have a really great support system, and it's been there for a while."

Next out for Adams is "Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian," in which she plays Amelia Earhart. And "Julie & Julia," the Nora Ephron-directed comedy that reunites her with Streep is set for release in August. Based on the memoir by Julie Powell, the film follows a young woman through a year of trying to cook every recipe in Julia Child's "Mastering the Art of French Cooking."

"This is a girl who's looking at turning 30 and sort of reevaluating her life -- and that's something I really connected with," Adams says, noting she was that age when "Junebug" hit theaters. "When I turned 30, it was an amazing year for me, an amazing year of growth."

Just before that point she'd been thinking seriously of moving on professionally -- trying "something other than a film career."

Fate and that Oscar nomination intervened.

And still she is happy it didn't come too early -- or in reality, too easily.

"It gives you a real sense of accomplishment," she says. "I have a real sense of accomplishment."