Five-time Oscar-nominated actor Amy Adams has proven her mettle in films such as American Hustle and The Master. Despite this and the fact that her latest role as a linguist in sci-fi film Arrival is building a lot of buzz, the actor feels that it is inauthentic to campaign for herself during Hollywood awards season.
“I have to make it something other than myself because promoting myself just feels inauthentic to me,” Adams said, adding she would rather bring attention to actors that are not on the poster for the film.
Talking about her role, she said she wrongly assumed that linguists were interpreters or just translators. “But they really do work with language barriers, communication barriers, the way that we, different cultures, approach language,” mentioned Adams.
She shared how learning Mandarin helped her understand the nuances of linguistics better. “When I learned Mandarin, the small amount that I learned for the film, just changing the tone of your voice changes the entire meaning of a sentence, and that’s something that speaking English, we don’t necessarily understand.”
Arrival revolves around a team of investigators led by a linguistics professor Louise Banks (Adams) when giant spaceships touchdown in 12 locations around the world, leading the team to attempt to communicate with the extraterrestrial visitors and unravel the mystery.
Adams shared the film is even more relevant now than when they shot it. “It has become relevant, and it’s become clear on a day-to-day basis how the divisions we create (then) create fear and violence. It doesn’t really move us forward as a world society.”
The actor shared she is extremely excited for Disenchanted, the upcoming sequel to her 2007 animated Disney film Enchanted. “The cast members, if we’re lucky enough to get everybody back, we’ve all had such lives we’ve all lived in the past 10 years, and it’ll be really interesting to see. I like the title, I think it’s timely, I feel like it’s perfect.”
