Amy Adams Speaks Out In Praise Of ‘Difficult Women’ In ‘Sharp Objects’
Amy Adams has embarked on a new role as a “difficult, complicated woman,” playing the role of Camille in the HBO adaptation of Gillian Flynn’s novel Sharp Object and she loves it. In this role, instead of going for meek or mild, Adams plays complicated. In a world that is full of bad boy parts in movies and television, Gillian Flynn had been told that making Sharp Objects into a film or series was a non-starter.
About Sharp Objects, Flynn was told that nobody wanted to watch or read about a character like Camille, she told the Hollywood Reporter.
“No one wants to read a book about difficult women.”
But HBO programming president, Casey Bloys was interested in presenting Amy Adams as Camille to a broader audience, which he thinks will start a dialogue about more complex female characters.
“I can’t think of a more complicated female lead. There are a lot of celebrated, self-destructive male leads out there, but it’s going be very interesting to see a woman really wrestling with her demons like that.”
Adams says that inhabitting Camille, who is a cutter with other personality layers was personally taxing, and most days she left the set needing a cry.
Adams says that Camille haunted her, especially in the early hours of the morning.
“Because Camille isn’t someone who’s going to cry in front of people, she’s going to internalize that pain. I felt like I had residual pain from her more than pain playing her. I also tend to be a sufferer of, like, 2 to 3 o’clock in the morning insomnia, and that’s when Camille would catch up with me. I’d wake up in the middle of the night and have like unexplained terror or self-loathing and I’d have to work my way out of it.”
And because Camille has scars all over her body from cutting and self-mutilation, Adams had to undergo another level of prep to play Camille which involved having prosthetic scars glued on each morning. Add to that the fact that Camille doesn’t take good care of herself, and indulges in excess of food and alcohol, Adams adds that to play the role, she wanted to be a bit puffy.
“She eats Kit Kats and drinks beer, whiskey and whatever else you put in front of her. She’s bloated.”
But Amy adds that Camille as a role is a change for her because, for a while, she sought out roles that were much simpler and subdued, says PageSix. Adams explains that she played roles like nuns to avoid being propositioned on the job.
“There’s a reason I started playing nuns and virgins. I was like, ‘I’m not putting up with that anymore.'”
But Adams says she’s no longer questioning what she said, what she did, or what she was wearing to accept responsibility for the bad behavior of men. Amy Adams has decided to use her voice and her platform to advocate for when who don’t have that luxury. She explains that she is now choosing roles that feel right to her, and ones that can help others.
