The Disney film "Enchanted" asks what would happen if a princess fell down a well that led from her animated, Technicolor fairy tale world to the real New York City.
The junket for the Disney film "Enchanted" asked what would happen if a princess fell down a well that led to a suite at the Beverly Hilton, where she was made to do a lot of promotion for a Disney movie called "Enchanted."
The junket, needless to say, had more concerned-looking women in black, wearing wireless headsets. But in the middle of both was the poised and cheerful Amy Adams.
Adams, more than ever, seems an actress on the verge. Including "Enchanted," a romantic comedy in which she steals the heart of a divorce lawyer played by "Grey's Anatomy's" Patrick Dempsey, Adams has a co-starring role in Mike Nichols' upcoming "Charlie Wilson's War" and plays a nun in "Doubt," the film adaptation of the John Patrick Shanley play.
For Adams, 33, all of this momentum -- "Enchanted," which opened Wednesday, is earning her unprecedented reviews -- follows her gate-crashing appearance at the 2006 Oscars, where she was nominated for supporting actress in the tiny indie film "Junebug."
"Who is that, again?" viewers of the telecast that night no doubt wondered.
"That" was Adams, who was still living in the starter West Hollywood apartment she'd rented after moving here from Minneapolis, having cut her professional teeth in dinner theater, Broadway-style performances, eight shows a week.
Reflecting on it all, surrounded by the apparatus of Hollywood, she said: "I sometimes feel like a bird on the wind, where I've just got my wings out, I'm letting it take me. It's good but I think that as I get older I've gotta learn how to flap my wings, kind of."
She was wearing a white robe over a blue dress, lest her lunch get on her clothes before a series of on-camera interviews. Her rosy cheeks conveyed Snow White; her lap conveyed her 3-month-old rescue puppy, Sadie. The suite conveyed hair maintenance equipment for the management of Adams' strawberry blond tresses.
Against romantic comedy queens Julia Roberts or Jennifer Aniston, Adams is more of a throwback to Hollywood good girls of the past, such as Doris Day, Jane Wyman and perhaps Audrey Hepburn. This might have something to do with her roots in musical theater, the post-high school years in Minneapolis dinner theater.
