The career arc of ’princess 275’ might be the most exciting one in Hollywood today, writes
in the skies above Earth one day. Adams plays Dr Louise Banks, a linguist who’s enlisted by the US military for the purpose of saying hello. Given the visitors’ lack of anything that looks or sounds like human writing or speech, though, working out how will not be easy.
The story behind it was inspired by the Sapir-Whorf complex: a theory which holds that, since each language is a way of decoding the world, learning new ones might unlock new ways of mentally decoding it. (Very roughly, it’s a developed version of the idea that each tongue has a strong suit: for instance English, with its away from archetypes and let’s tell women’s stories.”
To that end, Adams has taken on her first active producing role on Sharp Objects, a forthcoming HBO miniseries based on the same-named novel by Gillian “Gone Girl” Flynn.
As the fourth of seven children, born on an Italian army base and raised in suburban Colorado by Mormon parents who divorced when she was 12, Adams is someone for whom adapting comes naturally. After her father left the army he became a club singer; her mother was a gym instructor and amateur bodybuilder: Adams remembers waiting backstage at competitions with her siblings while her mother flexed on the other side of the curtain.
She more or less went straight from high school to the dinner theatre gig.
After tearing a muscle in her knee, she auditioned for a film that was shooting locally to keep working while still giving herself time to heal. When the cameras started rolling, she was bitten.
“When I realised I could use what I’d learnt to pursue film acting — and not just chase a dream, but make a living — I just became completely obsessed.”
She moved to Los Angeles at 24, got an agent, and hit the audition circuit. Three years on,