Amy Adams Gets the Highest Praise Possible in 'Vanity Fair'

Later this year, Oscar nominee Amy Adams, who became a household name thanks to Enchanted, will take on her highest-profile dramatic role to date in John Patrick Shanley's film version of his stage play Doubt. This month, Adams has to settle for the cover of Vanity Fair.The black and white pictorial is an homage to Hollywood's golden era, with Adams evoking the untouchable and unknowable stars of yesteryear. It's a role reversal for the an actress with a reputation for being rather nonplussed by all the attention. “I’ve been here for 10 years," she says of how she handles the new rush of fame. "I’m just grateful I didn’t have to spend my early 20s in front of paparazzi cameras.” As Sister James in Doubt, Adams has to pinball between Meryl Streep's Sister Aloysius and Philip Seymour Hoffman's Father Flynn. It's the sort of role that a lot of actors could get lost in merely by the presence of those castmates. And if you're looking for her bona fides, she's getting good press from someone who knows a thing or two about acting.“She’s a very, very skillful actress. She’s deft," insists Streep. She has all those things we should know about but that we’re not supposed to talk about—technique. Everyone has a different approach, but she was very, very well prepared. I have to tell you: it’s not common with younger actors.” Streep says, “It’s breathtaking, her radiance. It made it very simple for Sister Aloysius to look at her and imagine her own untrammeled self before the world had gotten to her, and to feel protective of her." But wait: There's more. "(T)here’s a gigantic intelligence dictating what line she won’t cross, and where she will go off. She’s got a shape in her mind for the arc of this character’s life, a little map for where she’s going to go," explains the most-nominated actor in Academy Awards history. “I was just very impressed. She’s the real thing.” So is Streep, of course; in my first round of unofficial Oscar picks, I have her winning her third Best Actress award this year. I have no doubt she'll be nominated for Doubt, which, incidentally, will be in theaters beginning December 12th. And pick up this month's issue of Vanity Fair to read a little bit more about Amy Adams.