Amy Lou Adams (born August 20, 1974) is an American actress. Known for both her comedic and dramatic roles, she has been featured three times in annual rankings of the world's highest-paid actresses. She has received various accolades, including two Golden Globe Awards, and has been nominated for six Academy Awards, seven British Academy Film Awards, and two Primetime Emmy Awards.

Adams began her career as a dancer in dinner theater, which she pursued from 1994 to 1998, and made her film debut with a supporting part in the dark comedy Drop Dead Gorgeous (1999). She made guest appearances in television and took on "mean girl" parts in low-budget feature films. Her first major role was in Steven Spielberg's biopic Catch Me If You Can (2002), but she was unemployed for a year afterward. Her breakthrough came when she portrayed a loquacious pregnant woman in the independent comedy-drama Junebug (2005), for which she received her first Academy Award nomination.

The musical fantasy film Enchanted (2007), where Adams played a cheerful princess-to-be, was her first success in a leading role. She followed it by playing other naïve, optimistic women in films like the drama Doubt (2008), and subsequently played more assertive parts to positive reviews in the sports film The Fighter (2010) and the psychological drama The Master (2012). From 2013 to 2017, she portrayed Lois Lane in superhero films set in the DC Extended Universe. She won two consecutive Golden Globe Awards for Best Actress for playing a seductive con artist in the crime film American Hustle (2013) and painter Margaret Keane in the biopic Big Eyes (2014). Further acclaim came for playing a linguist in the science fiction film Arrival (2016), a self-harming reporter in the HBO miniseries Sharp Objects (2018), and Lynne Cheney in the satire Vice (2018).

Adams' stage roles include the Public Theater's revival of Into the Woods in 2012 and the West End theatre revival of The Glass Menagerie in 2022. In 2014, she was named one of the 100 most influential people in the world by Time, and featured in the Forbes Celebrity 100 list.

Adams was born on August 20, 1974, in Aviano, Italy, to American parents Kathryn and Richard Adams, while her father was serving in the U.S. Army. She has four brothers and two sisters and is the middle of the seven children. After moving from one army base to another, she and her family settled in Castle Rock, Colorado when she was eight. After leaving the army, her father sang professionally in nightclubs and restaurants. Adams has described going to her father's shows and drinking Shirley Temples at the bar as among her fondest childhood memories. The family was poor; they camped and hiked together, and performed amateur skits written by her father or sometimes by her mother. Adams was enthusiastic about the plays and always played the lead.

Adams was raised as a Mormon until her parents divorced in 1985 and left the church. She did not have strong religious beliefs, but has said that she valued her upbringing for teaching her love and compassion. After the breakup, her father moved to Arizona and remarried, while the children remained with their mother. Her mother became a semi-professional bodybuilder who took the children with her to the gym when she trained. Adams has compared her uninhibited early years with her siblings to Lord of the Flies. Describing herself as a "scrappy, tough kid", she has said she fought frequently with other children.

Adams attended Douglas County High School in Colorado. She was not academically inclined, but was interested in the creative arts and sang in the school choir. She competed in track and gymnastics, harbored ambitions of becoming a ballerina, and trained as an apprentice at the local David Taylor Dance Company. She disliked high school and kept mostly to herself. After graduation, she and her mother moved to Atlanta. She did not go to college, to her parents' disappointment, and she later regretted not pursuing higher education. At age 18, she realized she was not gifted enough to be a professional ballerina, and found musical theater more to her taste. One of her first stage roles was in a community theater production of Annie, which she did as a volunteer. To support herself, she worked as a greeter at a Gap store. She also worked as a waitress at Hooters, but left the job when she saved enough money to buy a used car.

Adams began her professional career as a dancer in a 1994 dinner theater production of A Chorus Line in Boulder, Colorado. The job required her to wait on tables before getting up on stage to perform. She enjoyed singing and dancing, but disliked waitressing and ran into trouble when a fellow dancer, whom she considered a friend, made false accusations about her to the director. Adams said, "I never really knew what the lies were. I only knew I kept getting called in and lectured about my lack of professionalism." She lost the job but went on to perform in dinner theater at Denver's Heritage Square Music Hall and Country Dinner Playhouse. During a performance of Anything Goes at the Country Dinner Playhouse in 1995, she was spotted by Michael Brindisi, the president and artistic director of the Minneapolis-based Chanhassen Dinner Theater, who offered her a job there. Adams moved to Chanhassen, Minnesota, where she performed in the theater for the next three years. She loved the "security and schedule" of the job, and has said that she learned tremendously from it. Nonetheless, the grueling work took its toll on her: "I had a lot of recurring injuries—bursitis in my knees, pulled muscles in my groin, my adductor and abductor. My body was wearing out."