ODEON Magazine November 2016 | Page 13

It’s good to talk
Love. Life. Aliens. A close encounter with Amy Adams!

A

my Adams was contemplating
a break from acting when
she received the screenplay
for Arrival, but the story
was so compelling that she couldn’t
turn it down. Here, the five-time
Oscar nominee chats about the film...
What made you take the part?
It was the heart of the story. It spoke
to me really deeply in the core of who
I am and I felt that I really had to do
it. I was really drawn to it.

Photo: © REX FEATURES

How did you prepare
for the role?
I met with a linguist...
and I did a lot of
reading. I didn’t
really understand,

from a sociological point of view, what
linguistics was, so that was fun to learn. I
now understand much better how [Louise]
was able to then decipher a language.
What was it like working with Denis?
Denis is another reason that I was
attracted to this. He had a wonderful
way of describing to me what the aliens
would look like and how the language
would be expressed – he’s a very special
director, a very special man.
The way he saw [the film] was how
I read it, which isn’t always
the case. He really wanted to
tell it as an intimate story
of this woman, it just
happens to be placed
in this amazing
sci-fi universe.

“The story
spoke to me
really deeply”