Amy Adams Says Her “Cape Fear” Southern Accent Slips Out in Everyday Life: 'My Daughter Will Make Fun of Me' (Exclusive)
Amy Adams Says Her “Cape Fear” Southern Accent Slips Out in Everyday Life: 'My Daughter Will Make Fun of Me' (Exclusive)
Benjamin VanHooseFri, June 5, 2026 at 9:52 PM UTC
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Aviana, Darren Le Gallo and Amy Adams on June 2, 2026Credit: Gilbert Flores/Variety via Getty -
Amy Adams plays a Southern lawyer in Apple TV's Cape Fear, opposite Patrick Wilson and Javier Bardem
The star tells PEOPLE about the complexities of her role and capturing her voice
Adams says she loves her character's "complexities" and how "shame and guilt and repression" unravels her
Amy Adams channels a formidable Southern lawyer in Cape Fear, and the persona can't help but take over sometimes in her day-to-day life.
"I love playing a steely Southern woman. If there was a niche for me, that's it," she jokes to PEOPLE in an interview alongside costars Javier Bardem and Patrick Wilson. (She's dabbled in Southern roles in the past, from 2005's Junebug to 2018's Sharp Objects.)
Does that accent ever slip out in her everyday routine? "Not on purpose," says Adams, 51. "But for some reason, like, when I'm saying 'excuse me,' or if someone's done something nice, I sometimes will have a Southern accent. I'll be like, 'Thank you.' Or if I'm apologizing."
She adds, "My daughter will make fun of me. She's like, 'Really, Mom?' I'm like, 'Oh, I'm sorry. Excuse me.' I'll get very soft. I don't know." Adams shares daughter Aviana, 15, with husband Darren Le Gallo, who both joined her at the Los Angeles premiere of Cape Fear on Tuesday, June 2.
Aviana, Darren Le Gallo and Amy Adams on June 2, 2026Credit: Gilbert Flores/Variety via Getty
The Apple TV thriller series dropped its first two episodes on Friday, June 5, and Adams teases that viewers will gradually see her character Anna Bowden unravel as her vengeful former client Max Cady (Bardem) torments her family after being released from prison.
"I love the complexities of her intelligence mixed with her strength, but mixed with this past that she's sort of hiding from —or, she's moved on from without actually addressing," says Adams. "I think that sort of closeted shame and guilt and repression has sort of found her in the place she is now, where all it takes is one little push and she could fall over the edge. It's making her really confront who she is and things she's done."
Amy Adams in 'Cape Fear'Credit: Apple TV
Bardem, 57, says it was "inspiring" and creatively rewarding to work with Adams and Wilson, 52, in the limited series, which is a new take on the 1991 movie directed by Martin Scorsese.
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"You are working with amazing talent, inspiring actors and great people, beautiful human beings that care about what they do but they don't take themselves seriously in the process or make a fuss while they're doing it. It's about the work," he says. "You go there and you do your best and you try to help each other and enjoy the process. Because we have to remind ourselves that it's a luxury. It's a gift that we are given. No?"
"Yeah," says Adams, as Wilson adds, "Agreed."
Cape Fear series creator Nick Antosca says Adams and Wilson were his "dream couple" to portray the Bowdens.
"Put them together, and they seem like the perfect, stable American family. There's a strength and a stability and a competence to both of them," he explains, adding, "And at the same time ... there's this depth and fragility and hairline psychological cracks underneath the surface. Both of them brought a ton to their characters."
As the season kicks off, Antosca warns this iteration of Cape Fear is a "surprising new version of the story that is so intense and scarier than past versions."
New episodes of Cape Fear drop Fridays on Apple TV.
on People
Source: “AOL Entertainment”
