Chasing Amy

Background:

“It’s not a normal voice. It doesn't fit into people’s preconceptions about what a woman’s voice should sound like. My mom doesn’t think I have an unusual voice, though. I’m sure it’s helped me get some roles. But Chasing Amy, I almost didn’t get. There was concern the voice would grate on some people, which some critics said it did.” Joey Lauren Adams

Blue-eyed beauty with pillow lips and sex-kitten-on-helium voice Joey Lauren Adams is an American actress/director and writer who is best-remembered as bisexual Alyssa Jones in the Kevin Smith-helmed Chasing Amy (1997). Her performance won favorable reviews and Adams took home a Chicago Film Critics Association award and a Las Vegas Film Critics Society award, as well as received nominations at the Golden Globes and MTV Movie Awards. One of the least known, but most talented actresses of her age, Adams is also popular for playing roles in Dazed and Confused (1993), S.F.W. (1994), the smash Mallrats (1995) and the Adam Sandler hit comedy Big Daddy (1999). On the small screen, Adams is perhaps most known to TV audiences as the woman who took Bud Bundy’s virginity in “Married…With Children” (1991-92).

The 35-year-old actress recently directed and wrote the movie Come Early Morning (2006) and starred with Laz Alonso in Love, Fear and Rabbits (2006). Furthermore, Adams will soon be cast in the starring role in Peyton Reed’s comedy/romance film The Break Up (2006).

More personally, Adams, who was arrested on suspicion of driving under the influence on November 28, 2003, has been romantically linked with director/actor Kevin Smith (dated from 1995-1997) and Hollywood A-list actor Vince Vaughn (became involved while on the set of 1999’s film A Cool, Dry Place, no longer together).


Country Music Fan

Childhood and Family:

In Little Rock, Arkansas, Joey Lauren Adams was born on January 6, 1971. She developed an early passion for acting and began performing at a regional church as a child. When she was a teenager, the Arkansas girl left her family and made her way to Los Angeles to become an actress. 5’ 6” Joey, who wrote and sang the song “Alive” to the soundtrack of the 1997 film Chasing Amy, is a passionate country music admirer.


Big Daddy

Career:

Arriving in Hollywood in 1988, the Little Rock native Joey Lauren Adams was cast in the horror film by director John Boorman, Exorcist II: The Heretic, at the tender age of six, opposite the film’s star Linda Blair and Richard Burton. Fourteen years later, Adams made her TV debut as a sexy teenager named Mona in the Fox sitcom “Top of the Heap” (1991) and reprised her Mona role for the short-lived Fox spin off “Vinnie and Bobby” the next year. However, it was a recurring role on “Married…With Children” (1991-92), as the woman who stole Bud Bundy’s virginity, which won Adams notice.

In 1993, after appearing in the comedy-sci-fi film Coneheads, which starred Dan Aykroyd, Jane Curtin and Michelle Burke, she had her first breakthrough role as one of the high school cronies of Parker Posey in the Richard Linklater-directed Dazed and Confused (1993), followed by another small role in The Program (1993), playing James Caan’s daughter Louanne. Next up, she starred in the independent film The Pros & Cons of Breathing, acted with Eric Stolz and Meg Tilly in Sleep With Me and delivered a scene-stealing performance as Stephen Dorff’s former girlfriend in S.F.W. (all in 1994) before being featured in the smash hit Mallrats (1995), which marked Adams’s first collaboration with her then-boyfriend, director Kevin Smith.
During 1996-97, Adams could be seen on TV playing the recurring role of Darby, the singer lover of Rick (James Marsden) in the ABC drama series “Second Noah” while also continuing her film work by appearing in the comedy Drawing Flies (1996), Jason Bloom’s Bio-Dome (1996) and Michael (1996), starring John Travolta and Andie MacDowell.

Adams’ movie career, however, didn’t receive real impact until 1997 when she rejoined Kevin Smith as the female lead in the View Askew-produced Chasing Amy. Adams’ bright performance as Alyssa Jones, a lesbian comic book artist who falls in love with a man, garnered the actress appreciation not only from screen co-star Ben Affleck, but also from audiences and critics alike. For her efforts, she was handed a Chicago Film Critics Association and a Las Vegas Film Critics Society award for Most Promising Actress, as well as earned a MTV Movie and a Golden Globe nomination. The huge success effectively put Adams on the Hollywood map.

Lured by the victory, Adams was cast in the starring role, opposite Vince Vaughn and Monica Potter, in the independent drama A Cool, Dry Place (1998), playing Vaughn’s girlfriend, and as an attorney, as well as Adam Sandler’s love interest, in the hit comedy Big Daddy (1999). In the new millennium, Adams went on to pursue her movie career though most of her films were either box office failures or little-seen projects. She played Donna Marie in Bruno (2000), acted in the bomb Beautiful (2000), costarred with Adrian Grenier and Sarah Michelle Gellar in James Toback’s Harvard Man (2001), provided the voice of Squirrel in the animated Dr. Dolittle 2 (2001), teamed up with director Anne Heche in Reaching Normal (2001), supported Matthew Modine and James Caan in the disappointing In the Shadows (2001) and returned to the Alyssa Jones role in Kevin Smith’s Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back (2001), which starred Jason Mewes and the director himself. She then appeared as a mother in Grand Champion (2002), costarred in the crime-thriller Beeper (2002) opposite Harvey Keitel, worked with Jon Favreau in writer-director Steve Anderson’s The Big Empty (2003) and found herself acting with Mimi Roger and Sean Patrick Flanery in The Gunman (2004). In 2005, Adams made a guest appearance in an episode of “Veronica Mars,” which starred Kristen Bell.
Recently, the actress made her directorial debut with the film Come Early Morning (2006), where she also served as a writer. The drama/romance film, which starred Ashley Judd, Jeffrey Donovan, Diane Ladd, Tim Blake Nelson and Laura Prepon, has been chosen for the Sundance Film Festival. She was also seen acting in the comedy Love, Fear and Rabbits (2006), starring alongside Laz Alonso. Adams is scheduled to have a lead in the forthcoming The Break Up (2006), a comedy/romance film helmed by Peyton Reed.


Awards:

• Chicago Film Critics Association: Most Promising Actress, for Chasing Amy, 1997
• Las Vegas Film Critics Society: Most Promising Actress, Chasing Amy, 1997