Adams reckons she could have been a doctor.
Amy Adams has spent years playing princesses, con artists and journalists on screen. As it turns out, she’s also surprisingly good in a real-life emergency.
Appearing on the SmartLess podcast, the actor revealed she once helped save the life of a man who had been stabbed in the neck after finding herself among the first people on the scene of the attack in Santa Monica.
The incident happened as Adams, her husband, daughter and her father were leaving a restaurant.
“There were people yelling, ‘He’s dying,’” Adams recalled. At first, the situation seemed almost unreal, until her husband pointed out the obvious: “That’s blood.”
While her husband stayed back with their daughter, Adams and her father rushed to help. Armed with nothing more than a few beach towels, the pair attempted to slow the bleeding while waiting for emergency services.
What happened next sounds like Adams might have missed her true calling.
“I was so focused,” Adams said. “I was like, ‘The more you struggle, the faster you’re going to bleed. Just lay down.’”
Remarkably, she later discovered he survived.
About a year after the incident, a stranger approached her in a restaurant and asked if she was the woman who had helped a stabbing victim in Santa Monica.
Adams immediately recognised him.
“It was him,” she said. “And he had his son with him. It was so crazy.”
The story also revealed something else about the actor: she nearly pursued a very different career.
Before acting took over, Adams had ambitions of working in emergency medicine. The dream apparently fell apart thanks to one obstacle many aspiring doctors know well: maths.
“I still wish I could have been a doctor,” she admitted, explaining that she had always wanted to work in emergency care because she thrives under pressure.
“I’m not that smart,” she joked. “But I’m that focused.”
Even now, Adams says she still imagines a future connected to healthcare. Once she steps away from acting, she hopes to volunteer at a hospital, fulfilling at least part of the career path she never got to take.
Knowing this story, emergency medicine’s loss may have been Hollywood’s gain…but only just.
