“I’m sitting there somehow going, ‘You need to calm your pulse rate. Take a deep breath in,’” the six-time Oscar nominee said.

Amy Adams reveals how she and her dad helped save the life of a man who was stabbed in the neck

"I'm sitting there somehow going, 'You need to calm your pulse rate. Take a deep breath in,'" the six-time Oscar nominee said.

By Ryan Coleman

Ryan Coleman

Ryan Coleman is a news writer for with previous work in MUBI Notebook, Slant, and the LA Review of Books.

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June 23, 2026 11:16 p.m. ET

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Amy Adams attends an event for Apple TV's 'Cape Fear' in London on June 11. Credit:

Alan Chapman/Dave Benett/Getty

- Amy Adams is looking back on the time she helped save the life of a man who had been stabbed in the neck.

- Adams was with her father, the Army serviceman turned singer Richard Adams, when she saw a group of people yelling "he's dying" while pointing to a bleeding man.

- The actress told the hosts of the *Smartless *podcast how "everything becomes very focused in an emergency," and she and her father were able to render life-saving aid before authorities arrived.

Amy Adams has played many roles: gallerist, linguist, beauty queen, painter. But she keeps one real-life role up her sleeve in case of emergency: life saver.

The six-time Oscar nominee once had a life-or-death encounter that required quick thinking, she revealed on Monday's episode of the *Smartless** *podcast. After hearing cohost Sean Hayes' account of rendering aid to a man who'd been shot after he taped an episode of *Will & Grace*, Adams noted, "I get very focused" in such situations. "Like, everything becomes very focused in an emergency."

Hayes' fellow cohost, Will Arnett, then asked Adams to tell "that whole story about the time that you saved a dude's life." So Adams graciously complied.

Amy Adams and her father, Richard Adams, in California.

Gregg DeGuire/WireImage

"I've come across a couple of scenes where we've been sort of the first people on the scene," she began. Once, while in Santa Monica with her father, the Army serviceman-turned-singer Richard Adams, the actress recalled seeing people "yelling, 'He's dying!' and my husband [said,] 'That's blood!' I was like, Darren, you stay here with our daughter," she recalled saying to her husband of 11 years, Darren Le Gallo, about their daughter, Aviana Olea Le Gallo, now 16, while Amy and her father "ran over' to help the guy.

'He'd been stabbed in the neck, so he was bleeding, and his friends were freaking out. Luckily, we were going to the beach; we grabbed towels — my dad has been on lots of scenes [and] I guess he attracts them as well — and applied pressure."

The *Arrival *star laughed about the level of composure she was able to muster during the crisis.

"I'm sitting there somehow going, 'You need to calm your pulse rate. Take a deep breath in,'" she recalled. "I literally was just so focused. I was like, 'The more you struggle, the faster you're going to bleed. Just lay down. Let's elevate this.'"

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The stabbed man survived. Adams knows this for certain because she encountered him again a year later.

"A guy walks up to me in the restaurant. He's like, 'I heard a story that you and your dad were on the scene of a guy getting stabbed.' I was like, 'Yeah, yeah, that's so funny you heard that story.'"

The man gestured to his neck, Adams recalled, prompting her to proclaim, "'Oh my god, it's you.' And it was him... he was all teary, and he had his son with him. It was so crazy."

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The actress recently detailed another "terrifying" encounter to **: meeting Martin Scorsese for the first time while shooting the series remake of his 1991 film *Cape Fear*.

"The expletives that went through my head, I was so nervous... I think I was sweating, and I'm sure I overacted, but I wanted them to know I was committed," she recalled of encountering the director over a video call during production. "It was terrifying, but wonderful that he invested that time. But I was really trying to be cool. I'm like, 'You got this!'"

You can listen to Adams' full appearance on the *Smartless *podcast above.

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