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Amy Adams thinks we hate her. “Red hair is not a good thing here, is it?” says Hollywood’s hottest ­redhead.

“You call them gingers, right? I’ve had insults. My father is nice enough to inform me of everything online.”

Insults such as? “Oh, ­something like I’m an ugly ginger and I should have stayed blonde.”

Eek. On ­behalf of our nation, I apologise.

Still, going ginger seems to have worked well for natural blonde Adams.

Since appearing as Leo Di-Caprio’s wide-eyed wife in Catch Me If You Can and bagging an Oscar nomi­nation for indie drama Junebug, she’s become Hollywood’s hottest property.

In the last year she’s sung at the Oscars, been on the cover of Vanity Fair, ­featured in every hot list ­going, and, as of last week, bagged her second Oscar nomination for heavyweight drama Doubt, in which she stars opposite Philip Seymour ­Hoffman and Meryl Streep.

When she was blonde, she starred in Cruel Intentions 2 and Psycho Beach Party. Was it really so simple as changing hue?

“That might be it, unfortunately!” says the 34-year-old. “It’s easier to accept a quirky redhead than a dumb blonde”.

Adams seems to have made a niche for herself with characters who, while not dumb, have a certain wide-eyed innocence.

Doubt – in which she plays a nun at a school who fears a priest (Hoffman) has abused a student – is another case in point. “I’m attracted to people who are open and who trust their instincts. People are saying I make a choice to play innocent characters, but it’s something that’s projected on you, not a choice.”

While Catch Me If You Can should, as director Steven Spielberg noted, have been her breakout role, she was out of work for a year afterwards, and, while filming the low budget Junebug, considered giving up Hollywood and heading back to theatre roles in New York.

“I felt I was losing my authenticity,” she says. “It was all about getting the job. I didn’t like me, and I had made the ­decision that it wasn’t going to eat me up any more.”

Adams – who speaks in a whisper – isn’t quite the wallflower her roles suggest.

She sought out Doubt writer-director John Patrick Shanley when she heard the nun’s role was up for grabs (“It’s been told as this unseemly tale of ambition! I just wanted the role”) and ­admits it’s not the first time (the others “didn’t work out”).

And, besides, when she started off in LA: “I was the naughty girl all the time!” ­Notably in what would have been a spin-off series to Cruel Intentions called Manchester Prep (“It was cancelled because it was too racy, and now look what’s on TV! Gossip Girl is like hardcore compared to what we were doing!”) that ended up as Cruel Intentions 2.

Still, after all the teething troubles with fame (when she was nominated for the Oscar, her mother – a Starbucks waitress – told all her customers about it: “Enjoy your coffee, my daughter was nominated for an Oscar”), she’s set for key roles in Night at the Museum 2 and opposite Streep again, in Julia and Julia. All, of course, with red hair.

“I like the red,” she says ­wistfully, but adds: “What does it mean when every interview ends with me talking about hair?”

“I’m like,” she affects a shampoo-ad hair swish, “what does it say about me? Haha!”

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