Amy Adams on her Nightbitch dog transformation and why 'there's no American Werewolf in London moment'

In Nightbitch, Amy Adams' aptly named character, Mother, finds herself buckling under the weighty expectations of motherhood by day, and turning into a dog by night.

For all the weirdness, though, in the dark comedy written and directed by Marielle Heller (based on Rachel Yoder's book of the same name), the actual transformation from human to canine is incredibly grounded — or tame, dare we say. Aside from the small patch of fur and little hints of a tail she grows earlier in the movie, the moment when Mother embraces her feral side under the moonlight in her family home's front yard doesn't come with prosthetics or makeup or cringe-worthy CGI or visual effects— it's simply a touch of brilliant and effective editing. One minute she's on all fours in her pajamas, sniffing and digging in the yard, and the next a beautiful husky is in her place.

This was always the vision for the scene, Adams tells Entertainment Weekly. "We shot different things, and Mari crafted it in editing, the length of it and the involvement of transformation. But there was only that one night you see, aside from the tail," she says.

So, there's not a more wild version of it somewhere, ready to be released as a DVD extra? "No," Adams says with a laugh. "There's no American Werewolf in London moment, but we did it in stages and with the digging and stuff like that."

Of course, it helps that the dog she turns into looks kind of like, well, Amy Adams. According to the star, Heller was insistent that the dog have blue eyes and red hair like Adams. "Mari had a very specific dog that she was looking for, and I think there was something about the husky. I think it was the eyes. She was very specific about the eye color, and also she was looking for a red husky, which was a very specific find, and they didn't have one that was trained," the actress, who's also a producer of the film, explains.

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Heller and the dog trainers then turned to shelters, where they found the perfect husky in Juno, whom they rescued and trained for her big acting debut. (She often appears in scenes with other dogs, which represent Mother's friends.) Ironically, despite Juno's ingénue status, it was the six-time Oscar nominee who caused the biggest ruckus on set.

"The dogs were really well-behaved," Adams admits. "We had one incident, which has been documented, where one of the dogs sort of started a revolt. They kind of charged at me because we were doing a scene where I was having to walk in a very slow dream state while staring at them with a certain amount of dreamlike confusion and questioning."

According to the star, trainers were constantly talking to the dogs as they prepared for the scene. But, "when I came out in complete silence, just staring at them, one of the dogs was like, this isn't cool, this is not what we practiced," she says, adding, "and he got the other dogs all riled up, and they all kind of charged at me."

Ultimately, everything turned out okay for all involved parties. "They all were fine. That dog did have to be taken off set that night because I don't think he ever trusted me again. He was like, no, no," she says.

But don't worry, he's still a good boy. "Oh, no, I was the troublemaker that night," Adams assures with a laugh.

Nightbitch — also starring Scoot McNairy, Zoë Chao, Mary Holland, Ella Thomas, Archana Rajan, and Jessica Harper — is now playing in theaters.