with her family when she was eight in Castle Rock, Colorado. After leaving the army, her father sang professionally in nightclubs and restaurants. Adams has described going to her father's shows and drinking Shirley Temples at the bar as among her fondest childhood memories. The family was poor; they camped and hiked together, and performed amateur skits written by her father or sometimes by her mother. Adams was enthusiastic about the plays and always played the lead. Adams was raised as a Mormon until her parents divorced in 1985 and left the church. She did not have strong religious beliefs, but has said that she valued her upbringing for teaching her love and compassion. After the breakup, her father moved to Arizona and remarried, while the children remained with their mother. Her mother became a semi-professional bodybuilder who took the children with her to the gym when she trained. Adams has compared her uninhibited early years with her siblings to Lord of the Flies. Describing herself as a "scrappy, tough kid", she has said she fought frequently with other children. Adams attended Douglas County High School. She was not academically inclined, but was interested in the creative arts and sang in the school choir. She competed in track and gymnastics, harbored ambitions of becoming a ballerina, and trained as an apprentice at the local David Taylor Dance Company. She disliked high school and kept mostly to herself. After graduation, she and her mother moved to Atlanta. She did not go to college, to her parents' disappointment, and she later regretted not pursuing higher education. At age 18, Adams realized she was not gifted enough to be a professional ballerina, and found musical theater more to her taste. One of her first stage roles was in a community theater production of Annie, which she did on a volunteer basis. To support herself, she worked as a greeter at a Gap store. She also worked as a waitress at Hooters, but left the job after she saved enough money to buy a used car. Career Dinner theater and early screen appearances (1994–2004) Adams began her professional career as a dancer in a 1994 dinner theater production of A Chorus Line in Boulder, Colorado. The job required her to wait on tables before getting up on stage to perform. She enjoyed singing and dancing, but disliked waitressing and ran into trouble when a