Marielle Heller knew precisely what type of dog she’d cast as Amy Adams’s canine counterpart in Nightbitch, her adaptation of Rachel Yoder’s best-selling novel, in theaters December 6. The ideal fit would be a reddish-colored husky with blue eyes—preferably a female dog, the director says.
As it turns out, that’s fairly rare coloring for that breed. (Dogs, apparently, aren’t overly concerned with matching Adams’s famous hair.) Worse, huskies are notoriously stubborn and not often trained as canine actors. But that didn’t deter Heller, who tasked the film’s animal trainer, Bettina Weld, with conducting the search.
“Dog casting was so fun and so hard, [because] that breed and dog just didn’t really exist within any of the casting circles for already trained dogs,” says Heller. “When I decided I wanted a red husky to play Amy, I had no idea they were tough to train. Our fabulous trainers told me that it was a long shot, and they started searching shelters. When they found Juno”—the dog destined to be the film’s titular Nightbitch—“they were so excited and called me saying, ‘she’s perfect.’”
Nightbitch is the story of Mother (Adams), who loses her entire sense of self and identity as an up-and-coming visual artist when she finds herself stuck at home caring full-time for her three-year-old son. The only way she can begin to regain some semblance of autonomy and self-worth is by turning into a dog at night, running wild and free, indulging in her animalistic instincts. Which, in an ironic turn, makes her a better mother (whatever “better” means, anyway).
Though Adams wasn’t involved in the casting of her costar, she was shown the canine options. “Weirdly enough, the dog that they got, her name was Amy,” says Adams. “And they had to give her a new name because they thought, ‘We can’t train her with the name Amy when everyone’s also talking to Amy” on set.
Juno, as the red husky became known, and Adams didn’t actually spend a lot of time together on set because, of course, Mother becomes Nightbitch. Still, Adams says she’s a true dog person.
“All I want to do is play with the dogs when they’re [on set],” she admits, as her own dog, as if on cue, jumps and barks by her side, interrupting the Zoom call. “But they’re there to work, and they’ll get distracted if you play with them. So, it took a lot of restraint.”
Juno’s trainer, Adriana “Andie” Echeverria, has been working for Weld for eight years. Though Weld’s team at her company, Hollywood Animals, had less than three weeks to cast Nightbitch, Echeverria knew right away that Juno was the one.
“I had just talked about Juno to my husband, and he was like, ‘This is the dog,’” says Echevarria, who first discovered the creature formerly known as Amy at Western Riverside County City Animal Shelter. “I’d already seen so many dogs that just had zero interest in me, and I didn’t want to get my hopes up. But immediately, when I met Juno, she ran to me and fell on her back. She was just all over me. She was so sweet.”
