Amy Adams recalls 'closet crying' as she struggled with motherhood

Amy Adams remembers "closet crying" as she adjusted to life as a new mother.

The 50-year-old actress - who has 14-year-old daughter Aviana with her husband Darren Le Gallo - has reflected on her "really surreal" experiences with parenting as she got back to work filming 2011's 'The Muppets' alongside promotional work for 'The Fighter'.

She told PEOPLE magazine: "I wasn’t sleeping because I was up with her at night. I was tired, but also I felt so different.

"I know the world didn’t see me differently. But I felt it very internally that something had shifted.”

Amy was "watching it all sort of fall apart" at the time because she "wasn't communicating" her needs.

She added: "Just burning the candle at both ends until you can only do that for so long, and doing what I call closet crying.

"You never want anybody to see you cry, so I would cry in the closet, which just paints such a sad picture, but I don’t think I’m alone in that.”

She had a period of "not wanting to share" that she was finding things difficult, and "wanting so badly to be good at everything".

By the time Avianna turned "about three or four", Amy got back on track after chatting with her husband - who she married in 2015 after first meeting in 2001 - to figure out how to move forward as a family.

She recalled: “He stepped up a lot too. “Once I got over my own shame at not being perfect at all of this, I really think I was able to have more open communication about not just what I needed but what I felt would benefit our family as a whole.”

That process has continued today, and the whole family has "a meeting" before she takes any acting job.

She added: "We've been talking about it since she was quite young: 'How do you feel about spending a summer in Boston?'

"Or, 'How do you feel about coming to England with me when I do the play?' And I'm really lucky she's got a lot of wanderlust and she loves traveling."