She started Southern Methodist University in 1996. Amy is not a Methodist, but attended SMU because they were supposed to have a really good theater department. As part of her acting course at SMU, she was trained in weapons and certified in combat. Amy's first television role was in the Wishbone company, which was used solely for the PBS television show Wishbone. During her junior year, she modeled for J.Crew's Spring 1998 catalogue. Previous to that shoot, Amy spent 3 of her summers modeling in Japan. While in school she performed in many plays: Seta, Beast on the Moon at Stage West; Terry, Balm in Gilead; Isabella, Measure for Measure; Chorus, The Greeks; Christina, Fefu and her Friends; Anna, Apparent Wind. She performed with Undermain theater (UMT), during her senior year (1998-1999) at SMU, in the praised Therese Raquin which Amy was nominated for Actress in a leading role in 1999 Leon Rabin Awards. Whilst she was at SMU,she was in the TV movie 'To Serve and Protect' as Melissa Jorgensen which was release February 14 1999. It was filmed in Dallas, Texas so it was close to home. She received her Bachelor in Fine Arts in Acting from SMU when she graduated in 1999.

After she graduated from SMU ,she went and worked at a Shakespeare theater for about eight months in Wisconsin called American Players Theater. There she played Hero in Much Ado About Nothing and Hilda in The Master Builder by Ibsen. After American Players Theater,she moved to New York for about eight months, wanting to still do theater. In July of year 2000 ,Amy was in the play Talc, which was part of the 11th edition of The American Living Room festival in Manhattan. Although originally Amy wanted to stay with theater,she ended up doing a couple of independent films (The Accident as Nina and The Energy Specialist) and a television pilot (MTV's Hell House). It was then Amy realized she wanted to also pursue an onscreen career. So she made a vocational decision and moved to down to Los Angeles, California in November of year 2000.