Original-Cin Q&A: The Last Showgirl's Pamela Anderson, No More 'Cartoon Characters,' Yes to Soup

To say that Canada’s Pamela Anderson has lived a life is an understatement.  From Playboy model, to Baywatch star, her whirlwind marriage to bad boy rocker Tommy Lee to Broadway, she’s seen and done it all. 

But now, a deglamourized Anderson is at her happiest starring  in The Last Showgirl.

It’s given her an award nominated role as Shelly, an aging, old-school Las Vegas showgirl who desperately faces her future when her show abruptly closes after a 30-year run.

Bonnie Laufer caught up with Pamela Anderson to talk about the film and how she has finally found some peace and inner confidence.

The Last Showgirl opens January 17 across Canada, including Toronto (TIFF Lightbox),
Vancouver, Montrea and Ottawa,

CLICK HERE to read Thom Ernst'’s review of The Last Showgirl.

 ORIGINAL-CIN: Pamela, so great to see you. How are you?

PAMELA ANDERSON: I'm doing pretty good. Being happy and sad at the same time is an interesting feeling.

To be worried about everybody in California and what they are going through right now, but also being so proud of this movie and proud of everybody in it. I want to give it its due, but I'm also very cognizant of what's happening in our community.

O-C: I understand how you feel, and your concern is warranted.  I have to tell you, Pamela, I've watched this movie a few times now. First time I saw it was at the Toronto International Film Festival and I  was riveted by your phenomenal performance.  I thought, as I was watching it, “She brings so much warmth and realness and vulnerability and relatability to Shelly.” So I had to know what was the immediate connection for you to her when you first were presented the script?

ANDERSON: When I finally got the script, I read it, and every time I turned a page, I was like, you know, getting these goosebumps and getting so I could hear the voice.

I could see so much behind the words, and I just felt so connected to it. Immediately. I felt this is a very, you know, endearing character who is full of, you know, she's, she wears her heart on her sleeve.

Pamela Anderson, deglamourized

She makes a lot of mistakes, and she's very interesting and, you know, having a love and nostalgia for the art form that she is so proud of. There are so many elements.

I felt like there were a lot of parallels in our characters but I felt like that was just the jumping off point, the fact that I had lived my life the way I have, you know, from being a little girl all the way up until now.

All of that made sense, because I could put it all in this film. And I don't mean to sound dramatic, but it's very healing and therapeutic and cathartic to do a film, where you can put your experience, or draw from your experience.

And I really needed this, and I just wanted to go full strength. I didn't want to hold back anything. I wanted to make sure I transformed.

O-C: What was it like for you to watch this with an audience at TIFF?

ANDERSON: When I saw it at TIFF for the first time with everybody, with me, you know, I'm like, face behind my hand, thinking, “Okay, is it, is it going to happen?”

And then I looked, and I went, “Wow.” I’d transformed. I maintained it. So it was really wonderful to see that. I never experienced that before.

So, doing all the work and working for months on it before I even got to Las Vegas. We shot this movie in 18 days, it was such a whirlwind and I just thought, “I need to know this inside, out and backwards.”

Every scene had multiple emotional diaries connected to it. I joined forces with the writer, so I wrote a lot, and I brought all that with me. And then I thought, “Okay, I'm just fully loaded, and just ready for Gia (Coppola, the director)  to push me around. You know, between the director and the actor is where the magic happens.

O-C: It sounds like this couldn’t have come at a better time in your life.

ANDERSON: I just felt so blessed that it was this film that came to me when it did. I loved the gritty nature of it, but I love glamour. I loved the Showgirl outfits. It was such an honor to wear those museum pieces.

I mean, there's still name tags in them. So I felt like all these women were with me, and cheering me on. There was magic in the costumes too. So the combination of everything, you know, Vegas during the day, I find so fascinating.

These ladies are hard-working people that are putting this fantasy together for people to come and enjoy from all over the world. But they have lives. They have kids, they have issues. They have to pay the rent, and I loved exploring that.

O-C: I was going to ask you about the costumes later, but I want to go there because you mentioned it.  Being a Showgirl is an art form. There's no question.

You are no stranger to running around in a bathing suit in your day, but this is something completely different. You're wearing these 50-pound headdresses and the rhinestone outfits. That’s heavy! Did you have to work out like crazy just to have the strength to pull this off?

ANDERSON: (Laughs) No, at my age my existence in these costumes was what was needed.  I wanted to be completely vulnerable and seasoned and show that along with these rhinestones and bedazzled costumes these women  take pride in what they do.

I did not want to feel self-conscious, being accepting and proud of how many years I put in, and how much experience I had, how it looks on stage, as opposed to backstage.

O-C: It had to have been a challenge just prepping for that.

ANDERSON: There was a lot to think about, and those backstage scenes were wild. There's a huge mirror along all one wall so we were constantly looking at ourselves.

Getting down the small tight corridors in those outfits, and then the choreography it took to put on and take off the costumes. The headdresses were enormous and you had to be so careful sliding by and turning sideways and getting by everybody without crashing or getting someone's rhinestones stuck in your fishnets. (Laughs) 

We shot it on film so the stakes were high, we had to do it right and there was no time to waste. We had to focus and everybody dove in head first.

I'm very proud of those showgirl scenes in particular because maneuvering the earrings, those cuffs, the gloves and headdresses and taking them on and off, plus all these long dialogue scenes and moving in and out and rushing in and out, was wild. It was a lot.

O-C: What really stood out for me, among other things was the sisterhood, the behind the scenes look at how your character Shelly related to her fellow Showgirls, her friends, and then those scenes with Jamie Lee Curtis. I feel you will be lifelong friends in real life. Tell me a little bit how that evolved and how you relied on these women so deeply  including your director).

ANDERSON: Jamie Lee is a champion for women. She told me that the only reason she did this movie was because of me. She's paying it forward. She looked at me and she saw someone aching to express herself, but kind of caught in this trap of pop culture and public perception.

I think she's been there, and so I just appreciate her so much. Believe it or not, we only spent four days together, but it feels like I’ve known her for a lifetime. We did our four scenes together, and then we did the Dave Bautista scenes and  he was wonderful, too.

To help with the bonding process, I had the girls over at my house, and I taught them how to make vegetable soup. We were all at a chopping block and chopping vegetables and cooking a meal together. I thought it would be a great bonding experience and it turned out that our love for each other is very readable on screen. So those were important moments.

O-C: Those scenes with Jamie Lee felt very real.

ANDERSON: In all honesty, I was terrified to meet Jamie Lee, because of her Academy Award and her experience.

But she's a wild woman. She's a tour de force and so brave and honest.  She's so exciting to be around. She's so unpredictable in ways that just make you want to watch her. I learned so much from her and I’m so grateful she did the movie.

O-C: Last year your  documentary Pamela: A Love Story was released and it was raw and real.  Now looking at your performance in The Last Showgirl, was playing Shelly a more vulnerable experience?

ANDERSON: Well, you know, it's funny when the doc was finished, my boys Brandon and Dylan were like, “Mommy, you have to watch the documentary.”

And I was like, I was there. ( laughs) I know what it is about.  I know what my life was and is, and what I've gone through, and what I've overcome, and things I've survived. So I initially didn’t want to watch it. 

But also, I never felt sorry for myself either. I just really wanted to figure out how to make things better and own up to making mistakes. In hindsight, I probably would have done a few things differently.

O-C: Who wouldn’t?

ANDERSON: True, but you need that life experience to tell you that. Doing Broadway, playing Roxy Hart in Chicago on Broadway was the next thing I didn't know I could do. 

My son, Brandon, wanted to make this documentary. We started it, and then I got the call saying it was time for me to play Roxy in Chicago, and I thought it was so life-defining I wanted that in the documentary.

Then I also found out that this Hulu series “Pam and Tommy”  was exploiting my personal life without my knowledge, and that was, a head banger. It was hard to deal with.

So when people started seeing the documentary it was wonderful. That's how Gia found me and thought of me for the film. She could see through the nonsense and say, “Wow, this woman has a lot to give. She's not done yet.”

I thought that it was great, that Gia saw that and so for The last Showgirl, I just laid it all there because I thought this is the next step.

I had to do that, this is me just peeling it back, to stop playing cartoon characters in my personal life. It’s my time to play characters in movies. So I kind of just flipped the script.

O-C: You seem very content.

ANDERSON: I think I finally am. I’m home now and I’m in my garden, I’m making pickles. I've got my sourdough starter ready to go. I just got home yesterday and I’m happy. 

I have my life the way I want to live it. I get to do these wonderful projects on my terms.  I think my life was a little twisted around before, and now I've kind of figured it out. But it took me this long, and I can’t wait to see what happens next.