“Cops and women don’t mix?” It seems they do, as Pamela Anderson is readying for “The Naked Gun” with Liam Neeson as Frank Drebin Jr., produced by Seth MacFarlane.
“Liam is hysterical in it,” she said at Zurich Film Festival.
“I just finished it. I am also doing ‘Rosebud Pruning’ with Karim Aїnouz in Barcelona. We rehearsed every single scene and we did a lot of improvisation in character – we even had family dinners in character. Karim is unbelievable,” she said about the buzzy next project, an ensemble drama featuring Elle Fanning, Callum Turner, Riley Keough and Jamie Bell.
Aïnouz is behind “Firebrand,” while Efthimis Filippou (“Kinds of Kindness”) wrote the script.
Anderson, in town to present Gia Coppola’s “The Last Showgirl” and receive Zurich’s Golden Eye Award – as well as talk up upcoming cookbook “I Love You: Recipes From the Heart” – opened up about the “wonderful” last few years.
“I never thought I would be on stage, receiving an award like that. I just want to keep working. I am excited to do more,” she admitted.
“I look at it now and it feels like I went from ‘Baywatch’ to Broadway. I don’t know what happened in between, it’s all a big blur. I am just happy to be here, in this moment, because I think I have had depression for a couple of decades.”
Following the release of the 2023 documentary “Pamela, a Love Story” and memoir “Love, Pamela,” Anderson has been enjoying a career renaissance.
“Ryan [White] made that doc and that’s how Gia saw me. I always knew I was capable of more. It’s great to be a part of pop culture, but it’s a blessing and a curse. People fall in love with you because of a bathing suit. It has taken a long time, but I am here.”
Growing up a “mischievous child,” she started dreaming big because of her Finnish grandfather.
“He really encouraged my imagination. He made me realize you are not just an extension of your parents or a small town you grew up in.”
Becoming a Playboy model allowed her to leave her hometown – “I don’t know if I would call it modeling,” she deadpanned – and showbusiness came calling soon after.
“When you grow up on an island, people don’t leave. And when you leave, people talk. I gave them plenty of material to make fun of me. No charge,” she recalled. “My first scene was with David Hasselhoff. I was playing saxophone and he was looking at my forehead. I had no idea what to do.”
But as of now, she has no regrets.
“I don’t think I could have played this character [in ‘The Last Showgirl’] if I wouldn’t have the life that I had, so it was worth it. If I can continue working and using these struggles and challenges… I’ll feel blessed.”
Playing Roxie Hart in “Chicago” on Broadway in 2022 was an important step.
“I was at a surf contest with my sons, and this man came up to me: ‘Pamela, I am a big fan. I’m Rob Marshall. [Marshall directed the film version of ‘Chicago’ in 2002]. There is not a lot of vulnerability left in Hollywood and I love what you’re doing. Have you ever thought of being on Broadway’?”
“I ended up getting too afraid. Years went by, then someone made [miniseries] ‘Pam & Tommy.’ I’ve never seen it, don’t know anything about it and I had nothing to do with it. But producer Barry Weissler called me again, saying: ‘Pamela, I know you are capable of so much. You are not going to go down this way,’” she said.
“It was the best thing I ever did. You never know what you are capable of until you try.”
As Anderson moved back home, she started to make peace with her complicated past.
“I tried to go back to things that happened in my childhood. I could ‘smell’ my house, cigarettes and alcohol, and it was important to look at all that. I was trying to get my power back. I bought the house of my grandmother and I repainted and rewrote my life,” she said.
Once she read the script for “The Last Showgirl,” it was “life or death.” “I was in my overalls, in my straw hat, thinking: ‘Get me out of here, let’s do this’!” She was “terrified” to meet co-star Jamie Lee Curtis, however.
“She showed up to the table read in her spray tan and as she was talking to me, she was getting darker, and darker, and darker. Now, I feel like I’ve known her all my life. She grabs you by the shoulders, looks you in the eyes and goes: ‘We got this, girl’!”
Anderson didn’t recognize herself on the screen.
“I transformed and that was my intention. Before, I remember thinking: ‘This might be my only chance. I might never do another movie.’ There is a scene of a breakdown, when I rip my costume off. I went to Gia, saying: ‘I am ready. I am ready NOW.’ It was one take.”
Now famous for her bare-faced look, Anderson didn’t mind going makeup free for the film either.
“Even the girls wanted to do the ‘no-makeup’ makeup look. They asked: ‘No contour, no lip gloss, nothing?!’ Gia was like: ‘Well, Pam is not wearing any.’ I really wanted people to see me and it was a perfect opportunity to just take it all away. Walking with a bare face is so vulnerable,” she added.
“I just want to know what I am made of. There is never enough time, so why not just go for it?”
