‘I was ready for a transformational role’: Lily James admits she didn’t think she could ‘pull off’ playing Pamela Anderson as she dons lace crop top for stunning photoshoot
- The actress, 32, said she felt the pressure to do ‘justice’ to Pamela, whose sex tape scandal with ex-husband Tommy Lee is the focal point of the series
- Discussing the sex tape plot line, Lily said she believes the scandal impacted the kind of media culture society has today
- She said: ‘A lot of people don’t know the true story. And within that, the bigger themes of privacy and sexism and exploitation into the birth of the internet’
- Sebastian Stan plays Motley Crue rocker Tommy in the series and praised Lily for her commitment to the role
- He said: ‘Every time she was speaking to me, she was speaking like Pamela. It wasn’t until the end of the shoot that I actually met Lily’
Lily James has admitted she didn’t think she could ‘pull off’ playing Pamela Anderson in the new series Pam & Tommy.
The actress, 32, said she was ready for a ‘transformational’ role and said she felt the pressure to do ‘justice’ to Pamela, whose sex tape scandal with ex-husband Tommy Lee is the focal point of the series.
Lily spoke to Rolling Stone about the appeal of taking on the role, saying: ‘You come to understand how people think of you.
Role: Lily James has admitted she didn’t think she could ‘pull off’ playing Pamela Anderson in the new series Pam & Tommy
‘That’s very useful, what that fantasy idea of you is…I was ready for a transformational role, something I didn’t really think I could pull off.’
She added: ‘I felt the pressure of trying to do justice to this woman. What happened to her was so unprecedented and so wrong.’
Discussing the sex tape plot line, Lily said she believes the scandal impacted the kind of media culture society has today.
She said: ‘A lot of people don’t know the true story of what happened. And within that, the bigger themes of privacy and sexism and exploitation into the birth of the internet.
Seeing double: The actress, 32, took on the role of Baywatch babe Pamela (pictured right in 1992) for the new series
‘It sort of simultaneously collided with this huge change in the world — the point of no return — and impacted the kind of culture we have today.’
The star looked incredible as she posed for a stunning photoshoot for the publication.
In one shot, she donned a white lace crop top with a sheer detail along with a matching pair of trousers.
Posing in front of an animal print wall, Lily added glamour to her look with a red lip.
Interview: Lily spoke to Rolling Stone about the appeal of taking on the role, saying: ‘You come to understand how people think of you. ‘That’s very useful, what that fantasy idea of you is’
In another look, she wore a white long-sleeved top with a cut out detail while her locks were styled into loose waves.
For her final look, Lily sported a burgundy shirt along with a pair of black trousers as she posed on a brown couch.
Lily’s physical transformation into Pamela took three hours each day and consisted of a blonde wig, facial prosthetics, blue contacts, fake tan, fake tattoos, fake birthmarks and 34DD breasts that were glued and airbrushed to her chest.
The Surrey native also spent time mastering Pamela’s mannerisms and devoured all her interviews, six books and her poetry.
The star trained in the gym for six months to develop the former Playboy cover model’s muscle tone and spent almost as long practising her hybrid Canadian-California accent.
Lily said: ‘I felt the pressure of trying to do justice to this woman. What happened to her was so unprecedented and so wrong’ (pictured in Pam & Tommy)
She said: ‘A lot of people don’t know the true story of what happened. And within that, the bigger themes of privacy and sexism and exploitation into the birth of the internet’
Sebastian Stan plays Motley Crue rocker Tommy in the series and praised Lily for her commitment to the role.
He said: ‘Every time she was speaking to me, she was speaking like Pamela. It wasn’t until the end of the shoot that I actually met Lily.’
During an appearance on Jimmy Kimmel Live, Lily revealed she stayed in the role of Pamela throughout the filming of Pam & Tommy – even refusing to break character to speak with her family.
Lily said: ‘I would Facetime them as Pamela. Talk to them as Pamela. But then I think the other day my brother came around for lunch when I was at home in England.
‘I had a picture of Pamela, a Playboy picture of her, she looks incredible. My little brother came and goes, ”Oh, Lily! God, no.” And I was ”No, no, it’s not me. It’s Pamela!”
Dedication: Sebastian Stan plays Motley Crue rocker Tommy in the series and praised Lily for her commitment to the role (Pamela and Tommy pictured right in 2005)
‘And I’m worried that I ruined Pamela Anderson for him, which would be such a tragedy!’
Pam & Tommy follows the theft of the couple’s sex tape from the safe in their basement of their Malibu home in 1995.
And such was the pressure to perfect their roles in the drama, Lily admitted that she and Sebastian ‘never really saw each other out of character.’
Sebastian added: ‘It’s true. I texted Lily early on, I said, “Listen, I’m scared s***less, and I’m gonna need to hold your hand, and if you want to hold mine, we’re here, we’re in this together”.
‘And then I didn’t see her outside of Pamela until the end of the shoot.
Transformation: Lily’s physical transformation into Pamela took three hours each day and consisted of a blonde wig, facial prosthetics, blue contacts, fake tan, fake tattoos, fake birthmarks and 34DD breasts that were glued and airbrushed to her chest
She and Sebastian also admitted they also spent their downtime ‘screaming into pillows’ in order to perfect the pair’s raspy voices.
‘I know we both did this,’ he said. ‘We would actually scream into pillows in between the scenes because I was trying to get my voice raspy to sound like him and you were doing that, too.
‘And so I was like, ”You’re screaming into a pillow as well”,’ Sebastian said motioning toward Lily.
He added that he also did plenty of solo karaoke to husk up his voice, performing hits from Tommy’s band Motely Crue and some Billy Joel tracks.
Lily added: ‘I think everyone thought we were literally losing our minds in our trailers.’
Pam & Tommy: The Reviews
INDEPENDENT
Rating: 
Ed Cumming writes: ‘Yet while Pam & Tommy sometimes plays it seriously, most of the time it is content to stick to the laughs. An overlong heist scene, in which Gauthier contrives to steal Lee’s safe as “karma” for unpaid wages, might have come out of another Rogen film altogether. Pineapple Express, perhaps. This isn’t really Pam & Tommy – it’s Rand. He might be a more relatable figure, but nobody ever went to Pamela Anderson and Tommy Lee for relatability.
DAILY MAIL
Rating:
Jan Moir writes: ‘There can only ever be one Pamela Anderson, but Lily James does a tremendous job of playing her in this eight-part mini-series… Pam & Tommy gets more sombre and serious as it progresses but, to be honest, it works best when it is being blackly comic – that’s if you are prepared to go along with the full frontals, the sex and the rose-tinted depictions of their deep lurve for each other… If Pam & Tommy is so committed to exposing the ‘harm’ that the sex tape scandal did to Pamela Anderson all those years ago, doesn’t this rehash simply dredge it all up again?’
THE GUARDIAN
Rating: 
Lucy Mangan writes: ‘The sight of the 90s image of Anderson, and the scandal being reconsidered in line with modern and more enlightened mores (imperfect though they still are) is a welcome one. But, this is undermined by the fact that the whole enterprise has been undertaken without her approval. Ironically, it is the very alertness and compassion of the thing that – assuming she saw the script or was given an idea of the tone – makes you think how very much she must have wanted, whatever the take on it was to be, the entire subject to be left alone’
VULTURE
Kathryn VanArendonk writes: ‘The tone and construction of Pam & Tommy has a playfulness that makes a good match for the early days of its subjects. They seem incredibly in love and also adorably naïve, and it’s conveyed well in scenes like the one where Pam makes Tommy watch The King and I, or one particularly notable exchange between Tommy and his own animatronic c**k (voiced by Jason Mantzoukas!)…
‘The series does, however, fall into a trap that many, many shows now do too frequently, by bouncing around back and forth through time. First it’s Rand’s perspective on Tommy; then it’s Pam and Tommy’s origin story; then back to the early days of the marriage; and then later, back once again to the start of Pamela’s career…
‘It’s a frustrating narrative tic, but there is one meaningful effect for Pam & Tommy: Because it begins with Rand, it also begins with the worst of Tommy, scenes where he is emotionally horrible and physically violent to people doing their very best to please him. All the other hop-skipping time jumps are frustrating, but this choice has real weight.’
CHICAGO SUN TIMES
Richard Roeper writes: “Pam & Tommy” keeps reminding us the couple was the victim of multiple crimes: first, the burglary of their possessions, and then the widespread distribution of that tape by a series of exploitative hustlers and criminals. Thanks to James’ empathetic performance, we feel for Pamela, who has to keep reminding people — mostly men — that there’s a huge difference between making the decision to pose nude for a magazine and being exposed in a private honeymoon tape that was never intended for public consumption… We just spend too much time on meandering subplots, and too much time enduring Tommy Lee’s increasingly insufferable antics.’
Source: Read Full Article
