Gia Coppola’s The Last Showgirl offers a plum role for Pamela Anderson. In the film, the former Baywatch star plays Shelly, an aging dancer in a Las Vegas revue who must confront her uncertain future when it’s announced that the show will close. It’s a struggle that’s all too familiar to Shelly’s best friend, Annette (Jamie Lee Curtis), a showgirl turned cocktail waitress who’s also very much struggled to cash in professionally and financially.
Shelly and Annette’s friendship forms the emotional heart of this story that’s concerned with how women are valued for their looks and how women of a certain age aren’t valued for their experience. Through it all, Anderson and Curtis invest their characters with a lived-in humanity that’s wistful and moving, as well as clearly informed by their own experiences in Hollywood.
As naïve as she appears to be about how the world has changed, Shelly is fueled by a never-say-die determination, showing her mettle even when she hits bottom. Likewise, Curtis’s Annette is a realist and an optimist who speaks truth to power about how women are treated. However, she also hides a painful truth that she reveals during a moment of real anguish.
I spoke with Anderson and Curtis ahead of The Last Showgirl’s theatrical release. Our talk covered how their experiences as actresses colored their roles, their understanding of their characters’ friendship, the struggles of being at a crossroads, and more.
Shelly and Annette are ride-or-die friends.
[Jamie Lee and Pamela hold hands]
Jamie Lee Curtis: We’re Shenette.
Pamela Anderson: Yeah, Shenette!
JLC: Somebody named us Shenette.
PA: Shellnette!
JLC: Shellnette!
PA: Like the hairspray.
I’m curious about how you two see your characters’ relationship on screen and if you have an off-screen friendship? If so, what would you do for each other?
JLC: Well, we don’t know each other off screen to be perfectly honest. We shot together in Vegas for four days and have only come in contact a couple of times since then because both of us are card-carrying, working adult women with families. Our friendship is one of beautiful mutual admiration. I think, back in the day, my friend Melanie Griffith and I were besties in our 20s. I really thought a lot about my friendship with her and Annette’s friendship with Shelly. Ride or die. Rode hard and put away wet. We got into some trouble [grasps Pamela’s hand again].
PA: But we survived! [laughs] We shot this film in 18 days, and it was so well organized. We did all the scenes with Jamie first because she only had four days to get the film. She was busy. From our first meeting, I was terrified to meet Jamie because I just thought…
JLC: …I’m terrifying.
PA: She’s not terrifying at all! Once we met, all those fears went away. But I remember doing a table tread and she had just gotten a spray tan, and she was changing colors before my eyes. [Jamie laughs] Because this tan was deepening. Once we started, it was full speed ahead. We all dove in headfirst and made the best of a beautiful script, and incredible director, and the company we were keeping. It was an incredible experience.
Do you have a real-life ride-or-die relationship like Shellnette?
PA: I have a girlfriend from high school that I still stay in touch with. She has always been there for me, and I have always been there for her. She has seen it all and still loves me. And the same the other way around. Women’s friendships very important. Friendships are the truth.
JLC: The ones you can really count on. You can’t really count on your family, but you can really count on your friends.
PA: We create a family in our workplace.
You have the same background and experience, so you understand each other in that way. The film has both Shelly and Annette feeling the need to constantly prove themselves also experiencing moments of humiliation.
PA: Disappointment and rejection are part of this business, and that’s what colors people. In Shelly’s case, she’s living her dream but nostalgic about the way things used to be, trying to hang on to that when things have clearly changed. It was interesting to play someone who wears their heart on their sleeve and has so much love for what they do, and then loses it all.
Can you talk about your own experiences with the fame machine?
PA: I can relate to certain things—doing the things I was doing and wishing I could do more and not being able to experience that. Going back into my garden, and thinking I’m a little disappointed I didn’t get to see what I was made of. I went into Broadway [for Chicago in 2022], and I loved it so much. From Baywatch to Broadway, that sounds good, but I was craving to do more, and I really discovered that by doing this film. We’re always dancing between disappointment and fear and excitement and love, and these characters were so beautifully written. [With them], we got to go on that ride and bring everyone with us.
Jamie, what are your thoughts on this topic?
JLC: Annette is a woman who has been rejected a lot. She was ultimately kicked out of the showgirl role. She left because she aged out of that program…
PA: Replaced.
JLC: She’s been replaced. Show business is a business of rejection. I’ve been in it since I was 19. [I’ve] felt a lot of rejection and longing for community and acceptance in places that have shut me out for years and years. I’ve had unexpected success. All of that I can relate to. Annette is ultimately a hustler and a survivor. As she says, “I’m going to die in my uniform. I’m not going to retire and sit somewhere. I’m going to work and I’m going to work and I’m going to work some more and I’m going to die.” There’s that tenacity that I think is a character trait of a lot of people in Vegas who’ve gone through the metamorphosis of [hustling]. Annette is a hustler.
I’m curious to know how you both feel about how the film showcases your bodies as women of a certain age?
JLC: I’ll say this: Annette has stopped feeling good about that for a long time. It’s so poignantly done in the movie, because when Annette dances in her job, nobody’s paying any attention to her whatsoever. They’re walking by…
That’s my favorite scene…
JLC: It’s heartbreaking. The truth is that, even though there are eight people in the audience, there are still eight people [there]. You’re getting the illusion of the exquisite beauty that is what a showgirl is. They were ambassadors of Vegas. They flew them all over the world to say, “Come to Las Vegas, we have the most beautiful women in the world!” There’s an objectification about that, but there’s also an appreciation of that. In Annette’s case, there’s no appreciation at all. It’s a discarded bit of noise, and you still have to do your art.
PA: Also, the scene in the locker room [Jamie laughs]—to show the Spanx and what it takes to keep everything…
JLC: …in!
PA: Yes, in! [laughs] I think Shelly is coming to terms with that. That’s kind of a crossroads that all of these generations of women are experiencing at the same time. I thought that was cleverly written and executed by Gia and how we were able to show that.
JLC: They bookend the movie with [Shelly auditioning and dancing]. When you see the end of the movie, and she’s dancing, she’s lit beautifully, and in her costume she’s breathtaking. But the harshness of that audition Shelly has for this new version of her—the lighting is harsh. The words are harsh. The set is bare—unforgiving and awful. Shelly is the last showgirl. She’s this incredible beauty, and it’s [all] gone now. She got a taste of what’s coming in that audition. Annette’s been put out to pasture for a long time.
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This movie sounds like a must see. As an older woman, I have felt the backlash of ageism before. And I was let go at 1 job because of it, by a slightly younger woman of no scruples. May she burn in Hades. I had to retire a couple years early due to physical pain and problems, but I still have my talent, my art.
Women, and men, are still valuable as they age. We may not look quite as fetching as we did at 20, or 30, but we are still very much there. This film focuses on women, because we seem to be short changed more, and it’s good that it shows the difficulties. Maybe someday people won’t be so prejudiced of older people, and when our job, or review, or art, or career closes, we can find something elsewhere without judgement.
I’m glad someone tackled this difficult subject and made a realistic, heartfelt movie about it.