Pamela Anderson and Mikey Madison on THE LAST SHOWGIRL, ANORA and More for VARIETY Magazine

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In a new conversation for VARIETY’s Actors on Actors issue, Pamela Anderson and Mikey Madison discuss Anderson channeling her personal experiences into her performance in “The Last Showgirl,” whether “Anora” used an intimacy coordinator, how director Gia Coppola managed to get in touch with Anderson for the film, and more.

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Anderson on channeling her personal experiences when preparing for “The Last Showgirl”: “I was able to bring a lot of my own personal experience, my long life of dealing with beauty and glamour and aging and reassessing life choices. I got to bring my whole life into this role. I think the past shouldn’t dictate your future. But looking back, I was always creating characters. And I feel like I know I’ve created a few Halloween costumes. But a lot of the things I went through, I didn’t realize my kids were going through them at the same time. Being a working mom and being in this entertainment world and having your mom be sexualized in some way—I didn’t realize how difficult it was. So I’m not ashamed of my life. I’m not ashamed of the choices that I made, even though maybe in hindsight I would’ve done things differently. But you need life experience to know that you would’ve done that differently.”

Madison on whether “Anora” used an intimacy coordinator: “For our film, it was a choice that I made; the filmmakers offered me, if I wanted, an intimacy coordinator. Mark Eydelshteyn, who plays Ivan, and I decided it would be best to just keep it small. My character is a sex worker, and I had seen Sean’s films and know his dedication to authenticity. I was ready for it. As an actress, I approached it as a job.”

Anderson on how “The Last Showgirl” director Gia Coppola got in touch with her for the film: “I went home to remember who I was. That’s when I started taking the makeup off and getting my hands dirty. I didn’t really have representation at the time, but Gia tried to find me through an old agent, and he passed on the movie. Gia didn’t take no for an answer; she found my son Brandon, and Brandon brought me the script, and I read it on my little vegetable farm. I knew the whole movie like a play before I got to Las Vegas.”

Madison on learning Russian for “Anora”: “My grandmother, it was one of the languages she spoke, but it wasn’t passed on to my father. So I was starting from scratch. I never wanted it to sound perfect. I always wanted there to be some Americanized version of Russian, because I didn’t want her to fit in; she’s always on the outside looking in. I would fall asleep listening to 10 hours of Russian speaking on YouTube and just cram in as much Duolingo as possible.”

Anderson on wanting to get into the craft of acting early in her career: “You don’t really know sometimes when you start the process. I was always very curious about the craft of acting, but I didn’t have to apply myself when I was running around in a bathing suit on ‘Baywatch.’ I was curious about it—I would be sitting on the floor of Samuel French, reading Tennessee Williams and Eugene O’Neill plays. I didn’t know how to get from there to there, but I just had this dream. I always kept it a secret that I could be more than I was doing. Gia could see the hunger in me as a woman who wanted to express herself; I attribute a lot to her for having that vision. I always tell her, ‘You saved my life.’ Because I would have hated to never get my chance to do something that was meaningful to me.”

 [Photo Credit: Alexi Lubomirski for Variety Magazine]

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