It's the story of a scandal that you may have heard before, but you've never
seen it like this – especially the part where Tommy Lee has a long,
hard talk with his talking private parts. This is the untold truth of Hulu's "Pam & Tommy."
"Pam and Tommy" is an eight-episode miniseries on Hulu starring Lily James
and Sebastian Stan as "Baywatch" bombshell Pamela Anderson and Motley Crüe drummer Tommy
Lee. Based on the episode count and title, you might think that the show would depict
the full life stories of its two main characters – but that's not the case.
"What the hell is this?"
"Pam and Tommy" only briefly touches on the specifics of how Lee and Anderson's
relationship got started and fell apart. The limited series instead focuses almost
entirely on the controversy surrounding the theft and unauthorized release of an
intimate home video the pair made, the news of which took the world by storm.
The real-life sex tape was discovered in the couple's home by a disgruntled maintenance worker,
who sold it to an adult film distributor. "Pam and Tommy" is specifically based on a
recounting of those events as laid out in a 2014 Rolling Stone article by Amanda Chicago Lewis.
Originally, the series was intended to be a feature film produced by Point Grey,
the development house run by Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg. At first,
the role of Tommy Lee was meant for frequent collaborator James Franco – but eventually,
producers came to the conclusion that "Pam and Tommy" would be better as a limited series.
More than five years later, the miniseries finally began filming, with Marvel Cinematic Universe star
Sebastian Stan taking on the role first offered to James Franco, and the actor's brother, Dave
Franco, working on the other side of the camera as executive producer with Rogen and Goldberg.
The scandalous love, marriage, and videotape leak of Pamela Anderson and
Tommy Lee was one of the 90s' most sensational tabloid news stories,
which is part of the reason why the "Pam and Tommy" miniseries has been so hotly anticipated.
The unauthorized release of the tape got a ravenous reaction from the media and public,
and it's safe to say that things would go down very differently if the same thing happened today.
"I'm on that tape just the same as you." "But this is worse for me." "How is this worse for you?"
The story is ripe for re-examining, and based on their previous work,
the people behind the project are in the perfect position to do the story justice.
Director and executive producer Craig Gillespie is probably best known for helming "I,
Tonya," the 2017 darkly comic and sympathetic biography about the
rise and fall of '90s Olympic figure skater Tonya Harding.
One of the showrunners on "Pam and Tommy" is D.V. DeVincentis,
who previously served as an executive producer on "American Crime Story:
The People vs. O.J. Simpson," another limited series about a complicated '90s newsmaker.
Potential viewers of Hulu's "Pam and Tommy"
might be led to believe that the project is a straight-up comedy.
The trailer presents the series as a winking and campy look back at this
chapter of the '90s, featuring the "love story" of an over-the-top, wild-man rocker
and the bleach-blonde star of "Baywatch."
Further cementing its comic credentials, the "Pam and Tommy" preview offers a
glimpse of comedy icons Seth Rogen and Nick Offerman playing a pair of bumbling crooks.
And yet, according to the people behind "Pam and Tommy" – including the real-life
Tommy Lee – the miniseries isn't really a comedy.
"I think a lot of people would think it's one thing, but it's really
about privacy and how things got crazy then."
Series editor Tatiana S. Riegel described the series to Variety in 2021 by saying,
"It's a surprisingly emotional thing. You end up having a lot
of compassion and insight into people that you certainly don't at the beginning of it."
Producer Sue Naegle said she wanted to make "Pam and Tommy" because of what she saw as
the true story, hiding just beneath the surface. She explained to Variety in 2022,
"The opportunity was to tell something that was emotional and funny and true
and hard. There was an unfair cultural response in the '90s. It bothered me then.
And I think the chance to tell the story and to get people to see and
understand how it was nobody’s business, it was nobody’s right.”
Lily James leads the cast of "Pam and Tommy" as "Baywatch" star,
"Barb Wire" action hero, and gossip column magnet Pamela Anderson.
James is virtually unrecognizable in her role,
all but disappearing underneath the blonde hair, and thick makeup.
It took a lot of people a lot of time and work to turn James into
Anderson for the cameras. According to a Variety interview with Barry Lee Moe
head of the hair department on "Pam and Tommy," James typically endured three to five
hours' worth of hair and makeup at the start of each shooting day on the limited series.
The hair department employed the use of wigs, too, and not just for James. Moe recalled,
"We ended up using 25 wigs in the end. Everyone from Seth Rogen to Nick Offerman,
Taylor Schilling all wore wigs because we transform them into new characters."
The only major cast member to use his real hair: Sebastian Stan, as Lee.
Lily James extensively prepared before shooting began, thoroughly diving into her character,
of whom she says she is a longtime fan. James told Variety that she has always, quote,
"felt there was this boldness to Pamela, this unashamed kind of authenticity."
Describing her process, James said she watched a lot of interviews with the actor as well as plenty
of episodes of "Baywatch." All throughout, she focused on noting the actress' physical gestures,
vocal patterns, and recurring behaviors. One of her observations was,
"She talks really fast, and I would watch her interviews over and over again and annotate them,
learn them, and parrot along with her. I wanted to get that energy and that
impulsiveness. And that spirit that she has when she's in front of the camera."
Nevertheless, James felt that she'd maybe gone too far, so overwhelmed in her prep
work that she almost quit "Pam and Tommy" before the cameras rolled. She confessed,
"I really wanted to pull out of this a week before. It just felt too frightening. But I
think that's a good place to work from because it keeps you growing and getting better."
"Pam and Tommy" reunited Sebastian Stan with director Craig Gillespie, who helmed "I,
Tonya," another biographical project in which the actor portrayed Tonya Harding love
interest-turned-bumbling-criminal Jeff Gillooly.
Despite the pre-existing relationship, Stan wasn't sure why Gillespie asked him to play Lee,
a person with a specific and strong personality and persona. As Stan told Variety,
"I don't have a single tattoo on my body, so I was like, 'What exactly is making you think that
I can play this man?' But I was intrigued enough to want to see why he was calling."
Once he accepted the role, Stan set about building his take on the character, acquiring and consuming
everything he could find on Tommy Lee. He watched interviews with the drummer available on YouTube,
read the Motley Crüe memoir "The Dirt," and learned how to play the drums like Lee does,
including his signature twirl of the drumstick. Speaking about the move, Stan said,
"It's not easy to do. My fingers were swollen for a good week and a
half. I kept hitting myself in the head with it."
Very early in "Pam and Tommy" — just the second episode, according to Variety — the
Hulu limited series gives a nod of recognition to something a lot of people learned about Tommy
Lee when the illicit sex tape was released. Basically, he's big – real big – down there.
One mind-bending scene for the series features Lee being head-over-heels for Pamela Anderson.
He wonders if he's in love, and instead of talking about it with a close personal friend,
he has a private chat with his private parts – literally, with "Big Mouth" voice
actor Jason Mantzoukas taking on the role of a lifetime as Tommy Lee's genitalia.
Amazingly, "Pam and Tommy" didn't invent this exchange. Screenwriter Robert Siegel said that
a version of the conversation was already written before in Lee's memoir, "Tommyland." As he put it,
"As much as I'd like to take credit for that, I was simply adapting a chapter."
Siegel added that "Hulu was extremely supportive" of the idea,
which turned out to be a technically complicated sequence to get on film.
According to director Craig Gillespie, it involved four puppeteers, some animatronics,
and a real, human actor, Sebastian Stan, trying to take it all seriously. The actor recalled,
"By the end of it, I treated it like it was an intimate buddy conversation
that one might have when they're falling in love."
Sometimes, movies and TV series based on still-living people are
made with the full involvement of the subjects, who help shape the adaptation
of their real-life stories. "Pam and Tommy" is not one of those projects.
Anderson, in fact, has reportedly expressed
opposition to the entire idea. A friend of the actor told The Sun in 2021,
"She and her family think the show is a cheap knockoff. The whole thing is a joke to
them. [...] Pamela has no intention of watching this God awful show, absolutely not. Never."
According to Variety, Anderson's friend, rock star Courtney Love, wrote a social media post
(which she later deleted), calling out "Pam and Tommy" producers for exposing Anderson to, quote,
"complex trauma" by re-enacting the events depicted in the film.
According to screenwriter Robert Siegel, Anderson has, quote,
"chosen not to engage" with filmmakers, and they have respected her desire not to be involved.
Tommy Lee seems to have been more receptive to "Pam and
Tommy," with Sebastian Stan telling Variety,
"He seemed touched and appreciative that I took the time to even reach out and connect."
Recalling his talks with Stan, Lee also expressed his approval to "Entertainment Tonight."
"From what he's told me, really beautiful story." "The story's actually cool,
You know, what actually happened wasn't."
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