people.com — PEOPLE exclusively premieres the official trailer for Hulu’s Pam & Tommy, which chronicles the fallout after Pamela Anderson and Tommy Lee’s sex tape was leaked.
Hulu’s Pam & Tommy is almost here.
PEOPLE has the exclusive first look at the new official trailer for the upcoming eight-episode series, premiering on Feb. 2. The show will tell Pamela Anderson and Tommy Lee’s love story, as well as that of their infamous leaked sex tape and the scandal that followed. Lily James and Sebastian Stan star as Anderson and Lee.
The trailer shows a disgruntled former employee of the famous couple, Rand Gauthier (Seth Rogen), and his friend Uncle Miltie (Nick Offerman), stealing and watching the sex tape Anderson and Lee made on their honeymoon in 1995.
“This is so private, it’s like we’re seeing something we’re not supposed to be seeing,” Miltie says.
When they try to sell it though, Andrew Dice Clay’s Butchie tells the pair: “Nobody’s ever getting rich off a celebrity sex tape.”
Later, Gauthier suggests, “What if we sold it someplace nobody could find us? A website!”
“A what site?” his partner in crime replies.
Gauthier and Miltie’s scheme begins working. Anderson discovers the leaked tape while on the Baywatch set, wearing her iconic red swimsuit, of course.
Amid her panic, Lee doesn’t grasp the gravity of the situation. “You don’t seem to understand what a big deal this is,” Anderson says.
“I’m on that tape just the same as you,” the Mötley Crüe drummer responds, to which she says: “But this is worse for me.”
Anderson, now 54, married Lee, now 59, on a beach in Mexico in 1995 after dating for just four days. They would go on to welcome sons, Brandon, 24, and Dylan, 23, before divorcing in 1998.
Sue Naegle, one of the producers, and DV DeVincentis, who co-wrote the show with Robert Siegel, tell PEOPLE about how Pam & Tommy felt particularly relevant today and why a limited series was the best way to execute their vision.
“Having lived through that time in our culture, it seemed like a good moment to reexamine what happened to Pam and Tommy in 1995 through a 2022 lens,” Naegle says. “There was so much happening with the birth of the internet and this tape really shaped celebrity culture and the invasive paparazzi we know today. The story has so many moving parts, it needed to be told in a series.”
DeVincentis adds, “For one thing, the story is certainly too complex and sprawling to be told in the timeframe of a feature film. This story is so meaningful and powerful to revisit 25 years later because of how Pamela Anderson was misrepresented, misunderstood and underestimated. And it sort of rhymes with what so many women still go through, if not publicly then privately. For me, the instinct to reexamine what happened to her, retell and reframe it, was similar to what pulled me toward Marcia Clark in the OJ Simpson story. Both Pam and Marcia were targeted unfairly, harassed as they defended themselves, then left adversely redefined when the news cycle moves on.”
Technology has changed so much since 1995, especially with social media and how information is spread online.
“What was fascinating, and horrifying, was the realization that this first stolen and leaked tape was always meant to be something private, between two people who were deeply in love,” Naegle says. “Social media and technology have blurred the line between professional and private lives continues that has made living in the public eye very difficult for many people.”
And DeVincentis agrees. “Relearning what I’ve forgotten about life before the internet was shocking and entertaining,” he says. “The worldwide web has changed society as much as the printing press or electricity, and we seem to have collective amnesia about a time before you could find anything you want on the internet. Our show takes place at the very last moment of what turns out to be an era of a kind of innocence.”
Naegle hopes Pam & Tommy helps people understand that what the public knew about Anderson and Lee was “only one small part of their incredible lives.”
“I hope it makes us think about how we treat people in the public eye and the inherent gender bias in celebrity culture,” she adds.
“My central hope is that the world revises how it looks at Pamela Anderson, and what the world put her through. That we understand what a complex, strong, and serious person she was and is, and how well she navigated an impossible, brutal set of circumstances that were thrust upon her by no fault of her own,” DeVincentis says. “And also, what wonderful energy she had, and still has. Warm, courageously vulnerable, whip-smart, funny, and generous.”
Lastly, both Naegle and DeVincentis praise actors James, 32, and Stan, 39, for their performances.
“Lily and Sebastian are incredibly committed actors who lead with their hearts. You can feel the love they have for these characters and the transformation was incredible to watch,” Naegle says.
“Both Lily and Sebastian are risky and courageous performers in this piece, and each of them became incredible custodians of the roles, as viewers are about to see,” DeVincentis shares. “I learned as much about the characters from the two of them as they did from Rob’s and my writing and stewardship of the making of this. I’m still kind of in awe of each of them.”
Pam & Tommy premieres Feb. 2 on Hulu.