Deadline – Lily James & Sebastian Stan On Disappearing Into The Roles Of ‘Pam & Tommy’
[Note: * The panel is available at the article link and the screencaps for it were posted here]
One of the jaw-dropping moments from this past Emmy season has been watching British period actress and Downton Abbey star Lily James go full on blonde bombshell as tabloid tortured Baywatch actress Pamela Anderson in Hulu’s limited series Pam & Tommy, up for ten Primetime nominations. Ditto for Sebastian Stan, known for his work as Marvel anti-hero Bucky Barnes, who went total method in transforming himself into acerbic, off-the-wall Motley Crue drummer Tommy Lee, who loved Pam so dearly that it arguably took a toll on her career back in the 1990s.
The Robert Siegel-D.V. DeVincentis-Seth Rogen executive produced series based on the Rolling Stone Amanda Chicago Lewis article sheds light on how the couple’s homemade sex tape became public. In short, they didn’t leak it. It all boiled down to contractor Rand Gauthier, played by Rogen, who was greatly cheated out of cash by the drummer. Gauthier broke into the couple’s safe, made copies of the tape and sold it to some riches, before the video was in turn stolen from him, seeped widely onto the booming internet of the early 1990s.
James, Stan, Rogen, Seigel and DeVincentis spoke with us for a special Deadline virtual screening of Pam & Tommy.
James, commenting on the “very long process” of how she metamorphized herself into the airy Anderson, tells us “I was very intrigued by the way she spoke, and her humor deflecting, the way she held herself”. The Cinderella actress delve into every single interview, and when that make-up was slapped on, she was in another realm.
Siegel comments, “People come with certain assumptions about Pam” and part of the show entailed “proving them (the audience) wrong and subverting them.” Likewise, the casting of James in the role of the Barb Wire star played into that motif. No one saw James’ sublime disappearing act coming.
For Stan, diving into Lee entailed “repetition every day” over a month’s prep.
“I’d have this routine, get up in the morning, fast for a while, get 20k steps in…and listen to interviews that I had put together. The drum teacher would come by in the afternoon,” Stan explains as he worked on the drummer’s classic stick twirl.
Pam & Tommy‘s Emmy nominations include Outstanding Limited or Anthology Series, Lead Actress in a Limited Series (James), Lead Actor in a Limited Series (Stan), Supporting Actor in a Limited Series (Rogen), Casting for Limited or Anthology Series, Outstanding Contemporary Costumes, Limited or Anthology Series Single Camera Picture Editing, Period-Character Hair, Period-Character Makeup, and Limited or Anthology Series Sound Mixing.