Category: Media

Aug
09

News/Video: News: ‘Pam & Tommy’s Lily James & Sebastian Stan Reveal The “Personal” & “Full-On” Nature Of The Hulu Drama

Deadline – ‘Pam & Tommy’s Lily James & Sebastian Stan Reveal The “Personal” & “Full-On” Nature Of The Hulu Drama – Contenders TV: The Nominees

[Note: * The 15 minute panel is available at the article link]

“There was a huge sense of wanting to do this real person justice and tell their story honestly, and with great empathy and protecting them,” Pam & Tommy’s Lily James said about playing Pamela Anderson in Hulu’s multi-Emmy-nominated miniseries.

“This felt so personal and became really universal beyond this story that just happened to Pamela, and became about really looking at how we treat women,” she added of the professional and private blows the Baywatch star suffered from a stolen sex tape that lit up the internet in its near infancy.

Certainly, in the last decade of the 20th century, few besides Bill Clinton loomed larger, or with greater infamy, than Anderson and then-husband Tommy Lee. In many ways, the near-boundless fame of the Canadian-born actress and the Mötley Crüe drummer, and the merciless fallout from their most intimate acts strewn across the digital landscape inadvertently set the stage for the era of today’s explicit social media landscape.

“It’s almost impossible to remember sometimes what it was like to exist without the internet,” Pam & Tommy co-showrunner D.V. DeVincentis said of the vast gap between the not-so-distant past depicted in the eight-episode series and 2022. “The ’90s looks like now, but culturally it is so distinct, so different.”

Peeling back the layers on the sordid saga of Anderson, Lee and the loss of privacy and reputation in modern America, James and DeVincentis were speaking at Deadline’s Contenders Television: The Nominees event. With Pam & Tommy nominated for 10 Emmys, including Outstanding Limited or Anthology Series and top actress and actors noms for James and co-star Sebastian Stan. The duo were joined on the panel by Stan and co-showrunner Robert Siegel.

“It was full-on up until the last second, every day,” revealed Stan of the actors’ transformation into the now-divorced real-life couple.

However, for all the glamour, grit and gall of Pam & Tommy, as well as the dizzying heights and harsh descent it profiles, this was always a story about fragility, The Wrestler scribe Siegel said. “We always very firmly felt that we were on their side, you know, particularly Pam,” he said. “In the end, she’s ultimately the person with whom our sympathies lie.”

Pam & Tommy also stars Nick Offerman, Taylor Schilling, Andrew Dice Clay, Pepi Sonuga, Spenser Granese and Mozhan Marnò, as well as Seth Rogen. Also serving as an executive producer, Rogen’s nominated for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Limited or Anthology Series or Movie for his role as hapless sex tape thief Rand Gautier.

Aug
06

Photos/Video: Deadline Contenders – The Nominees Screen Captures

I’ve added over 100+ high quality of Sebastian in the Deadline Contenders – The Nominees interview to the gallery. You can also view a clip (not the full interview) that Deadline posted below.

Jul
29

News/Audio: Awards Circuit Podcast: “Pam & Tommy” stars Sebastian Stan and Lily James

Variety – Awards Circuit Podcast: “Pam & Tommy” stars Sebastian Stan and Lily James.

Sebastian Stan was on set and Lily James was in the middle of a massage when the Emmy nominations were announced earlier this month. Both became first time nominees, thanks to their work on the Hulu limited series “Pam & Tommy,” which was also nominated for outstanding limited or anthology series.

The Emmy nominated pair guest on the Awards Circuit podcast this week – in separate interviews – and discuss how they immersed themselves into the roles of Pamela Anderson and Tommy Lee. James also reveals what it was like going back and watching “Baywatch” to prepare for the role and the stress of putting herself in Anderson’s shoes during some of the emotionally grueling scenes. Stan discusses moments he can relate to being in the eye of the public (right before his interview, he was escaping paparazzi) and delves into working with his acting coach Larry Moss, who helped him prepare for Tommy. Listen below!


First up, James discusses how watching Anderson’s early work was key to her “Pam & Tommy” portrayal – including the star’s breakthrough role in “Baywatch.” Asked how the show show holds up today, James says, “A lot of montages, a lot of rock ballads. A lot of Pamela looking fucking amazing. You know what, it really stands up. And I can see why it took the world by storm because it’s like these beautiful people on a beach, literally saving the world.”

While James found a lot to enjoy about playing Pam, she also admits that there were scenes that took a toll on her – and how your body doesn’t always know the difference when you’re acting.

“If you’re sat in a room with loads of men in those depositions scenes diminishing you and shaming you, your body takes that on,” she reveals.

Though “Pam & Tommy” is very sympathetic to Anderson thanks largely to James’ sensitive performance, Anderson has said publicly she doesn’t plan on watching the series. And James understands why. “It’s tricky,” she says. “It’s such a big conversation and something that I still think about on a daily basis.”

Next up, Stan talks about being followed by photographers prior to the interview and how he feels it’s only a sliver compared to what Pam and Tommy had to go through after their private sex tape was stolen and shared with the world. “I can understand, a little bit, the invasion of privacy aspect,” he says. “Obviously not on their scale and certainly not on the scale of a woman who’s also trying to be a mother and all the other things.”

He goes on to say that he knows how lucky he is to succeed in his profession. “Sometimes I go, you know Sebastian, suck it up. You’re lucky and you chose this profession, you got in this thing. And I return to gratitude.” He also discusses the highlights of being in the public eye – like seeing a kid become excited upon recognizing him.

Stan also talks about how he first came to work with Moss when trying out for “The Green Lantern.” While auditioning for Mike Nichols’ Broadway revival of “Death of a Salesman,” Moss spent a week with Stan, telling the actor to come to their meetings dressed as the character every day. Even though Stan didn’t get either part (Nichols felt he was more of a Biff than a Happy and Biff was already cast with Andrew Garfield), he found an invaluable resource in Moss — whom he continues to work with to this day.

Stan also discusses the infamous scene where Tommy talks to his penis – including the suggestion for one of his Marvel co-stars to voice it and how he didn’t know that it would eventually be actor Jason Mantzoukas. Stan now calls the choice “smart”: “He has the right kind of tone, he’s just trying to rein him back in from going down this cliff.”

Jul
03

Press/Video: Hulu’s FYC “Clips + Conversation” Event For Hulu’s “Pam & Tommy”Panel (w/ Screen Captures)

Hulu has released the video panel for their FYC event featuring ‘Pam and Tommy’. You can view the photos of the event here. You can click below to watch the entire FYC Panel and also view the screen captures in the gallery.

Jun
27

Press/Video: Lily James and Sebastian Stan Found Playing Real-Life ‘Pam & Tommy’ Addictive (w/ Screen Captures)

Indie Wire – The actors discuss with IndieWire the challenges of portraying real people as well as the first moment they saw each other in costume as the ’90s icons.

Lily James and Sebastian Stan were nervous. The anxiety began with the mountains of research they faced in an effort to learn everything about Pamela Anderson and Tommy Lee for Hulu’s limited series “Pam & Tommy.” They also learned that they enjoyed the pressure.

“I genuinely feel that fear is a good thing,” Stan said in an IndieWire Awards Spotlight conversation with James. “If we can figure out a way to have a healthy relationship with it, it’s sort of a weird awakening feeling [because] it really does feel like you’re on your toes.”

James noted that her nerves came from fear of “failure; not having the ability to do what’s demanded for this,” she said. “To not be able to capture any essence or any traits and really be believable as this real person that you genuinely want to inhabit.”

Happily, the two earned rave reviews for their performances as the larger-than-life ‘90s stars on the series that followed their happy, rapid courtship — followed by the relationship’s deterioration after a disgruntled worker stole private sex tape from their home. The show is at its best when it zooms out to show the beginnings of concepts like public figures’ right to privacy and the all-consuming internet.

“In the TV show, we were the [constants],” James said. “And with these amazing directors that came in… I felt this great sort of power that we had in that it was ours, we’ve taken on these roles. There was an adrenaline to that. And it [felt] out of control at the best of times in the acting, but in control in this ownership of this thing. That was addictive.”

So addictive, in fact, that the duo remained deeply connected to their characters. Stan and James noted they would check in with each other regularly during emotionally difficult scenes, and also became quite the on-set defenders of Lee and Anderson’s one-time love.

Production would say, “‘we’re moving forward into the show, we need to show how the relationship is getting [negatively] affected by all these things,’” Stan explained. “We’re like, ‘I know, but they really loved each other!’”

“It’s weird,” Stan said later. “You can feel nostalgic about it and then suddenly I’ll have to remind myself, ‘That’s not your life, bro.’ Let them have their life back.”

Note: The complete video interview is at the IndieWire link above. I’ve added screen captures to the gallery.

Jun
21

Press/Video:“We Were Able to Completely Exist and Believe That We Were These People”: ‘THR Presents’ Q&A With ‘Pam & Tommy’ Stars Lily James, Sebastian Stan (w/ Screen Captures)

Hollywood Reporter – The actors talk about their preparation to play Pamela Anderson and Tommy Lee in the Hulu series.

Pam & Tommy stars Lily James and Sebastian Stan were just as shocked by their transformations into Pamela Anderson and Tommy Lee, respectively, as the rest of the world was.

“There was a conversation about me being involved really early on, and I was incredibly surprised — dumbfounded — and I suppose that spiked my curiosity that they thought of me for the part,” James told THR Presents, powered by Vision Media. “It was a complete mind-blowing shock for everyone. The first makeup test I had … we just sort of threw some stuff on to get a sense, and at the end, I was having a full panic attack and thinking, ‘I can’t do this, I can’t do this, I’m going to let everyone down, it’s the biggest embarrassment.’ Then the journey they took with prosthetic … I had a forehead piece, teeth and eyes. And when we needed it, I wore the entire chest piece, but like, it was mind-blowing what they achieved. And the same when I looked at Sebastian, we were able to completely exist and believe that we were these people and in turn do our best shot at really trying to and convincingly inhabit them and do them justice. And it was all linked. We couldn’t do one without the other. It was really quite extraordinary.”

James said she watched Anderson’s major interviews from the ’90s “to get her mannerisms — she talks like a million miles per hour and only stops to breathe.”

“I just tried to make it feel as personal and as spontaneous as I could, but also, having really studied and learned how she talks and moves, I trained so hard, lost tons of weight, — put it all back on — I worked with an amazing acting coach, I found her pitch on the piano,” explained James. “I really just wanted to do her justice and to try as much as I could to sort of emulate so that you feel that you catch an essence of who that person is as best as you possibly can.”

During the time of Pam & Tommy‘s release, there was a video circulating on social media that showed James doing 600 sit-ups a day to prepare for the role. However, James said that’s not quite accurate, as she did 600 sit-ups a day for another film she did called Fast Girls (2012) and not for the Hulu series.

For Stan, mimicking Tommy Lee’s drumming was the most daunting task in his preparation. “I’d never played drums at all. And I remember asking [director] Craig [Gillespie], ‘Are you gonna want to use a double or something?’ He was like, ‘uh, no.’ And so I started the drums on the weekends in Canada, trying to take weekend lessons. And then I remember, after a month, I sent him a video of me doing it and he was like, ‘yeah, it’s great. I just have to speed it up by about 100 frames, but should be OK,’” added Stan, laughing. “It was a combination of literally waking up in the morning, making coffee and running on an empty stomach and fasting for half the day, trying to get 20,000 steps to lose weight. And while I’m running, basically, I’m playing audio of every interview I’ve accumulated off of YouTube or the internet of him going all the way back to the ’80s to now, anything I could find to hear him all all over, then I’d get home, I’d watch videos.”

Stan said that he did karaoke one night and woke up to a raspy voice, which he thought perfectly encapsulated the voice he needed for Tommy Lee. “It sounds like I smoke 10,000 cigarettes. And then that manifested into screaming into a pillow to keep the raspiness and then I know Lily was doing it too. We would do four scenes and I’d be like, ‘You want the pillow?!’”

Pam & Tommy creator Robert Siegel was tasked with the challenge of making a show about two people who wanted no part in it.

“You read as much as you can,” said Siegel. “In this case, we had a lot more information about Tommy. We have, of course, Tommy’s autobiography, Tommyland, which provides a wealth of information. And then there’s court transcripts, which were really, really useful for the episode six deposition episode. And then once you’ve accumulated as much information as is out there, you just try to really do right by these people. We were always really diligent about trying to be on their side. Pam is definitively the hero of the story. We always wanted to be very clear that that this was a crime committed against them. You don’t know if they’re going to see the show, but you want to approach it as if they’re going to see the show.”

“Pam, in particular, but both of them were sort of our number one audience,” agreed D.V. DeVincentis, writer of three episodes of the show as well as executive producer. “But Pam, in particular, this was something she suffered the most from and really sort of survived in this completely self sufficient and kind of brilliant way in the way that she does. And we really wanted to show if we’re working with [telling] her whole life story, we want to at least show the way we see her and the way we still see her.”

In terms of taking creative liberty, Siegel said he stayed pretty true to the Rolling Stone article written by Amanda Chicago Lewis, which told the story of how the sex tape was stolen by a man named Rand Gauthier, played by Seth Rogen in the show. “We were pretty faithful to the article,” said Siegel. “There’s not much in the show that’s not in the article. I’m kind of proud. You’re always prepared for the possibility of making things up. A couple of things we definitely did make up, but for the most part, it’s what’s in the article.”

Added DeVincentis: “We’re not entirely certain that the the narrative that Rand Gauthier laid out in the article is necessarily true, but it’s a hell of a story.”

Note: The complete video interview is at the Hollywood Reporter link above. I’ve added screen captures to the gallery.

Jun
20

Press/Video: Sebastian Stan Reveals How He Maintained Tommy Lee’s Amped Energy Levels in ‘Pam & Tommy’ (w/ Screen Captures)

Awards Daily – Sebastian Stan Reveals How He Maintained Tommy Lee’s Amped Energy Levels in ‘Pam & Tommy’

Awards Daily talks to Sebastian Stan of Pam & Tommy about that tub scene with Lily James and how he maintained Tommy’s totally-amped energy in the Hulu limited series.

One of the more underrated aspects of Sebastian Stan’s performance as Tommy Lee in Hulu’s Pam & Tommy is the level of energy he brings to any room. Not only is there the physical presence, but Tommy always seems to be yelling, demanding to be heard.

“It almost feels like he’s never not playing the drums,” says Stan. “If you look at him in concert, which is one of the reasons why he’s so great at playing the drums, he’s always moving. I actually used an ear piece for the first time in my life and I actually would have a tiny ear piece in one of my ears throughout the scenes and I would just play music, often Motley Crüe music. And it would help me be at that level of energy.”

I had a great conversation with Stan about channeling that energy, the different iterations of Tommy’s “big reveal” to Pam (Lily James), and whether he’d ever revisit this real-life character in the future. Watch the interview below!

Jun
15

Press: ‘Pam and Tommy’ to be unleashed on DVD this August via Lionsgate

Icon vs. Icon – ‘Pam and Tommy’ to be unleashed on DVD this August via Lionsgate.

The scandalous drama that set the Internet down a new path, “Pam & Tommy” arrives August 9 on DVD from Lionsgate.

The daring series created by Robert Siegel (The Wrestler, Big Fan) features Lily James (Cinderella, Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again), Sebastian Stan (Captain American: The Winter Solider, The Covenant), Seth Rogen (This Is the End, Superbad), Nick Offerman (“The Great North,” “Parks and Recreation”), and Taylor Schilling (The Lucky One, “Orange Is the New Black”). It will be available for the retail price of $19.98.

Set in THE WILD WEST early days of the Internet, “Pam & Tommy” is based on the incredible true story of the Pamela Anderson (Lily James) and Tommy Lee (Sebastian Stan) sex tape. Stolen from the couple’s home by a disgruntled contractor (Seth Rogen), the video went from underground bootleg-VHS curiosity to full-blown cultural obsession when it hit the Web in 1997. A love story, crime caper, and cautionary tale rolled into one, the eight-part original limited series explores the intersection of privacy, technology, and celebrity, tracing the origins of our current reality-TV era to a stolen tape seen by millions but meant to have an audience of just two.

Jun
13

Press/Video: Sebastian Stan (‘Pam and Tommy’) reveals trick to staying ‘at a level 10, no matter what’ while playing rock icon Tommy Lee (w/ Screen Captures)

Gold Derby — Sebastian Stan (‘Pam and Tommy’) reveals trick to staying ‘at a level 10, no matter what’ while playing rock icon Tommy Lee

“I don’t play the drums, I don’t play any instrument,” confesses Sebastian Stan during our recent chat about his role as Mötley Crüe drummer Tommy Lee in the Hulu limited series “Pam and Tommy.” “I started taking drum lessons in January, about two-and-a-half months before we started. Everything about it was terrifying. It felt like big shoes to fill on every level. Personality-wise, certainly reputation-wise. Whether it was going to be believable. The idea of just going there was sort of terrifying.” Watch our exclusive video interview above.

Based on the 2014 Rolling Stone article “Pam and Tommy: The Untold Story of the World’s Most Infamous Sex Tape” by Amanda Chicago Lewis, the Hulu series follows the turbulent marriage of actress Pamela Anderson (played by Lily James) and Lee after their honeymoon sex tape is stolen and eventually launched on the internet for millions to see.

“The sex tape is the easiest thing to point the finger to, but then as you peel it apart you realize there’s all these other layers to it and there’s something extremely timely to it,” Stan says. “This celebrity obsession really started kicking up to a different level in the 90s. That has really percolated until today, including the loss of privacy and how we’re all affected by the internet and the parts that we play in it, anonymously. And the parts that the media plays, as well, shaping narratives that are not true.”

The actor says keeping up with Lee’s energy took a few tricks of his own. “He was always at a level 10, no matter what,” Stan explains. “That’s how he was written in the script and, if you look at the interviews, it almost feels like he’s always listening to a piece of music. Or he’s constantly almost at the drums even when he’s not playing. I tried [an] earpiece device that I had throughout the scenes and I would always have music playing in my head. There were some things you learn to rely on to get you there, but it is tough. It’s not you. You’re handed a life and you’re told, ‘Go fit into that somehow,’ and you don’t always know if you will or not.”

Note: The complete video interview is at the GoldDerby link above. I’ve added screen captures to the gallery.

Jun
12

Photos/Video: ‘Fresh’ FYC Panel Event (w/ Screen Captures & Video)

Searchlight Pictures released the video of the ‘Fresh’ FYC Event with Sebastian and Daisy Edgar-Jones. I’ve also added photos of the event. Click below to watch and also check out screencaps and photos in the gallery.