Pamela Anderson Says ‘The Last Showgirl’ Was “The First Script I Ever Read That Was A Good One” – Contenders Los Angeles

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For Pamela Anderson, Gia Coppola‘s drama The Last Showgirl was an opportunity she’d been awaiting for her entire life. “It was such a relief to … be able to do a real film,” said the star, who rose to fame in Playboy and on Baywatch, in a sit-down Saturday at Deadline’s Contenders Los Angeles. “I mean, this is the first script I ever read that was a good one.

No one was giving me scripts like this. … So I just poured everything I could into it because I thought, ‘What if this is the only film I ever get to do?'” Written by Kate Gersten, whose way into the world of showgirls was a play about those working at the Las Vegas revue Jubilee!, The Last Showgirl follows Shelley (Anderson), a seasoned Vegas performer who faces an existential crisis when her show abruptly closes after a 30-year run.

An examination, in Coppola’s words, of “how our culture just discards so effortlessly,” the acclaimed indie has has an immeasurable impact on the life of Anderson, who shared: “I feel like I can breathe now. … I needed to do this for my soul.

I wanted to know what I was made of [and] I’m still looking because I hope this is just the tip of the iceberg, and I feel like I’ve just begun.” RELATED: 2024-25 Awards Season Calendar: Dates For Oscars, Grammys, Tonys, Guilds & More Elsewhere in today’s conversation moderated by Deadline’s Antonia Blyth, Coppola discussed how the project reflected her lifelong fascination with Las Vegas and the question of who the people are “that make this world of illusion come to life.” Among other topics broached was research on the world of showgirls heading into production, on the part of both Coppola and her lead. RELATED: The 2025 Oscars: Everything We Know So Far About The Nominations, Ceremony, Date