@Courtesy of Roadside Attractions
Press Conference with Actors Pamela Anderson, Jamie Lee Curtis and Director Gia Coppola
Q: What is at the heart of The Last Showgirl for you?
Gia Coppola: I resonated so much with the mother-daughter aspect. I was raised by a single mom, so I always connected with that element of the story. Then when I became a mother myself, I could see the other side of things. I related to the family you create when you’re working. Las Vegas itself, it’s sort of a metaphor for America discarding the old and traditions in replace of more consumerist values.
Pamela Anderson: To do the film in 18 days, to dive in with all these wonderful characters that were written so thoughtfully, to think about the women holding up, they’re on stage but they’re thinking what are they going to make for dinner or I’m having a fight with my husband or grocery shopping. To really sense all these generations of women hitting a certain milestone or a crossroads and being able to see all those relationships play out. It was really a wonderfully written film. Everyone dove in head first. This is a labor of love. It’s very touching to even talk about because it’s so rare.
Jamie Lee Curtis: The reality in Kate Gersten’s script shows the profound nature of what women are up against. Annette’s a fucking hustler. I love a good hustle. We’re all hustling. I don’t know what your lives are, I don’t know where you came from, what your dreams were, where you went to college, what you thought you might do, but at some point we’re all in a fucking box hustling our jobs. I love that the movie highlights how tough we all are and what we all will do for money, for love, what we will do to survive and take care of ourselves and our families.
Q: Can you talk about the scene when Kiernan Shipka comes to the door and your character is unable to give her anything at that time?
Pamela Anderson: Anyone can relate to that, when you’re just full, you just don’t have anything else you can give. It’s not that you’re a heartless person, it’s just she couldn’t do it anymore. She chooses herself, she’s not a pushover, she’s tough and vulnerable. She’s fighting, there’s a lot of things going on in her. Sometimes the young characters remind her that she has a daughter, that she’s not their mother, but then she’s feeling guilty because she’s spent all this time with these girls and not her daughter. There’s just moments where it is too much, it’s just a door slamming in her face. These are all such relatable moments.
Q: What was the most challenging scene to shoot in an emotional way?
Pamela Anderson: A lot of the scenes had so much going on. Especially the backstage scenes with the choreography of all the costumes, which were 50 pounds. But the connections to each other were so strong, sometimes I would just look at Jamie and tear up because she’s such a force.It was a real magic on the set. Emotionally a lot of this was a big relief for me, to be able to express those moments in those scenes. I took great joy in it, even in the painful parts. The combination of everybody was really heartfelt and wonderful. I don’t know what the most difficult part was, it was all a really incredible challenge.
@Courtesy of Roadside Attractions
Q: What about the scene where Annette dances Total Eclipse of the Heart?
Jamie Lee Curtis: We were just doing a cursory walkthrough of a casino. I Wanted to simply ask one of the cocktail waitresses a few things about how long your shifts are, not a lot of deep research. This young African-American woman was beautiful. The way they got around the union was they made cocktail waitresses also performers. So you’re a cocktail waitress who dances three times a shift, you get up and sing your song on one of those podiums three times a shift. As we were walking with Pam and Gia back to the Rio Hotel, Gia said, “We should get you up on one of those podiums.”
I laughed at her and said, “Yeah, I don’t think so.” What happened was, as we walked into the rehearsal room, Total Eclipse of the Heart was playing on the sound system. I looked at Gia and I said: “Well, Annette would dance to that song”. Two days later, she said: “You’re dancing today.” And that’s how that happened. There was no rehearsal, no thought. I had about 10 minutes before we were gonna shoot it. My tights were too small, unfortunately we couldn’t find those shiny, awful tights. I had no idea if she was going to ever use it. The way she used it just kills me. The poetry of the way a film can be edited, there’s not a person in that casino looking at her. It kills me.
Q: Can you talk about working with your director of photography about all of the special things that you did to create the look of this film?
Gia: Autumn Durald Arkapaw and I have been working together since we’re 20. We did our first film, Palo Alto, together. She’s like my best friend and I trust her wholeheartedly. It was really important to us to shoot this movie in 16mm. We didn’t really have a lighting budget, therefore she had to do a lot of things handheld. I’m a big believer in embracing all those challenges and letting that guide your creative choices. We admire movies by Cassavetes and Sean Baker,really living with these characters and being close to them. Autumn designed these anamorphic lenses for this 16 millimeter camera that have that distortion on the end, we’re the only ones to ever use those lenses. So many of my creative choices are given to the circumstances of what the film is dealing with, the spaces that we’re able to access.
Q: In terms of performing culture, did you delve into that as far as history and technique? Do you know the realities of it?
Pamela Anderson: We met with the actual Jubilee dancers. They’re Las Vegas showgirls, they’re still the icon of Las Vegas, even though they no longer exist. They were treated like movie stars. The art form was very important to them, very proud. I worked with a great choreographer that I worked with on Broadway, Greg Butler, who worked on the showgirl scenes and the dance scenes and the rehearsals, except for Jamie’s because she did hers freestyle. We had some great people around us, helping with the choreography, doing the quick changes because there’s a way to do it. We had dressers from the Jubilee telling us: “No, you take this off first, then this off second, third, fourth.” These quick changes were quite a lot of choreography, basically a dance. There was a lot of choreography, the movie is very musical, with everybody having their movements.
Jamie Lee Curtis: Those showgirls were ambassadors when Las Vegas was in its infancy. They sent showgirls around the world, these women were goddesses, they were respected. What Vegas has become is a slutty circus. We see that in Krienan’ scene in the dressing room. It shows you where we’ve come and how degraded these women have become. It’s a perfect indictment of where we are as a culture of what we expect women to do. The showgirls were full examples of grace, elegance, class, culture, and beauty. And they’ve been reduced to sluts in Vegas now. It’s heartbreaking.
@Courtesy of Roadside Attractions
Q: What would you say about the journey that has made this experience like the right moment at the right time?
Pamela Anderson: For me, it’s the definition of a bittersweet moment, because I’ve felt I could do this since I was a little girl. Then going through the course of my career, I shouldn’t have done that, I shouldn’t have done this, look back and see I could have made different choices. But you need the life experience to understand that you could have made different choices. Every image on screen was fully loaded with life experiences and desire to express ourselves. It was unexpected, which is really nice. To find a role like this to play at this point in my life, I just realized that everything in life was worth it. This was a very important film for me to do for my soul. It is such a labor of love, it was such a pleasure and honor to work with Gia and Jamie and Kate and the girls and Dave Bautista. Even the audition scene was great. I enjoyed every minute of it. There was a fear in me, but then I just had to go. It was a real pivotal moment, raw and real.
If you like the press conference, share your thoughts below.
Check out more of Adriano’s articles.
Here’s the trailer of The Last Showgirl: