Sex, tape, and rock 'n' roll: Lily James talks tackling Pam & Tommy's 'brutal' second half

Pamela Anderson is once again staring into a handheld video camera, more exposed than ever. But this isn't another newlywed home movie, intended for her (and her new husband's) eyes only. This time, she's sitting across a sterile conference room table from an arrogant, smirking lawyer on Pam & Tommy. He brazenly berates her with excessively invasive questions like, "How old were you when you first publicly exposed your genitals?" and "Have you ever been paid for sex?" and implies her posing for Playboy was a "sex act." She endures the dressing-down until she can't — ultimately falling apart in a bathroom, away from prying eyes (and cameras). The honeymoon is definitely over.

It's a harrowing fictionalization in the sixth episode of Hulu's limited series, but it depicts the very real, very exhausting depositions Anderson (played in Pam & Tommy by Lily James) gave during her 1997 lawsuit in an attempt to halt the sale and distribution of the private sex tape stolen from her home with then husband Tommy Lee (Sebastian Stan). The sickening sequence is a far cry from the outrageous and carefree glitz-and-glamour lifestyle the Baywatch star and Mötley Crüe drummer enjoyed through the first half of the season. And it may not be what viewers are expecting from a series that was teased as a "comedic take on the true story behind the release of the first ever viral video in history." But it's exactly why James wanted to portray Anderson: to bring this "brutal" true story to life on screen.

"There's a lot more than meets the eye," the English actress says, staring into a camera and speaking to EW via Zoom from her Los Angeles home. "It's a satire. A dark look at what happened and the s--- show around this whole event that transpired. A lot about it spoke to me and it feels timely."

James is the first to admit she's not the obvious choice to bare all as the blond bombshell in a retelling of the first and perhaps most notorious viral sex-tape scandal. "I was very shocked they were even talking to me about it," says the 32-year-old, who gained her acclaim working on very different kinds of period pieces (War & Peace, Darkest Hour) and is an actual Disney princess (Cinderella). But after reading the first two scripts and talking with Pam & Tommy showrunners Robert Siegel and D.V. DeVincentis about where all eight episodes would go, the Mamma Mia! sequel star was hooked on the challenge.

"It's great to be frightened and to push yourself beyond the realms of what you believe that you could do or play, and I knew that was something I wanted to do," she says. "I'd done a lot of work in England and period dramas so certainly I was looking for something completely different and unexpected, so this definitely piqued my interest. And there was so much in it that I found surprising — it was exploring this untold story, the story that was missed or misrepresented by the headlines. There were bigger themes in it beyond the [scandal]. I was on board pretty fast."

But the backlash to James' casting as Anderson was swift. People doubted her ability to look the part ("It was a lot meaner than that!" she says of her fiercest critics) until the first photos of her in costume silenced the naysayers. At first, James tried not to pay any attention to the conversations around her physical appearance — both the positive and the negative comments.

"Me and Sebastian, we'd done a few weeks of filming so we had blinders [on] and were focusing on the job and the day to day and trying to inhabit our characters at that point," she says. "We were both really, really dedicated and wanted to do our absolute best to represent Pamela and Tommy as best as we possibly could and trying not to get lost in that noise and the hype. However, it was sort of impossible not to because it was like nothing I've been a part of before where people were reacting in such a big way."

The extreme response made the showrunners even more certain James was the perfect choice. "Pam has this strength and resilience and playfulness and sweetness and innocence and toughness. It just felt like a whole bunch of adjectives that you would use to describe Lily," reflects Siegel, who was initially advised to cast "some trashy sex bomb" but refused. "I'm like, 'You're completely missing the point. You're completely getting Pam wrong the way the world has gotten Pam wrong for so many years.'" DeVincentis agrees, adding that "it was very ironic how people were underestimating Lily the same way that people underestimated Pamela."

James was attached to star in Pam & Tommy two years before producers found Stan to play Lee — due to COVID delays among other things — but she didn't get to work right away. "I think I kept putting off in my brain that it was going to happen, and then suddenly I was like, 'Oh my God, I'm playing Pamela on set in less than six months,'" she says. "Then, that was all I could think about. I started watching a lot of Baywatch."

She also bought a blond wig and wore it in her daily life — even when running errands to CVS. She worked with a trainer and gained more confidence in her body. But she also knew she couldn't rely solely on the physical transformation (which eventually included a daily four-hour process of hair, makeup, and wardrobe) to get into character. She spent months digging up everything she could find about Anderson — from interviews to films to the books she wrote — "to try and mimic her body language and rhythm of speech and mannerisms." But the most vital thing she gained from all her research is a deeper understanding of the trauma Anderson endured throughout the ordeal, and all the years after.

"This was such an unprecedented situation, and the violation of her privacy was so extreme and so unbearable and should never, ever happen to anyone," James says. "And the way she was treated, not only by the media but also in the legal system, it was shocking to learn more about how the situation was treated — and how she was treated. That deposition sequence is so upsetting. That episode was really hard to shoot. Hannah Fidell directed it, and we all really understood how sensitive it is. It's heartbreaking to see that she had no control over it. On set, there was just one room with me and these men, all these old lawyers, and you just think, 'God, she's fighting a losing battle from the word go.'"

While James knows her life and experiences in the spotlight are extremely different from Anderson's, she still found herself connecting to what Anderson had gone through. "Being a woman, being a girl growing up in the industry, any amount of fame that you get and being in the public eye and navigating all of that, it's weird how you can play a character that's seemingly a million miles away from you, but you find the places you relate," she says.

James reached out to Anderson prior to filming but never heard back — and a source close to Anderson told EW that "she'll never, never watch this. Not even years from now. Not even the trailer." (Stan, meanwhile, spoke with Lee to discuss the role). "I do wish things had been different and that she wanted to be involved," James says. As for what she would've asked Anderson? "Oh, my goodness, that's a tricky question," she says, taking a long pause. "I'd have to really think about that. I wouldn't even be able to say now." She understands how Pam & Tommy reopens a difficult chapter in Anderson's life, so she "can't even really speak to" whether she wants Anderson to see this show.

"I just really hope we've done justice to the story and to her, even all these years later," she finally adds. "And I just really hope it challenges people's perceptions on what she went through — and that we look at the misogyny and sexism that continue now.Women are judged so harshly and punished in ways that feels so severe. It makes me angry and disheartened. It hasn't changed enough, and it needs to. It's not right, and it's not fair."

As the limited series gears up to release the final few episodes, the show will continue to explore Anderson's legal fight to stop the distribution of the sex tape as well as how that contributes to the breakdown of her marriage to Lee. But don't expect the series to get into the details of what exactly happened between her and Lee — namely, his arrest for spousal abuse.

"I think that was very purposeful," James says. "This is about a very specific moment in time and so it wasn't our intention to explore that part of their lives at all. It was very much looking at this huge invasion of privacy and how that affected them both, and beyond that, affected our culture of celebrity now. We didn't want to go beyond that and I think that was right."

Ultimately, James is proud of the growth Pam & Tommy afforded her on screen and off, but it will likely be a while before she tackles another biopic. When asked what her next role will be, she's quick to answer with a big laugh, "Probably a fictional character."

The first six episodes of Pam & Tommy are now streaming on Hulu.

A version of this story appears in the March issue of Entertainment Weekly, on newsstands now. Don't forget to subscribe for more exclusive interviews and photos, only in EW.

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• Become Pamela Anderson: Inside Lily James' daily 4-hour transformation on Pam & Tommy
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• How Pam & Tommy was made without Pamela Anderson's involvement (or permission)