How Lily became Pammy
Director Craig Gillespie on Lily James’ dramatic transformation for new miniseries Pam & Tommy
WHEN IT WAS first announced that Lily James was going to play Pamela Anderson in Craig Gillespie’s upcoming limited series, Pam & Tommy, it’s fair to say there were a few eyebrows raised. How could James — an actor best known for playing enough demure English roses to fill a garden — possibly get under the skin of one of the 20th century’s most iconic sex symbols?
Then the first images from the show were released, and the answer was clear: either James was wearing next-level prosthetics, or Gillespie had resorted to time travel and kidnap. Because James looks exactly like Anderson.
“I don’t want to pull back the curtain,” says Gillespie, who is still shooting the series. “But there was one prosthetic for the face that made all the difference. And there’s obviously prosthetic breasts involved, and she did a lot of work getting in shape and toning her body to be in that ballpark. The transformation happens pretty quickly. But then she’s got to deliver, which is the hair-raising part for an actor.”
For James’ part, she revealed in early May, just before filming began, that she’d “never felt more nervous about a project”. Gillespie, though, is confident that her nerves were misplaced. “For an actor, this has to be one of the most nervewracking things, to take on a very iconic, very familiar figure, and then portray them in a way that doesn’t feel like a caricature, but doesn’t feel like an impersonation,” he says. “She’s got to figure out how to create a human being there, and she’s done a masterful job with that.”
By contrast, Sebastian Stan — reuniting with Gillespie after I, Tonya
— has barely been touched by the brush of Jason Collins at Autonomous FX. He’s slapped on some temporary tats and quirky facial hair to play Lee, perhaps because (unlike Anderson) Lee’s face wasn’t seared onto the consciousness of an entire generation. “He’s doing something dramatically different,” says Gillespie. “I don’t think he’s played a role like this. Tommy’s very energetic, very playful, spontaneous, and surprising in a lot of crazy ways. Sebastian is killing that as well.”
We won’t know how impressive the Pamela Anderson makeup truly is until the eightepisode show debuts next year. Until then, for all Gillespie’s platitudes about prosthetics, we’re not ruling out time travel just yet. PAM & TOMMY IS ON STAR ON DISNEY+ IN 2022