Pamela Anderson is heading to Broadway
Pam & Tommy might have renewed interest in Anderson’s past, but she’s focusing on her future.
Pamela Anderson is having a moment she deserves. The former Baywatch star and pop culture icon may have been upset by Hulu’s dramatization of the 1995 scandal when her private sex tape with husband Tommy Lee was stolen and leaked, but she’s certainly found a way around that discomfort. Earlier this month, Anderson revealed via her social media that she had inked a deal with Netflix to create a documentary about her life in the present, something she’d rather focus on than rehashing controversy from the past. She said in her announcement that she is “not a victim, but a survivor and alive to tell the real story.” But getting to know the 21st-century version of Pamela Anderson isn’t all the documentary will tackle — now, part of that project will follow Anderson as she takes on the legendary Broadway role of Roxie Hart in the musical Chicago.
On Good Morning America on Wednesday, Anderson revealed that the documentary will now be at least two parts. “They’re actually following me through this journey, so they get to see a little bit of me preparing for Roxie as well. ... But we weren’t intending on doing that. Roxie just came along literally in the last few weeks.” It’s quite the development for a 90s star who has been relatively obscure in recent years until Pam & Tommy revived her infamy. “I’ve been gone for a little while, but...I’m back,” she quipped.
She told GMA that when Tony Award-winning co-producer Barry Weissler called her to make the offer, she couldn’t turn it down. “How can you say no to him? It was just so outrageous, I thought,” she admitted. “And it’s good timing. My kids are grown … so now I feel like it’s time. I need a challenge. I need to do something. I needed this.” She went on to say that she’s been surprising herself while rehearsing for the role, and that the challenge of exploring her creative self is paying off. She spoke of how the character of Roxie spoke to her in particular, because her narrative is one in which she takes a bad situation and turns it into something that works for her. It truly is a comeback story, and we love to see it — and crowds will surely flock to the theater to see Anderson’s Broadway debut.
