Lily James’ transformation into Pamela Anderson for the Hulu limited series “Pam & Tommy” broke the internet when first look photos of the actress in character debuted at the end of May. James, best known for roles in “Baby Driver” and “Mamma Mia: Here We Go Again,” is unrecognizable as Anderson, thanks to nuanced makeup that ever-so-slightly altered her face. Barry Lee Moe, the hair department head on “Pam and Tommy,” confirmed to Variety this week that James spent “anywhere from three to five hours [in] hair and makeup every morning before we even started filming.”
According to Moe, the series also used 25 different wigs for cast members James, Seth Rogen, Nick Offerman, and Taylor Schilling. Sebastian Stan, who stars as Tommy Lee, went the natural route for his hairstyling and grew out his hair.
“Sebastian is the only one who doesn’t wear a wig,” said Moe, who also confirmed “Pam & Tommy” wrapped principal photography on Friday, July 30. “We had a keratin treatment done, and we colored it every few weeks.”’
“I, Tonya” and “Cruella” director Craig Gillespie helmed “Pam & Tommy,” with “The Wrestler” scribe Rob Siegel penning the script. Anderson and Lee’s real-life relationship dominated celebrity tabloids in the 1990s, as did the scandal that erupted after their sex tape from their honeymoon was stolen and leaked to the public. The Hulu series will cover the scandal and the fallout that ensued. Seth Rogen, starring as the man who stole their sex tape, is producing the series with his creative partner Evan Goldberg.
“In some ways, it’s very similar to ‘I, Tonya’ with the surprise of it,” Gillespie told Collider earlier this year about the Hulu limited series. “There’s the victimization of the media and what happened with that tape that was such an affront to them, and how it really ultimately severely damaged their personal life and her career. There’s this situation with the public who snicker and go, ‘Oh, yeah, I know that story. They sold it.’ But people just don’t know the story.”
Gillespie went on to call the “Pam & Tommy” script “amazing,” adding about the show, “It makes us complicit, as a society and with the consumption of the media, that we do this without any consideration for the humans involved in it. It does that same interesting thing, where we go in being complicit because we wanna see it and relive this, and then halfway through it, we realize that we’re the problem, as an audience. You really get to land on an emotional human level with Pam, which is what they did so beautifully with the scripts.”
Hulu has yet to announce a premiere date for “Pam & Tommy.”
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