The Big Picture

Collider’s Perri Nemiroff sits down with the cast and creatives behind
The Last Showgirl
, starring Pamela Anderson, at TIFF 2024.
Featuring a powerhouse cast,
The Last Showgirl
follows Shelley, who must confront her past to step into a new future outside the lights of Las Vegas.
Director Gia Coppola, writer Kate Gersten, and co-stars Anderson, Kiernan Shipka, and Brenda Song discuss their inspiring all-star castmates, a darker visual world of Vegas, and tons more.

The Last Showgirl is not Pamela Anderson’s first leading role, but it does feel like a particularly special project for the model and actress to have taken on. Directed by Gia Coppola and featuring a supporting cast of immense talent, this Las Vegas-based drama premiered at the 2024 Toronto International Film Festival and is already being described as poignant, stunning, and stripped down.

Written by Kate Gersten in the mid-2000s, The Last Showgirl is a timeless story about reexamining your life and finding purpose within yourself. Las Vegas showgirl Shelley (Anderson) finds herself forced to confront an uncertain future when her show closes after 30 years. With the lights destined to go down, Shelley has to reconnect with the relationships sacrificed for her dreams of the stage, including her daughter (Billie Lourd), and rediscover who she is under all the feathers and sequins. The movie also features Jamie Lee Curtis, Dave Bautista, Kiernan Shipka, Brenda Song, and Jason Schwartzman.

At the festival, Anderson, Coppola, Gersten, Shipka and Song stopped by the Collider interview studio at Cinema Center at MARBL to talk about the movie with Perri Nemiroff. Coppola and Gersten discuss their shared vision for the film and how they wanted to explore a darker “visual world” of Las Vegas. Anderson, who calls this role “life or death,” talks about her nerves before working opposite Jamie Lee Curtis and how much it meant to her to take on a project like this. Shipka and Song recall when they first realized this ensemble was something special, the nurturing environment their lead cultivated, as well as how Anderson’s ferocity encouraged them for future projects.

You can watch the full conversation in the video above or read the interview transcript below.

The Women of Las Vegas Inspired ‘The Last Showgirl’
“I just wondered what their lives were like.”
Image via Utopia

PERRI NEMIROFF: Clearly, I know what your movie is about, but because it’s a festival debut, Kate, I’m going to give you these honors; can you tell our audience briefly what The Last Showgirl is about?

KATE GERSTEN: The movie is about Shelley, a Las Vegas showgirl, career-long, whose show is about to close, and she’s not sure what her future holds.

What was idea number one, the thing that started it all for you, but then also, did you have a break story moment, something that made it feel like the story was whole now?

GERSTEN: I saw the show Jubilee! when I was in Las Vegas in 2013. I had a feeling that the show was not long for this world, but I knew that it had been a real staple in Las Vegas for over 30 years. I was really fascinated. There were 85 women in the show, and the costumes were incredible, and the set was enormous. There was the Titanic on the set. It was a huge Titanic ship — they can’t get the ship out of the theater even though the show closed back in 2016. I just saw those women up on that stage, and I knew that there were women in that show who were over 40, maybe over 50, that had been in the show for years and years. I just wondered what their lives were like, and I started to think about it and the ideas about aging and beauty in America, and what an iconic American place Las Vegas is. Obviously, the image of the American showgirl, it’s so iconic, and it just spoke directly to me. It also made me think about the car industry, the coal industry, and the job loss in America around that time. I just thought, “Job loss in America?”

PAMELA ANDERSON: This is a whole new thing. We haven’t heard this before.

Gia Coppola’s ‘The Last Showgirl’ Highlights a Sobering “Visual World of Vegas”
The director aims to explore a side of Vegas not often depicted on-screen.
Image by Photagonist at TIFF

Gia, one of the coolest things in this business is when you get a great script, but then you find a way to make it uniquely your own. What is a space you found in Kate’s script that you knew you’d be able to bring your voice to in a unique way?

GIA COPPOLA: Kate’s script was originally a play, so it had these amazing characters and this fleshed-out world that I was so interested in getting to learn more about, but it also allowed to have space for the visual world of Vegas and let Vegas be a character in itself. I have such a fascination with that place, and just what is it like to live there? We kind of realized now that you mostly see Vegas in the daytime, and it’s always depicted in this sort of glittery light, but to see it in this more sobering view, I was really excited to also add that layer to the movie.

I read a lot about how you both had a fascination with Vegas and that kind of sparked this film. What would you say started that fascination, and can you give me a specific example of something you found about Vegas while making the movie that now makes you love it even more?

COPPOLA: I can’t quite place what it is that I like. I think everyone’s kind of like, “What’s wrong with you? That’s really strange.” But I think it represents so much to me, and it kind of feels like Pinocchio’s donkey land, [Pleasure Island], where it’s like all these vices are coming at you. I remember I was walking around, and someone was like, “You can be as weird as you want, and no one will judge you,” and I was like, “This is such a unique place.” But I think what surprised me about Vegas, having stayed there, is it actually feels very suburban, and it is kind of family, residential. You don’t actually spend time on the strip. You actually want to avoid it because it’s really hard to park and expensive, and so you’re just like, “I’ll do everything outside.” There are great restaurants on the strip, that’s the reason to go there.

GERSTEN: I grew up in New York City and everybody always said, “You grew up in New York City? Where are the children in New York City? Where are the schools?” And I was like, “They’re in the buildings. People live here.” And I feel like I had that same sort of realization about Vegas, just like what Gia says. It’s like, “Oh, there are people here! Oh, children live in Las Vegas.” It was crazy! I think it was when I was in college, I really loved — you guys are gonna be like, “What the hell is this? Where is this coming from?” — the flying trapeze and I was kind of fascinated by the circus. I loved the circus, and I went to see O my first trip to Las Vegas, and I saw it by myself. I was probably, like, 20 years old, and I wasn’t interested in gambling, I wasn’t interested in drinking or partying even that much. I just wanted to go to the circus. The colors and the costumes and the grandiosity and the spectacle opened up a whole new part of my imagination.

Pamela Anderson Credits Jamie Lee Curtis for Bringing Their Group Together
“There was no ego, and it was really inspiring.”
Image by Photagonist at TIFF

One of my favorite elements of this movie is the cast chemistry. It does feel like a script that hinges on you being able to create that family-like environment. For each of you, what was the first moment on set that made you stop, look around and say to yourself, “My god, we really are the perfect ensemble for this material?”

KIERNAN SHIPKA: I feel like the first day, or one of our first days, was with the whole cast making dinner.

BRENDA SONG: That was the first scene we ever shot.

COPPOLA: And then the barbeque …

SONG: With Dave [Bautista].

COPPOLA: And then I remember Jamie [Lee Curtis] being like, “This cast.” [Laughs] That’s all you want Pamela to have is that big strong man.

SONG: For me, it was just all of a sudden I was looking around, and I was like, “I am surrounded by people that I admire, that I look up to, that I respect. I can’t believe I’m sitting at this table.” And the thing about it is, Jamie Lee Curtis and Pam, who are literal legends, they come in, but with that same mindset, though. Every single day, the generosity of this cast and crew and the kindness, Gia put together a group of just wonderful human beings. Every single person on that set was just a joy, and I think that’s what made us all feel so symbiotic and wonderful and easy. It felt hard and easy at the same time.

GERSTEN: Every time Gia would text me or call me with another casting update, I was just like, “This is unbelievable.” When she was like, “Pamela is in,” I was like, “Oh my god!” And then she was like, “Jamie Lee Curtis is in,” I was like, “Oh my god!” She was like, “Dave Bautista is in,” like, “Oh my god!” “Kiernan Shipka is in, Brenda Song is in!” I was losing my mind every time you text me.

PAMELA ANDERSON: I think that first scene really helped us all find out who we are, too, in real-time while we were shooting. It was incredible. Then we did the table read, and I met Jamie for the first time, and I was terrified. I was thinking, “Oh my gosh, Jamie Lee Curtis, Academy Award-winning actress — I have to read with her right now. I’m about to throw up.” But she was just like, “Let’s just do this!” She just kept on looking me in the eyes, and she’s so supportive and so wonderful. I feel like I’ve known her my whole life, and she’s incredible. She really was a force on the set and brought us all together. It was nice to see her at her level in life and success in her life be such a real down-to-earth, nitty-gritty, raw person who was willing to do whatever it took to tell the story. There was no ego, and it was really inspiring.

Pamela Anderson Had Given Up on Roles Like This
“I’ll figure out another way to make my life beautiful.”
Image by Photagonist at TIFF

Pamela, this is your first lead role in a little while. Why now and also why particularly this role?

ANDERSON: I think timing is everything. I thought I was never gonna get the chance to do anything like this. I kind of thought, “Oh, well, that’s what people think of me. I’m just gonna go back to my farm, make jam, and that’s it. I’ll figure out another way to make my life beautiful.” But the documentary came out, the book came out, and Gia saw the documentary. She must be some kind of master or prophet or something, but she was so wonderful to send the script to me. I read it, and I was like, “Oh god, this is that thing. This is that thing when people read a script, and they really realize they’re the only ones that can do it. They have to do it. It’s life and death.” And I felt that way, and I get chills even thinking about it. I knew I had to do it. And so I’m just so grateful.

The whole company was so supportive and so wonderful that I just felt like, “I have nothing to lose. I’m gonna throw every single ounce of what I’m capable of — I don’t even know what I’m capable of yet. I haven’t even scratched the surface. I’ve been getting away with murder in a bikini for way too long. I need to do something really good!” And so that’s why I did it, and I’m glad it happened the way it did.

Pamela Anderson’s “Ferocity and Realness” Inspired Her Co-Stars
“It’s like lightning in a bottle.”
Image by Photagonist at TIFF

We’re going to make Pamela blush right now because, again, first lead role in a little while, and you are phenomenal in this film. I walked out thinking, “There better be many, many more to come.” So for you two as co-stars, as a writer, and as a director, what is something about the way Pamela operates on set that you really appreciated, maybe something that helped elevate your own work, that you’re excited for more of her collaborators to experience in the future?

SONG: Everything!

SHIPKA: The level of commitment and bravery and vulnerability genuinely was so awe-inspiring, but also it’s motivating. It’s addictive. It’s an addictive quality. Like, I wanted to show up every day being the most stripped-down, real version of myself and approach my work in the most honest way that I could. Watching it last night just got me so excited to take steps and moves in my own life and career that are deeply inspired by what you did. Deeply, deeply, deeply, truly, that level of ferocity and just realness that you brought, it’s truly made its way into my brain, and it will not leave for the rest of my life for sure. I’m just being real.

GERSTEN: I do think it’s like lightning in a bottle that Shelley and Pamela came together because it really felt like you were channeling her.

SHIPKA: I can’t believe you didn’t write the script thinking about her!

GERSTEN: I can’t either. The first time we had the table read, every single line she said was exactly the way I had thought about it in my head when I was writing it 11 years ago. It was really lightning in a bottle.

SONG: The thing about Pamela that people don’t realize is she is so talented and so wise and so smart. For me, walking on set and seeing her put herself out there and be vulnerable and be raw and be nervous and scared, the thing that I take so much from that is she felt all of those things and did it anyway. I was like, “That’s all I aspire to do, is that.” Because I feel like the world wants to beat us down, and you persevere through everything and every single day. You can feel it on screen. She put her heart and her soul into every moment, and I think that was just so inspiring because how could you not want to meet that energy when you see someone who is willing to put it all out there? That’s what was so beautiful. Moving forward, I don’t want to do projects where I can’t be in an environment where that is the standard because being the lead in something, you set the tone for everyone else, for the entire set, and Pamela just set the bar so high. It made us all comfortable in a very safe place.

COPPOLA: For me as a director, this whole cast, everyone was extremely open, and that is such a gift to have. That level of trust is so hard to earn, and I think it just came so naturally with everyone, and for me, as well. The level of vulnerability that Pamela was able to give me and share with me, I felt like she’s like a mother, she’s like a daughter, she’s a sister, she’s a friend. It’s such a wonderful experience that other directors are gonna be fortunate to experience. You go to her house and she’s cooking you soup and making you cookies.

SHIPKA: Good soup, by the way.

SONG: Yes, and great cookies. Those kept me alive.

COPPOLA: Bringing sweaters and socks to sets, and, “Oh, you want a cappuccino?”

ANDERSON: Puppy treats!

The Universe Came Together for ‘The Last Showgirl’
The powerhouse cast shares what they’re most proud of accomplishing on-set.
Image by Photagonist at TIFF

Clearly, I love when collaborators give each other flowers, but I also need to hear some self-love as well. Can you each tell me something you accomplished making this movie that you know you’ll be able to look back on and say, “I am so proud of what I did there?” Mainly because I find people in this business do not say “good job” to themselves nearly enough.

SHIPKA: The splits! [Laughs]

ANDERSON: I got to breathe. I feel like I’ve been holding on to the secret for so long that I’m capable of more, and I just felt like to be able to do that was really important.

GERSTEN: I have been fighting for this story to be told for a decade, whether it was the play or… It was very magical when Gia came to me. I mean, I had a film script, but when she said, “Let’s make it,” I was like, “This is the way it’s meant to be.” And to see it actually come to life with the most incredible cast and crew I could ever possibly imagine, the most loving, nurturing environment for all of us, I mean, I’m the luckiest writer in the world.

ANDERSON: Well, you’re amazing.

SONG: You’re the best. We’re so lucky. Are you kidding me? One of the reasons this experience was so easy was because the words just… To be honest, and it has a lot to do with the women up here, it was just letting go. I think that was a huge thing for me. Pamela opened the doors for us when we weren’t in showgirl makeup to not wear anything. It’s the first time in my life, at 36, I went out there with no makeup on because if Pamela Anderson is doing it, so can I. For me, as an actor, it sounds so silly but it was so freeing. And Gia consistently every day pushed me to just let go, to go to a real place and let go. It’s like you don’t realize how much you’re holding onto, and so I think that’s what I take from this is, I’m proud of myself for allowing myself to let go. But I’m really, truly thankful to these people who I knew would catch me if I were to fall.

COPPOLA: I feel like for so much of this movie, the universe just really came into place in such a natural way. I feel like my job as a director is to sort of put certain puzzle pieces together and then let it go off and breathe and live. I’ve had so many different experiences on a set, but this one, I felt like I was able to really trust my intuition, and I think that comes with being so supported by all of the women around me, and Dave, a strong, sensitive male.

GERSTEN: Yes, the best!

Special thanks to this year’s partners of the Cinema Center x Collider Studio at TIFF 2024 including presenting Sponsor Range Rover Sport as well as supporting sponsors Peoples Group financial services, poppi soda, Don Julio Tequila, Legend Water and our venue host partner Marbl Toronto. And also Roxstar Entertainment, our event producing partner and Photagonist Canada for the photo and video services.