Pamela Anderson’s Resurgence in The Last Showgirl – Creators Robert Schwartzman & Kate Gersten

25:56Will you invest in it? You'd say, who's in it? Tell me about it. Oh, well, we have da-da-da and da-da-da-da in it. Really? That's amazing. You have da-da-da in it? Da-da-da should be a real actor. Yeah, exactly. A great one. I'm tracking. And then eventually, if you didn't know me, right, you would want to see da-da-da's really in it. Send me da-da-da's contract. Right. I don't have it yet because it's not negotiated because I can't get the deal done because it's taking months. Because why? Because if you're an indie, you're not getting paid a gazillion dollars. So what motivation does anyone have to get the deal done?

26:34That's a trickle down problem because if I have to go get my financing, I need to show my investors that they're attached to my film to get it. Because I'm sure people have been earned and hurt in the past by bad, you know, like not honest production people. So we hope we're running a more upfront operation with how we make movies and hopefully the track record shows. But I'm just saying it took, it's such a like, like this movie was such a carrying like a bunch of like plates with your feet and your hands every day. Right. To just make sure we could get to day one. And that's like the cast, you know, like getting Pamela eventually to say yes.

27:14And it was Pamela wanted to do it. You speak to it. Yeah. Well, what was amazing was that, you know, we had just started our process of trying to figure out who was going to play Shelly. and my husband Matt Robert's brother watched the panel shout out shout out to Matt Shire yeah he's gonna love this shout out he also happens to be the one who gave my script originally to my play to Gia and said oh you're into Las Vegas she wrote a play in Las Vegas you know shout out to Matt Shire dude he's killing it out there he's great Matt connected his wife with his cousin yeah that's wild can you believe he put them together so then he also the other thing that Matt did was he watched Pamela's documentary, Love Pamela, on Netflix.

27:55A little documentary that no one had heard of. It was right when it, I think it was the first weekend. I'm a jokester. No, I get it. The audience probably gets it. I do think it was right when it came out. I think it was opening weekend. Yeah. No one saw it. Well, he saw it before Gia and I saw it. I don't know how he had discovered this freaking documentary. He found this little unnamed, this little da-da-da. You may have heard of it. You may have not. But it was like, the first weekend it was out on Netflix, he watches it. He was like, Gia, I know who your Shelly is. And he was like, just watch this, just watch this.

28:26And then, and then you talk to Kate about it. And then Gia texted me and she was like, just watch this. And because I think that, you know, we all have an idea of who Pamela was. And I think that in my head, I, I don't know why I always sort of thought that Shelly needed to be played by somebody who could contort themselves into a vulnerable woman, you know, of a certain age. And Pamela was just so naturally that from like the get go when we saw her in this doc, I was like, well, this is amazing. We all were just so aligned. And but then it was a process of trying to get it to her. Her first agent, like rejected it within an hour.

29:10Oh, wow. That's pretty quick. Without reading it, it was literally just like. I should touch on that because that's come up a lot in these like sort of it's part of her journey for this new taking on new types of roles as an actor. Like I think it's possible, you know, I look at the way the industry operates. I spoke about time and things get emails get lost. Things get overlooked. People don't get responded to. It's so everyday business 101 here. I just don't I think like for an independent film to just out of the blue offer the film to Pamela was maybe different was new for maybe the team to see these kinds of projects coming in.

29:49So for whatever reason, it just maybe just didn't feel real enough at that time to really consider it heavily is my political way of answering this question. But it's so common. It's so often that you have to find ways into people through other ways. Right. Right. So it's the equivalent. Have you ever seen the movie Bowfinger? Yes. Long time. It's such a good movie. Such a random. But it was Steve Martin. You've seen Bowfinger? Yeah. Oh, my gosh. It's so good. Rewatch Bowfinger. I think Bowfinger is like a whole other. It's like on another level now. It's like amazing. But yeah, it's like it's not it's like there's always some odd way someone ends up in a movie or you go through someone else.

30:28a friend knows somebody and but that's how like you know pamela's son brandon kind of helps manage and oversee aspects of her business and luckily he looked at the material took a closer look at what was being made and really gave it a gave it had the team really look at and give us the time and eventually she she really was excited about the film because it's a great role obviously Kate wrote a great role for Pamela as a relaunch of her creative life. And Gia, as a filmmaker, spoke to Pamela stylistically. So there was enough there for her to say yes. This movie, what's interesting about Last Showgirl is that it was made in a way outside the system, which is really interesting to talk about.

31:13Because I think more movies have to be made this way, I think, for them to preserve their integrity and identity and get made faster and just happen. Right. So what I mean is like an idea. I'm not saying that we didn't work with agencies or collaborate with great people because we had we had great support. But there's a point where you create momentum with anything and then people jump on and they're like, oh, this is happening. Right. It's like totally human nature. You have an idea for a startup company. People, maybe they like your idea, but they're not sure how it's going to be executed at first.

31:45Oh, my God, you've already launched your product. You've got this many users. Hey, man, how can I get involved? total human nature right to find that momentum point but like we you know gia had grown up fortunately she grew up in los angeles an industry town she had met jamie and knew they had you know her gia growing up in la her daughter went to school together took a hail mary hey jamie would you look at this script uh pamela's gonna play the lead jamie was so excited about it absolutely i would love to be part of this she loved the material she loved the character if it didn't make sense for if a role doesn't make sense for somebody you can't just jam them in it sure it's not going to work at the end of the day you have to you the audience have to believe everyone in the film or else it doesn't work yeah so you have to make decisions you can't just put someone in because they're famous it's the kiss of death if it's not the the right match you see through it but i think what people like about last showgirls it does feel like a slice of a world that they can believe in and the casting was was it was right as you said earlier forget who's forget the name and what level they are.

32:46It was just really good casting that was all done very direct to... There was no casting director specifically that gave a list of actors. In the beginning, we did kick around ideas with a casting consultant, but we didn't have... We didn't continue that path forward. We really went direct to actor eventually and just kind of bypassed that way of doing it. It's resourceful, sure. And Dave Bautista had taken a general with Gia years ago, and I'd said to Gia, what about Dave Bautista for Eddie? And then I said, hit him up on Instagram. Like, just message him. So she literally messaged Dave Bautista on Instagram, and he responded, or whoever works with him responded very quickly and said, just send me the script directly.

33:29He loved it because he expressed to Gia wanting to do, like, more exciting, challenging roles that are different than the roles he was known for at that time. And emotional. More emotional characters. And just it was an interesting choice to have Eddie played by Dave. And it works. When you see the movie, you're like, that's amazing. Yeah. But Dave having the wig, he had great ideas to create this character. Yes, he had that wig made on his own. We didn't even see it until he showed up in Las Vegas with it. So cool. Wearing it. And we were like, oh, my God, is that not your real hair? It looked so real.

33:57That's true. I just think that's the fun part of the film is like looking back is like, you know, the strikes were going on in this industry. The WGA and SAG, two strikes were going on. We had to be very mindful of the rules of the strike and supportive of those who were out of work. And we had to wait and see what was going to happen. And we weren't given—we didn't get a waiver as an indie. We were a waiver—we're the poster boy of the waiver, but we never got one. Waivers were given to movies of multiples our budget, right? Right. That wasn't what it was meant to be, right? So I can't speak to that.

34:31It's a political problem. But I can just say that we waited out until there was a resolution. Right. And then we were able to reengage all parties and begin this process. And we were we shot right after the New Year's right after New Year's Day, like literally a day later. We're all in Vegas. That means there's no real prep time. We moved our location literally after already doing a scout. We had scouted the movie. A tech scout is where you have your crew, your department heads show up and walk through every location and make notes about how you're going to shoot. light it we had done that for a whole other hotel wow location and then i called gia and i was like this is gonna sound crazy but another plan b hotel just finally got approved we're going back we're gonna re-scout you should move it there she's like are you this is insane it's like christmas tomorrow yeah got on a plane that day she went back out re-scout i went scouted for her with our production designer said you've got to do this she flew in the next day and we moved it to this So there's a lot of these last night things, but that's the fun of the movie was like, it was like this great balancing act, but I think that's how fun movies get made that we remember in a way.

35:38Great stories come out of these movies that we remember. But Brenda's song, Kieran and Shipka, Jason was like, not maybe going to be in it. Like that day got on a plane and went out there, has this crazy look, but it worked out for the film. But yeah, anyway, I'm just kind of, these are the fun stories that don't really get discussed. You know what I love? because I'm listening to all this, right? And I'm going deeper than a movie here, right? Like I'm hearing everything you're saying. Sean, we're ready to go there. Come on, let's go deep. This is life. Yeah. There's, you know, using the network, like in this case, it was a lot of family, right?

36:14To come together and build something collaborative so people can tell their stories so you can get something out and can shoot it and people can relate to it by watching it, whether, you know, at home, like on, you know, Hulu, whatever. But then you have this underlying current of adversity going constantly that you guys continued to push through and to find solutions to certain issues, whether it was the strike or, you know, the first no from Pamela's camp, right? All these different things. There's a lot of people that would sit there and say, hey, this just isn't happening. Stay the course, right?

36:50And the product was a successful movie. in the audience listening, you know, I'm really, I have a lot of faith in my audience that when they're listening to what you guys are saying, they're taking the actual content and the ideals behind what you're saying. Like I can apply this to my life, you know, you mean outside of the industry? Absolutely. For anything, really. For anything, because it's universal, right? There's moves that you had to make. There's, there's obstacles that were coming up constantly, you know, whether it's, you know, two organizations strike, you know, a no, a different hotel, right?

37:27All these different things that are, that are going on gives the audience the feel like, Hey, even in Hollywood, no matter what job you have, you're going through some shit and you may have to pivot at the very last second. I hope everybody's fluid and can make this adjustment with us. So I just, I really enjoyed everything you guys were saying because that to me is that's what speaks. Yeah. It's all persistence and, and resourcefulness. and just, you know, can-do attitude. Absolutely. It definitely, yeah. I mean, you can definitely apply it to a lot of things in life. I think, I mean, you know, problems are relative, you know, to whatever the circumstances are in everyone's individual lives.

38:07You know, everyone has their own set of hurdles they have to overcome in other film experiences. You might zoom out and look at The Last Showgirl and see it on Hulu. And if you don't know the industry, you might think it was made by Hulu even. I don't know people who knows how people are looking at it. Sure. We made the movie every down and dirty is a very subjective thing to say. You could say down and dirty is this. But for someone else, that's far from down and dirty. So I can't I'm just saying for our own the way we looked at this and our experiences, there's challenges within your own set of what your own experience is.

38:44Right. And that's a very personal thing. a lot of I have a lot of filmmaker friends that have their own have could tell you stories about how they made films and how things happen and if you go back in time and look at great films that were made over the years you'd hear great stories of like watch hearts of darkness like about apocalypse now like watch like when you look at when I talk about last show real stuff and I watch hearts of darkness I feel like so much better I'm like wow like wow we didn't have it nobody had a heart attack that was insane so there's a lot of yeah I just don't I don't want to like generalize or make this the sort of like new norm of how things happen in any way.

39:19But I do think that every film that gets made, I will say a lot of people come together. Here's like a good kind of statement that put the bow on it. Studio movies, indie movies, TV prod, whatever it is, everything has its own challenges and it's not easy. And there are a lot of people that come together to make everything you see. I love it. And really what it should mean to all of us is it's really important to go out there and support what people are making. Because it's so tragic if you see a movie in theaters across the country and you go in and there's like two people there. And you see the wait till the end and watch the credits go by.

39:58And you're like, wow, look at hundreds of people worked on this movie. Yeah. Like, think about that, right? Like, they made that movie so you could go there and sit there and watch it and enjoy it. That's just so cool, man. And no one's there. you're in a world now where people are using software and computer technology to like quickly create a like some products right without all the people that go into it probably yeah like we're all bracing for some new version of like society but it's it's pretty cool i mean i'm sure there's an appreciation for like there there maybe there maybe it'll become like what vinyl is to the music industry like seeing all these people work on a movie is like vinyl like dinosaur remember the old day when all those people were actually there right that's so cool man you actually all those people actually worked on it everybody had like maybe that's going to become the new like collector's piece thing interesting but i don't know but i just i just want people to know that i want your listeners to know and your watchers to know that viewers watchers what i'm talking about viewers i want everyone watching this to know that it is true that like when a movie comes out like when you make a movie and you edit a movie and you color grade a movie and mix a movie, you're watching the movie on almost like a theater size screen.

41:13So imagine why are you doing that? Because you're creating the product to support this experience. Right. And then it ends up like on this size screen. Right. So it's odd that we still make movies for that big experience for that big screen when people are really kind of going the other way. But it's so kind of amazing that people are still keeping alive the hope of the big screen experience. I mean, I love, I love going. I mean, that's, I mean, constantly I love to go. So it's important you and all the viewers out there, like when a movie is in theaters, that's not like a thing to take for granted.

41:50That movie will soon not be in theaters. That may be only in theaters for one day at this point. It It may be in theaters for three days. It may get an awards qualifying run of 10 days, right? But if it's there and you care about that experience, you should go out and see the film within that world because it's going to quickly go to digital and you're going to watch it on your TV, not the big screen. And then it's going to go to a streamer and it's going to be basically free for subscribers, right? So yeah, I'm just kind of saying the life cycle of a movie depends on the theatrical experience.

42:19If you're in the business of putting movies on the big screen, if you're making something directly for a streamer, which is fine it will not be for the theaters it'll be for the subscribers interesting so very awesome yeah it's very very deep and you know i out of the industry we don't see it like that we're like oh i can i can say well that movie wasn't in the movie theater for very long but i don't know the reasons why and now you've kind of given me a peek behind of what's actually going on so go watch the damn movies guys okay eat your damn popcorn have your show and watch it well it's interesting i i meet people just everyday movie goers and they're like hey is your movie going to be on Netflix?

42:54It's like, that's right. But I have to always say, well, Netflix is one of many platforms that licenses content. And it may not license my film or may not license really any films that you want to see. It may be on Apple or Amazon or a TVOD platform to rent it. So I think there's this strange cultural, almost like I feel it's important to talk about this because it's like a cultural educational thing of saying, hey, do you know what Netflix is? It's a subscription platform. That means they have to license content for it to be available for you. That means they won't have everything. You start to see a movie on Hulu is not going to be on Netflix unless it gets licensed after the Hulu window has expired.

43:31It's got to go on that run and then... Exactly. So it's just kind of important for people to know that they don't kind of kick back, relax and wait for Netflix. Yeah, get your ass outside. With all due respect to these great big tech companies, but I just think that, yeah, like I just think it's important to remember that movies like Last Sugar are being made every day and they're out there in ways that don't get exposed because they don't have maybe certain talent spotlighting it. Or maybe the press aren't really giving a time of day or didn't get a big festival debut, but that doesn't mean they're not there.

43:59Yeah, good point. So as we come down to the end, I want to ask you both the same question. But Kate, I want to hear - About cilantro again? Yes, no, it's even better. It's even better, but I want you to go first. So show is called The Determined Society, right? And it's based on this premise that every single day that we need to display determination in our own lives, whether we're building a podcast that started in our car like mine did and to a big, big platform that is getting a lot of love right now. I have amazing people like you guys on my show or, you know, a teacher, a writer, it doesn't matter.

44:32But everybody has to exercise a certain amount of determination every single day. So I'm going to ask you first, what does determination mean to you? Rinse takes your laundry and hand delivers it to your door, expertly cleaned and folded. So you could take the time once spent folding and sorting and waiting to finally pursue a whole new version of you. Like tea time you. Mmm. Or this tea time you. Or even this tea time you. So did you hear about Dave? Or even tea time, tea time, tea time you. Mmm. So update on Dave. It's up to you. We'll take the laundry. Rinse. It's time to be great. I love this question so much.

45:11And I'm really excited to go back and listen to your podcast and listen to other episodes. Thank you. There is something, I mean, And what I have always, I mean, I know this sounds cheesy. I've always just really loved writing. I've always just loved writing, but I have to love, be interested or like have further goals than just being like, I just want to sit down and write every day. and what gets me really excited is like making the thing that I'm writing because I can sit down and write and I've done this every day for the last like billion years sit down and write good for a billion years old I'm like yeah yeah it's amazing yeah I work on it I go to the gym um but uh I um I really feel like having a goal after the goal is one of the big things and having another goal after that goal and just really trying to, even though it may feel like pie in the sky or it may not feel realistic in the moment that I'm living in right now, to just always have those further goals, those posts that I can either have, that feel like they could be tangible one day, that those are what keep me very determined in the moment when it's like seven o 'clock in the morning and I'm like, I got to go sit down.

46:42You're speaking to my soul right now. Like I love that answer. I love it because there's no finish line. Yeah. There's no finish line. And I mean, I learned that especially with making this movie, it was like, it was like, we've made this movie. Oh my God. One of my biggest dreams has come true. A movie that I wrote has gotten made was in a movie theater, um, you know, starring incredible actors and it came to fruition exactly the way I've always imagined it in my head and that's a dream come true but what's the next one exactly and it really like just stoked the fire more of it good for you i'm happy for i'm happy that you got to experience that that's a massive goal and you got to accomplish it but not the last there's a lot more there's a lot more coming what about you what does determination mean to you robert um will you i i just my maybe my answer won't be like the best answer but but it'll be yours it'd be fine yeah well no because i was you you mentioned starting the podcast out of the car yeah and then i was thinking about like how that sort of entrepreneurial spirit is what i really connect to because i think filmmaking is like just a startup company like every movie is a new startup company it actually is a company you need to get investors to believe in it but no i so i started uh yeah my sort of like determination was i was making films i got totally bit by the filmmaking like I want to make movies I was doing music for like as a my for my from like 18 or 17 to like as a profession I was just touring and making records with Rooney my band and then I was like I want to make movies and focus on filmmaking because I had grown up wanting to make movies so that was a pivot point in my life where I kind of paused my music this sort of regular consistent life I was living where it was like could musicians live these like copy paste lives where it's unless you're making like perfume and like fashion brands right like you like tour relax make an album or write an album and then go in the studio make an album release it do press tour again stop make a record it's like over and over again so i wanted to bray i was like i don't you know i don't see myself always walking with like my acoustic guitar and that wasn't how i envisioned my life was like here's my guitar man i was like i want to make movies and do bigger thing.

48:55So, and not that music is small, but I just wanted to expand my creative life. So I started directing and I started putting together these movies and I was like, wow, this is so liberating. I can like dream up new ideas. I can collaborate with awesome people. I can find products I love and just put them together. If it's the right thing, if I want to go make a crazy big fantasy movie and I need like a gazillion dollars, it's not going to be like an overnight thing. but that got me excited. And I saw in this experience that film distribution was so broken. You could make these movies, but no one was really taking a chance to support the releases of them.

49:31So my, I was determined to create a film distribution company. So I launched a company called utopia and we're seven years strong. And we've put out a lot of movies. We've launched a lot of great filmmakers and their work and they've gone on to do great things. So I'm proud of what we've built because we found a world that we felt really needed more support. And then we've moved into production and stuff like that. So we've built a cool mini studio for independent film. And that's, so I said, when you said launch out of the car, it just kind of popped in my head of, maybe my answer was something similar, which was sort of taking on an entrepreneurial idea of let's, we found a problem in an industry.

50:10It's not making movies is not the problem, to be honest. There's so many movies that get made every year. It's not like, oh man, we need more movies. we need more movies to reach people in more creative ways that's really the problem so that's where i've kind of really focused my time in a lot of ways is like still being creative and generating opportunities creatively but also trying to solve problems in the world of film distribution so that's kind of where my split brain focuses like so yeah anyway yeah awesome answers and and thank you guys so much for coming on the show i enjoyed you both uh great conversation about the movie.

50:48Thank you. Introspective into your life, into your brain, in your brain as well. So I hope everybody's going to enjoy this. I know I'm going to enjoy listening and watching it back. And for the audience, go check out my people. Go watch The Last Show, girl. Until next time, stay determined.

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