Pam & Tommy fall into Seth Rogen’s skeezy clutches in the first trailer for Hulu series
Lily James and Sebastian Stan look eerily similar to '90s-era Pamela Anderson and Tommy Lee
TV News Pam & Tommy
It feels telling that the first person we see in the first official trailer for Pam & Tommy—Craig Gillespie’s new Hulu series about the Pamela Anderson/Tommy Lee sex tape—is neither Lily James as Anderson, or Sebastian Stan as Lee. (Although both will be almost hypnotically unrecognizable when they eventually appear.)
Instead, we open on Seth Rogen as Rand Gauthier, the guy who stole the infamous tape after installing a security system for Lee, showing it off to equally skeezy-haired porn producer “Uncle Miltie” (Nick Offerman).
That focus on voyeurism hangs over the whole trailer, which cuts between the two men coming to the dawning certainty that they’ve got their hands on some incredibly valuable VHS, and Lee and Anderson freaking out as they realize the depths to which they’re about to be exposed.
“It’s so private,” Offerman whispers, underlining both the appeal of the trailer, and the reason it leaves a queasy turn in the stomach, “Which is kind of what makes it so hot.”
The grossness of that sentiment pervades the entire video, which also briefly features Taylor Schilling as Rogen’s wife. Along the way, the promo wrestles with some of the attendant moral issues of its own existence—most notably by having James’ Anderson miserably (and correctly) note that there’s a world of difference between how she and Tommy Lee will be treated in the aftermath of the tape’s release.
Still, those moments of introspection clash with the kooky crime caper vibe of it all—maybe blame Rogen, who can’t seem to keep a hint of amiable doofus energy off his face, or the shots that inject absurdity into the whole package by suggesting Anderson and Lee are checking out their own planetary humiliation from an internet-connected computer at their local library.
Pam & Tommy is set to debut on Hulu on February 2, 2022. The series also co-stars Andrew Dice Clay, Pepi Sonuga, Spencer Granese, and Mozhan Marnò.
Correction: A previous version of this story stated that Pam & Tommy would air on FX, instead of Hulu. The A.V. Club regrets the error.
99 Comments
I get that they need to promote their product, but Feb 2nd is two and half months away. In the words of Queen, “I want it all, and I want it now”….that’s what she said
Just in time for Valentine’s Day!
Gotta sell those Hulu subs over the holidays.
That was Veruca Salt, not Queen.
I thought it was Kate Bush
True, but the holidays will distract people so it’s also a good way to get it on people’s radar so come January, it’s a case of “Oh yeah, this looked good.”
Andrew Dice Clay is alive? What the fuck?
Andrew still works. He was in A Star is Born.
Wasn’t he complaining about being cancelled a few years ago?
No.
Donto people have to give a crap about you in the first place for you to be cancelled?
It’s been interesting watching him try to convince the world that Diceman was 100% a parody character. I mean it was definitely a character, but one he seemed to wear pretty comfortably.
this made me chortle
His career is a bit confounding because I think of him a hack doing a dirty Fonzie routine but then he shows up in Woody Allen movies or his own semi-prestige Showtime show like 5 years ago and other weird places. Maybe he’s a decent guy, I dunno, sure seems to have a lot of powerful friends.
He knows how to S some D, what else can you say?
No idea if he’s a decent guy or an actual piece of shit. Both are equally plausible IMO. But he’s actually a solid character actor.
He was in Vinyl a few years back and was pretty good as I remember.
LMAO Seems kind of hilariously mean to refer to them as Pam & Tommy but then talk about the skeezy hands of Seth Rogen. I’m here for it.
I get that women generally suffer greater repercussions in situations like these, but does it really apply to Pamela Anderson? She was a model and international sex symbol who acted in films and TV shows exploiting that angle before the sex tape, and she kept doing the same thing afterwards?
And don’t forget that Borat tried to marry kidnap her!
IT does but only because women in situations like that are generally looked down upon more than the guy, even if their entire celebrity “profile” is centered on being a sex symbol.
nobody deserves to have their privacy invaded like that. Pamela can consent to what she wants, but the very nature of this sex tape is about removing the consent and then placing blame on her like you seem to be doing lol. So you’re kind of proving the very point that yes, she is held to a more unfair standard here, and that somehow her being a sex symbol equates to giving someone permission to secretly record her having sex.
Sure. I was referring to whether it damaged her career or not, but I can see how it could be read as something akin to slut shaming. Not my intention.
Thank you for the clarity!
Um…It was NOT secretly recorded.
She wasn’t secretly recorded – they made the tape together. The violation of their privacy was the theft of the tape and its release without their consent.
“…but does it really apply to Pamela Anderson?”Yes.
As 38 year old who remembers when this scandal broke she was slut shamed to even greater degree and he was treated like a hero. If anything she was treated worse than other women because people people felt like because she posed in Playboy she wasn’t allowed to be upset. Kinda like you are.
Hmm I believe you are describing double standards. The male is lauded as a hero and a sexual stud while the female is seen as a slut and shamed.
You should have ended your post at the first comma. Exploiting your sex appeal and having a personal sex tape leaked without your consent are two very different things. This shouldn’t have to be explained at this point.
Real “she shouldn’t have worn that if she didn’t want it” energy ya got there, Gaston.
It’s possible — and I’m just spitballing here — that there may have been repercussions for her beyond just the immediate impact on her career. Like — and again, this is just a theory — maybe she didn’t actually enjoy having videos of her engaging in incredibly intimate acts in private broadcast around the planet. And maybe she felt upset that other people profited from those images without her consent. Actually, nah, forget it. That’s crazy.
EDIT: Sorry, replied to the wrong post.
Maybe her husband shouldn’t have pulled a gun on a contractor they owed money to. Actions have consequences.
lol holy shit
This is gross. You’re gross.
People seem to be responding to what looks like an honest question with oblique attacks, which is unfair, but yeah, this was a VERY significant event, both for Anderson and for media analysis in general.So first of all, before this point, she had done very little actual porn. There were magazine shoots of course, but those kind of don’t count – Marilyn Monroe did playboy, of course, but people still think of her as an actress, not a nude model. Anderson’s image hinged a lot on being a big old sexpot who still did most of her work on PG TV. This led to a TON of public interest, and the sale of the video more or less nonconsensually turned her into a porn performer overnight. The huge media frenzy over the video more or less gave rise to the hunger for celebrity sex leaks that pervaded the early aughties through today. Sure, lots of celebs “leak” lurid home video on purpose, but for any reasonably attractive female celebrity, being recorded having sex and having that recording released without consent is now a very real concern, and this tape kind of kick-started that.Second, the relationship between Lee and Anderson was an abusive one. So with this leak, many people began to primarily identify Anderson with her role of having sex on video with a man who choked and beat her. You have to think that wasn’t a great feeling to live with.So yeah, this was, and remains, a pretty big deal.
Professionally I’d say it foreclosed her ability to appear in pretty much anything that didn’t fully lean into her sexpot public persona. I remember a whole lot of puritanical handwringing as if they weren’t a married couple doing completely common things. Personally I’m sure it was completely humiliating and legally frustrating. Yeah she used her looks to get roles but it’s not like she’d been a porn star.
Just because she’s a sex symbol, and just because her career focused on her looks and body, doesn’t mean it’s in way, shape or from okay to have her privacy violated, to have a sex tape released, all without her consent.
I keep telling everyone the same thing and they’re all like “No, aj, sorry, we took the tape and we’re selling it and you have to live with that.”I can’t ever get a break!
Pamela Anderson has spoke and written at length about the difference between pornography and sensuality, and her dislike for pornography so it is not something that she personally wanted to be associated with at a minimum. The sex tape definitely got her labeled not as sexy, but as trashy and you could argue that her options post-sex tape when her acting career was still very new couldn’t shift away from that when that was what was seen as marketable.But all that aside – it was private property that was stolen at the end of the day.
Maybe her husband shouldn’t have pulled a gun on a contractor he owed money to. Just a thought.
this looks great. I also love that Pamela Anderson is always being celebrated as such an icon by Gen Z on social media, much deserved resurgence.
I’m still very curious about the story behind completely scrubbing her from The Dirt movie. Was that due to Anderson threatening litigation or did they just not want to get too far into the “Tommy Lee is a wife beater” stuff during what was supposed to be a lighthearted movie?
They didn’t completely scrub her
Yeah they did. They showed him hitting his earlier girlfriend (which he actually admitted doing in the book) and a lot of his relationship/marriage with Heather Locklear, but nothing about Pam.
You sure? It’s been a little while since I saw it but don’t remember her being in it at all. Even Locklear only gets about five minutes; Tommy meeting her at a party, getting married, getting busted cheating.
yah he literally beat her up while she was holding their kid. real piece of shit and so was that movie.
As far as I’m concerned, Tommy Lee’s legacy should be, in order: 1. Domestic abuser2-4. Guy who repeatedly tucked his penis between his legs and did a Buffalo Bill impression on his unfairly leaked sex tape5. Drummer from The One That Isn’t Van Halen, Def Leppard, or Guns n Roses.
Maybe we can get a new VIP show out of it.
I loved loved loved that show!
The ironic (until it became sincere) affectionate celebration of bimbofication by younger millennials/Gen Z has been truly something to behold. In this house, we stan baddie culture.
I’m a little concerned that the trailer makes Tommy Lee look like a lovable idiot. We know from I, Tonya that Sebastian Stan can take what appears to just be a dumb character and turn on a dime to something outright abusive, but I hope it’s a failing of the trailer and not the show deciding to be like “don’t look over here behind this current where Tommy Lee is beating his wife…”
because….why? what’s her recognizable talent and/or past projects of note that she deserves some kind of accolade for?I’m genuinely confused. Besides BORAT I dont recall ever seeing her in something wherein I said “Oh, good, Pamela is in this and is good.”
Like, Barb Wire? Baywatch? A playmate video?
Seth Rogen with a mullet makes so much sense.
As someone who came of age during the peak of Pamela Anderson’s fame & popularity, I am absolutely stunned by Lily James’s transformation here. Sebastian Stan looks fine too, but he still looks like Sebastian Stan playing Tommy Lee (I can’t believe I’m saying this, but he has his work cut out for him following Machine Gun Kelly in The Dirt).
Well Lily sure has shed the image of the privileged girl on Downton Abbey. I remember when this happens, I think Sebastian looks a lot like Tommy. Men are always thought as bad asses who nailed a hot girl, and the women are slut shamed. Nothing ever changes.
Yeah I didn’t even recognize her.
I honestly didn’t know it was MGK in The Dirt until watching the credits. As someone who grew up listening to Motley Crue, he pretty much WAS Tommy Lee.
Yeah, it was pretty uncanny. Given that he’s half of this century’s Pam & Tommy couple (hopefully with 100% less domestic abuse) I guess his excellent cosplay isn’t too surprising.
It looks like she’s had her nose (and lips?) tweaked since Downton Abby.If not, it’s an amazing example of CGI enhancement.
She still looks the same as ever outside of this trailer (as well she should, there’s really no career advantage to her pursuing that harsher 90s look surgically). I don’t know if it’s CGI or really impressive makeup.
It’s prosthetics..
But no other kinds of effects or faking anything exists but CGI! Haven’t you heard?
I think it’s just good old fashioned make up and prosthetics.
I think Stan would be a better Nikki Sixx
Woah, that is an excellent casting choice!
Was thinking the exact same thing. You’re never going to top MGK as Lee, but Stan would have been a much more believable Sixx than (…checks Google…) Douglas Booth (??).
Yeah, he was born for that role. Not sure what this Douglas Booth is, but his name sounds way too normal to play anyone in Motley Crüe
He was the son on Big Love, if that helps. And definitely too normal looking for anyone on Motley Crew haha
Agree. He looks like Tommy, but even though he’s thin, but he doesn’t have that long, string bean look that Tommy does.I was floored by Lily James.
Wait, wait, wait. I mean back the truck up…Baby Driver Lily James?? Holy shit!
Right?!
MULLETS! MULLETS EVERYWHERE!
Seth Rogen channeling Danny McBride here.Looks great, can’t wait. In the meantime, we’ve got new Righteous Gemstones and It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia to look forward to.
Yay, now I can see a dramatization of this grossness?
So Taylor Schilling is playing a real life person who was married to Seth Rogen’s character for a brief period in the 80’s and had remarried long before the events of this miniseries, so clearly they’re striving for accuracy in this.
It’s a popcorn show about a thrashy showbiz story.
Are you her?
I don’t know how many lawyers we get posting around here, but I would LOVE an explanation of how the tape thieves were legally allowed, by an honest to god judge, to sell and profit from it. Absolutely baffling.
Prior restraint is a really, really hard standard under the First Amendment, it was unclear at the time of the case whether they had any of the correct parties, and this case arose at a time where the internet was too young for the notoriously slow-moving judicial system to really know how to handle it. Not saying the decision was correct, but I could see how it happened given the timing of it. Because they couldn’t pin down who actually took it at the time, from a civil point of view it boiled down mostly to a copyright issue which is an area of law completely ill-equipped to deal with something of this nature. Very comprehensive rundown on the history of it here:https://www.rollingstone.com/feature/pam-and-tommy-the-untold-story-of-the-worlds-most-infamous-sex-tape-194776/
I didn’t realize it took time to nail down who actually stole it. Presumably there’s been progress here, since Hulk Hogan successfully sued Gawker out of business over something similar a few years ago.
Yes, “invasion of privacy” as a legal concept has radically changed in the 20+ years since the Anderson/Lee tape. The growth of the internet altered the game on that dramatically.
I believe at the time, the judge claimed that Pamela Anderson had “allowed” it to happen because she had talked openly abut sex and sexuality along with the fact that having the cameras there in the first place meant you were “inviting trouble.” This reminds me of the whole Meghan Markle letter scandal right now where they are trying to claim that because she expressed concern her dad might leak a private letter, she therefore knew it was a public document rather than just being aware her father was a douche and knowing he might make it public. Shouldn’t make that right or legal.
That’s just some rock solid jurisprudence right there. “Your honor the door was unlocked and everyone knew the so-called victim had valuable items inside the home.”
Great casting all around
They’ve made an entire series about this? Wow.
Lily James doing that Margot Robbie American blonde accent. I wonder if Robbie was the first choice for this given Gillespie.
Hey maybe Rogen will be watchable now.
I’m looking forward to the straight heel turn from Seth Rogan. Everything I’ve seen him in before casts him as a lovable goofball, but it doesn’t seem like this role has a lot of room for comedy and I want to see what he’ll bring to it.
time to fire up observe and report!
You should be doing that anyway.
This looks fab. I hope there is little to none of Motley Crue’s music in it, however. Mark Twain once said that “Wagner’s music is not as bad as it sounds.” Where he alive, he would say the opposite of the Crue’s output. Sorry in advance for my shitty opinion.
you really should have mentioned that the director of I, Tonya also directed this. Great, great movie. This guy really knows how to capture America’s dirtiest dirtbags (so many mullets!!!!) and the awful things they do to each other. I hate the thought of paying for another streaming service just for this but now I probably will.
And also Cruella and …. Million Dollar Arm? Well I can see the line between I, Tonya and Cruella but that last one is a bit of a swerve. Anyway if you’re in the US you’d have to cough up for Hulu for this but anywhere else it’ll be on DisneyPlus Star
‘I, Tonya’ was the first movie I actually saw fellow Aussie Margot Robbie in, and convinced me I’d been missing out on a major talent.
I’m here for skeezy Nick Offerman.
it leaves a queasy turn in the stomachThe A.V. Club
The makeup and costuming are really amazing. Not only do Lily James and Sebastian Stan chameleon into their characters, but Seth Rogan and Nick Offerman also basically turn into new people. That’s fantastic work.