It might seem that Pamela Anderson is everywhere these days. But if you’re seeing more of her, she wants to assure you that it’s purely coincidence.
After making her big-screen return in the recently released film The Last Showgirl, the 57-year-old Baywatch alum just wrapped the second season of her reality series Pamela’s Garden of Eden, which follows Anderson as she renovates her grandmother’s home on Vancouver Island.
This week, she’s back in yet another program, Pamela’s Cooking With Love, airing on the Flavour Network, which finds Anderson inviting some of today’s most sought-after and buzz-worthy chefs to join her in cooking a meal for her family and friends at her idyllic rural property in B.C.
“It’s always been on my list of things to do. I’ve wanted to do a plant-based cooking show for a very long time,” Anderson tells Postmedia in a Zoom interview. “I know I’m all over the place these days. I’ve got movie in theatres and a cooking show and Garden of Eden, and it all happened at once, but this has been over the last three years … I just hope people don’t get sick of me.”
Among the notable chefs joining the mother-of-two in the kitchen are Andy Baraghani, Gregory Gourdet, Gabe Kennedy, Melissa King, Nancy Silverton, Michael Solomonov, Claudette Zepeda, and David Zilber.
“I didn’t know if they would all come. I even said to my son, ‘I don’t know if people are going to want to come all the way to Vancouver Island — it was planes, trains and automobiles to get here. But they did and they loved it,” she says.
The TV shows follow Anderson’s 2023 autobiography and Netflix documentary, Pamela, a Love Story, and her recent Golden Globe-nominated turn as Shelley, a veteran Las Vegas showgirl who loses her job in Gia Coppola’s critically acclaimed The Last Showgirl. That part has led to roles in next summer’s Naked Gun reboot opposite Liam Neeson and the upcoming thriller Rosebush Pruning.
“I’m enjoying every minute of it,” she says, reflecting on her newfound busyness.
On a recent Monday afternoon, Anderson spoke more about her new cooking series, the success of The Last Showgirl and moving back to Canada.
“I just knew it was time to go back and remember who I was,” she says.
In addition to the show, you also released a cookbook recently. Where did your love of cooking come from?
I learned how to cook when I was very young because I ate differently from my family … But I always took an interest in the kitchen and I’ve always made beautiful meals and presented beautiful experiences. If it was birthday parties, I was always the one to kind of do that. So I felt like that it would be nice to bring that into a TV series and show the setting the table part of it too.
What do you say to people who are intimidated in the kitchen?
It’s about enjoying the process of cooking. Making a beautiful environment to cook in … the human connection and dinner parties, I think, are a lost art. We’ve isolated ourselves so much in these last few years. I hope that it’s fun to share your meal and dinner conversation … There was a lot I wanted to bring to this. Hopefully, in the few episodes we did, it comes across. My authentic, true love of family and friends.
In one of the episodes, you talk about cooking with compassion. You’re a huge animal rights supporter. How did that become a cause that’s so close to your heart?
Whether it was a dog with three legs or a cat that walked sideways or a bird with a broken wing, I was always the one people came to. My aunt was deaf and she took care of all the feral cats in the neighbourhood and I always thought she had a secret language with animals I wanted to learn. She taught me a lot as well … But when I was on Baywatch, I was getting so much attention for things in my personal life and things that didn’t matter to me, and I wanted to share that attention with things that were more meaningful. Animal rights issues were so important to me. So I joined forces with friends that worked for animal charities and I thought I could include that message with some of the other things I was talking about. So that was part of the reason. But we saw laws get changed. There were animal rights laws put in place when there hadn’t been any … And it is what gave my career meaning in all these years leading up to now.
When we last spoke, you had just moved back to Canada. What brought you back?
I wanted to be around the trees that had known me since birth and I wanted to come home. I bought this property from my grandmother 35 years ago now. She lived out her life here and when she passed away I just abandoned it. But I got to come back and renovate it. And it was a metaphor for myself. I was trying to remember who I was and I was getting into the garden and getting my hands dirty again. That’s who I was. I was this Tomboy from Ladysmith who somehow took her first plane ride to L.A. and had this life, but now I was home and I rediscovered myself.
You’re also having a moment with The Last Showgirl. What drew you to the role of Shelley?
She was such a great character to play. She was doing the best she could with the tools she has. I thought that was so relatable. There’s no perfect way to be a parent or chase your dreams … I wanted to examine who the women holding up the rhinestones were. These were women who worked their whole life and didn’t quite make it … and then had to redefine themselves. They hit a crossroads, and we all hit crossroads many times in our life, and I thought there was so much I could bring to this character just from my own life experience. So it was perfect timing. I needed to do it. It was very therapeutic, but it was also really fun … when I saw it on the screen for the first time at (the Toronto International Film Festival), I didn’t see myself up there. I saw Shelley. I’ve never experienced that before … Now I’m anxious to do it again.
I heard that the film’s director, Gia Coppola, had trouble getting the script to you.
They sent the script to an old agent and he turned it down within the hour … and I don’t know why he turned it down. But she met with my son, Brandon, and he sent me the script, and I loved it so much. But that happens with really interesting things in your life. Sometimes something really great almost slips through your fingers, which makes it even more precious. I almost didn’t know it existed. So I felt like I had a responsibility to put everything into it.
Your performance was nominated for a Golden Globe and a SAG Award. What does it feel like to get that kind of recognition at this stage of your career?
It’s taking some getting used to. It’s quite intimidating walking into those rooms with women I admire — Demi Moore and Nicole Kidman and Tilda Swinton. These women are so wonderful and so embracing of me. But it took me a minute to get used to that. I’ve never been happier, but I feel like I’m under no pressure because I’m a little bit of a wild card.
So how are you looking at this era of your life?
This is the harvest of all I’ve put into myself. This is harvest time. This is something I’m enjoying. I don’t know what’s next, but if this is all there is, I’m happy because I never expected it. I’m just enjoying the moment and I’m happy in the moment. I don’t know what’s happening next so it’s a little mysterious, but that’s my favourite place to be.
Pamela’s Cooking With Love airs Mondays on Flavour Network