They don’t make them like Pamela Anderson anymore. Her carefree spirit and unrehearsed approach to public life are characteristics of a bygone era—one that existed long before tween TikTok stars paid Hollywood publicists seven figures to manage their social media brands. Those kinds of services weren’t available to a young Pamela Anderson, who was born to teenage parents in a tiny town called Ladysmith on the stupidly beautiful island of Vancouver, Canada.
Yep, that’s right. Pamela Anderson is from Vancouver, Canada—not Venice Beach, California. If this shocks you (it certainly surprised me), you're in for a delight with the new Netflix documentary Pamela, a Love Story. Directed by Ryan White, the man behind the critically acclaimed docuseries The Keepers, Pamela, a Love Story thoughtfully revisits the life of the '90s bombshell via found footage, personal diary entries, and new, intimate interviews with Anderson. She candidly reflects on childhood traumas and misogynistic mistreatments, while fluttering barefoot and in a flowy white nightgown around her family farm.
You get the sense that despite all the shit she’s been put through, Anderson is at peace with her past. And not because she’s in denial. As Pamela, a Love Story tenderly demonstrates, she’s learned that life always goes on. Below, Esquire talks to White about getting to know the woman behind the headlines—and what it was like to tell the story of the small-town Canadian girl who accidentally became America’s most famous sex symbol.
ESQUIRE: Tell me about the origins of this documentary. It seemed that Pamela Anderson wanted to make a documentary—and she was working with Josh Braun and started meeting with directors. Were those the first steps?
RYAN WHITE: Yeah, kind of. But I wouldn't say that Pamela wanted to make a documentary. I would say her sons convinced her that she should make a documentary. And so my first meeting was actually with Brandon, her son. I knew very little about Pamela Anderson. I actually didn't even know she was Canadian, so when Brandon said she was living back in Canada—
Wait, I have to interrupt you, because I didn't either! I was so shocked. I was like, "Where are we? Malibu?"
Exactly! She was the symbol of American sexuality, so I just assumed she was a California gal, but it wasn't true. Everything that Brandon told me at this lunch surprised me. Every story that he told, all the details of her life that I didn't know about. And so I thought, Wow, there might be a great story there. I'm usually very wary of making celebrity documentaries or even meeting with celebrities about a documentary, because it can get very uncomfortable if you don't want to make it in the end.
And that lunch ended with Brandon saying, "Why don't you just get on a Zoom with my mom? I feel like you guys are going to really get along." So the next day I got on a Zoom with Pamela and we had this three-hour-long conversation—and none of it was about the documentary, which drew me even more to her. It was just a very personal conversation where she was asking me questions about my life and I was asking her questions. I was just really compelled by her and shocked, honestly, at who the real Pamela Anderson was. I thought, Wow, if we can relay this to an audience, it's going to surprise a lot of people that think they know who she is but don't.
I am absolutely one of those people. I just assumed Pamela Anderson was born on a beach, which is, I think, an indictment against the way the media has historically treated women and sex symbols—as if they have no past. I found her sons to be a very sweet presence throughout the documentary. You said Brandon convinced Anderson to make this documentary. Why did he want this to happen for her?
I think he was frustrated. I think they've been frustrated their entire lives at how both of their parents, but especially Pamela, has been misunderstood. And even in that one-on-one lunch with Brandon, I'm sure he could measure my face and my reactions at the misunderstanding of his mother. And so I think that was the point, was this idea that their mother's persona has been created by the media and by pop culture for so many decades. And these boys are only in their twenties. They weren't alive for a lot of her heyday. Now that they're into their adulthood, and especially looking back and with things like the Hulu show, it was like, Our mom is this larger than life caricature to the outside world, but nobody really knows her. This was an attempt for them to relay who their mother, who they both adore, really is.
I saw that you read Anderson’s memoir, really enjoyed it, and it helped convince you to do the documentary. What about it was compelling to you?
The storytelling for sure. I'm always trying to suss out how great of a storyteller someone is when I'm thinking about doing a documentary, because I'm not narrating my documentaries. I need someone who can shoulder an entire film. I was blown away by her storytelling right away—and her wit and wisdom, the way she saw the world. I always say you can't compartmentalise Pamela. These days we live in a very binary world, but Pamela lives in a grey area. She’s a true free spirit and thinker.
She also wrote it all herself and I liked that conviction. I thought, This is a woman with agency. Even though the world has tried to take her agency away repeatedly throughout her life, she still has a lot of conviction. That made it a fun film to make. Of course, we delved into heavy things, but she and I had a blast together. I had to stay on my toes. She’s not easily directed.
What do you mean by not easily directed?
I might show up in Canada for a week and have certain ideas. The morning of a shoot, I'd throw out an idea to her and she would say, "But isn't that kind of dumb? Doesn't that kind of feel cheesy?" And I would just have to swallow my pride and say, "Yeah, it is. Okay. What are you thinking?" And I really enjoyed going along on that ride with a total free spirit who's not calculating.
You’ve said that Anderson’s life was like an accidental fairytale, and I think that’s accurate. It also seems like a product of the past. Do you think the world will have another Pamela Anderson? Is she a cautionary tale in some way? Not that Pamela's life hasn't ended just the way she wanted it to, but obviously she endured a lot of heartbreak and betrayal on her journey.
I can't speak for her, but my point of view is I don't think there ever will be another Pamela Anderson. I think she is a time capsule of the '80s and '90s, and those times have changed. She predated the Internet. She predated social media. She followed a very analog path to fame that almost has Forrest Gump qualities to it: running into these situations and these historical figures that pinballed her life in such interesting directions. With how connected we are these days, I don't think that kind of spontaneity happens anymore.
As far as her experiences being a cautionary tale, I think Pamela would be the first to say she doesn't regret anything in her life. That's where she's really nuanced. Even the people that have hurt her the most in her life, Pamela does not have anger and resentment towards them. In fact, those might be the people that she has the most extreme amount of love for outside of her children.
Is that an evolved position to take?
In some ways it's evolved, and in some ways it’s just because she is very forgiving. It’s challenging to edit a film like that. She had a marriage that ended with an incident of domestic violence, but Pamela doesn't see it as a disaster. She sees it as a beautiful romance, and she sees Tommy as the love of her life. And who am I as the director to misrepresent that because of how we think certain incidents should be digested these days?
Pamela is a walking anomaly. She doesn't fit into categories and you never know where her feelings are going to fall. I think the most glaring example of this is the fact that she—the most glaring sex symbol of our generation—considers the sex tape leak to be the most traumatising experience of her life. That surprises people. I'll even admit it surprised me because I didn't know any of the history of that tape. But I hope when people watch the film, it'll challenge their preconceived notions not only about Pamela, but about the conclusions we draw about sex symbols. I think we have to be open to being wrong.
Quite a few documentaries about mistreated female celebrities have been released recently. We’ve looked at what happened to Britney Spears, the Janet Jackson Super Bowl performance, and now we're reconsidering Pamela Anderson. Did you think about those works when making this one?
It's interesting because as a filmmaker, I rarely think about what my end goal is. I get asked a lot when I finish a film, "What do you want the takeaway to be?" I never think about takeaways when I'm beginning a film. I'm always drawn to character though. And usually a character is interesting because they have faced adversity. Regardless of how big Pamela’s story is, once you sit down with a woman and get to know her, it becomes transformative. So I felt like my job was getting to know this woman on a human level. Pamela Anderson is just a woman with feelings trying to make it in the world, trying to find love, or striking out in love, or trying to parent her two kids just as my mom did. I feel like if I can let the audience get to know her, they will leave with, hopefully, some sense of empathy for what this person went through.
I want to ask you about your vision for the documentary. It’s a very natural looking film—and the music sounded so bright and uplifting. You definitely cultivated a very specific atmosphere.
My vision for this film from the beginning, before I ever shot a frame of film, was to be very barebones and to not overproduce... The only thing we would ever talk about was the tone of the film, because she didn’t want anything to appear contrived. And I would always say to her, “Pamela, this is the anti-celebrity documentary." And she would say, "Great. I want to make the anti-celebrity documentary." The words I would always use were raw and cinematic, and that really drew her in. Cinematic because she loves old school cinema. She loves Warhol films. Most of her career was shot on film. So the idea that we were going to be embracing the archive footage in that type of way, and it wasn't going to be a completely digitally made reality style show really appealed to her... Pamela was willing to be totally vulnerable in a way that perhaps I've never had a documentary subject be before. And that is even more surprising considered the level of her celebrity and fame.
Sometimes I found myself wondering if she was being too trusting or too hopeful. Did you ever feel that way?
It's an interesting point because I know I'm trustworthy as a filmmaker. I pride myself on that. But during the making of the film, I would think in my head, Oh my gosh, why is Pamela trusting me to drive every single one of her diaries from her entire life in a cargo van back from Vancouver Island to Los Angeles—and have them in my office where I can read every thought from her entire life? She has no idea what's in those. It's her entire life. She's never reread them. I'd love to take credit for having won her trust, but Pamela is just a very trusting person by nature. It’s why she's special. I think it's why she's been burned so much in her life and hurt. But what I love about her is she's not willing to let that numb her in a way where she's resentful. It's just who she is.
Abigail Covington is a journalist and cultural critic based in Brooklyn, New York but originally from North Carolina, whose work has appeared in Slate, The Nation, Oxford American, and Pitchfork
