PAMELA ANDERSON & JAMIE LEE CURTIS - 'We Can Get Through Anything Together'

THE LAST SHOWGIRL COSTARS ON BECOMING FAST FRIENDS, BEING UNDERESTIMATED IN HOLLYWOOD AND THE JOYS OF GOING MAKEUP-FREE.

- ERIC ANDERSSON

Despite their long and storied careers in Hollywood, Pamela Anderson and Jamie Lee Curtis never met until recently. It didn't happen at an award show or a red carpet premiere, but in the drab basement of a Las Vegas hotel. "It was gnarly," Curtis, 66, remembers of the surroundings, where they were about to film director Gia Coppola's drama The Last Showgirl. The Halloween scream queen turned Oscar winner had just gotten a spray tan to play down-on-herluck cocktail waitress Annette, the best friend of Anderson's Shelly, a dancer whose show is about to close. Quips the Baywatch alum, 57: "She was changing color before my eyes."

Anderson-who shares sons Brandon, 28, and Dylan, 27, with her ex, musician Tommy Lee, 62-and Curtis, mom to daughters Ruby, 28, and Annie, 38, with her husband, director Christopher Guest, 76, forged a close bond on the low-budget shoot. That much was clear on their Zoom interview with People as they laughed easily and finished each other's sentences while discussing the critically acclaimed movie that's earned Anderson the best reviews of her career.

What do you remember about meeting?

PAMELA ANDERSON I was terrified, because Jamie's a legend. She just won this Academy Award [for Everything Everywhere All at Once].

But she grabbed me by the shoulders and looked me in the eyes and said, "I did this for you."

JAMIE LEE CURTIS I knew she was going to inhabit Shelly in a way that she did. And that's why [I signed on]. When you meet in a hallway in the bottom of this s--- hotel in Vegas, you do so because you're literally opening your heart to say, "I'm in love with you. You're my best friend..." ANDERSON "... And we can get through anything together."