"Doing the work is the win" — Pamela Anderson on her Oscar snub for The Last Showgirl

The nominations for the Oscars 2025 have been announced, and Pamela Anderson's performance in The Last Showgirl has not made the cut in the Best Actress category.

Anderson has made it in the list of Best Actress nominees for the role at several awards ceremonies this season including the Golden Globes and the SAG Awards, but insists she is not surprised to see her name omitted from the Oscar list.

She told Elle.com hours after the Oscar nominations were announced for 2025:

"Oh my gosh, it's not something I ever expected, doing the work is the win. That's what I like to do, and I think we can lose sight of that sometimes in this whole crazy awards season, but it's nice to be recognized, and it's all a bonus."

Pamela Anderson's performance in The Last Showgirl, widely billed as a comeback performance, has earned her a lot of praise besides nominations at the Golden Globe Awards (in the category of Best Actress in a Motion Picture – Drama) and the Screen Actors Guild Awards (Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Leading Role). This led many to feel she would earn her first Oscar nomination for the performance, too. However, her name wasn't on the list.

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About Pamela Anderson's The Last Showgirl

Her recent Oscar snub has garnered attention from fans and media outlets, with many opining that she deserved a nomination.

The Last Showgirl casts Pamela Anderson as Shelly Gardner, an ageing Las Vegas showgirl who must change after her show is shut down, leaving her with an unsure future. The film, directed by Gia Coppola has gained a lot of praise as well as nominations at multiple award ceremonies. The film's cast also includes Jamie Lee Curtis, Brenda Song, Dave Bautista, and Kiernan Shipka, among others.

Anderson also said the success of The Last Showgirl is her best paycheck yet, after she was in the news for "tawdry moments" in the 2022 Hulu miniseries, Pam & Tommy, which depicts the s*x tape leak featuring her and Tommy Lee. In the series, Sebastian Stan stars as Tommy Lee and Lily James plays Pamela Anderson.

On Andy Cohen's Sirius XM show, Radio Andy, Anderson said:

"It's just one of those things. It happened and now I'm here and so this is the best payback … I'm being seen and recognised for my work and not these tawdry moments."

Anderson also spoke to The Hollywood Reporter about her joy at being nominated at the Globes and SAG Awards, among other awards functions. She said:

"I couldn’t imagine [it] anyway. I’m happy for the SAG nomination, that’s [voted on by] your peers. That’s really cool. This has been a long road promoting this film."

She also mentioned:

"I blocked that out of my life. I had to in order to survive, really. It was a survival mechanism. Now that it's all coming up again, I feel sick from my whole stomach — from the middle of my chest all the way down to my stomach. [My stomach] feels right now like it's just been punched."

Meanwhile, Pamela Anderson is all set to follow up the success of The Last Showgirl. There are several exciting projects on the horizon. She co-stars with Liam Neeson in The Naked Gun reboot, scheduled to open on August 1, 2025.

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Pamela Anderson on Hulu's Pam & Tommy: "Ethically it's illegal" and "hurtful"

Anderson mentioned that she wasn't involved in any way with Pam & Tommy. She stated:

"I didn't have any involvement. No one called me, which was so strange and that was hurtful. I think ethically it's illegal. But I mean, you're kind of fair game. I remember people telling me that a long time ago that you are basically public property and have no right to privacy."

Pamela Anderson also mentioned that no one approached to apologise from Hulu.