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DETROIT — Pamela Anderson has lived many a life over the decades — "Baywatch" babe, animal rights activist, international sex symbol — and one of those lives brought her to Michigan.

Anderson married Kid Rock four times in 2006 — in St. Tropez, Beverly Hills, Nashville, Tennessee, and Clarkston — before getting divorced, just once, in November of that year. It was a whirlwind time in a whirlwind era, but Anderson says she doesn't look back in anger at her time spent in northern Oakland County with the "Cowboy" rocker, whom she first met in 2001.

"I only have fond memories of that time. It was really fun," says Anderson, on the phone last month from Los Angeles. "It was a time and a place. It was a chapter in my life — it's a different time now — but with some distance, you can look back and appreciate the good times."

Those times included plenty of outdoors activities for Anderson and her two kids, Brandon and Dylan, now 28 and 27, respectively. "I remember a lot of snow when I was in Ortonville. I remember my sons on dirt bike tracks and hot rods, great family time and cooking, and hanging out with Hank Williams Jr.," she says. "Bob (Ritchie, Rock's real name) was always so great to my kids, and his family was so generous to me. It was an interesting time that I actually look back fondly on."

Now Anderson has entered a new chapter with her role in "The Last Showgirl," out Friday in theaters. The movie casts Anderson as a dancer at a shuttering Las Vegas revue, and the movie earned the actress a nomination for best performance by a female actor in a motion picture - drama at Sunday's Golden Globes, the first major awards nomination she's received in her career.

While she didn't win — the statue went to "I'm Still Here's" Fernanda Torres — it's a reinvention for the 57-year-old, who these days is more likely to be growing pickles on her farm in Canada than she is traipsing a Hollywood red carpet. (She showed up makeup-free to the Globes ceremony.)

It comes as Anderson has had time to look back and reflect on her life and legacy.

"This is such a wild, exciting time. I had no idea this is how it all worked," says Anderson, who after the interview was getting ready to attend the Golden Globes first-time nominees luncheon, alongside stars such as Ariana Grande, "Anora's" Mikey Madison and Zoe Saldaña. "I'm very new at all of this, and who would have thought this would be the beginning of my career at 57 years old?"

From Canada to Hollywood

Anderson grew up in Ladysmith, British Columbia, outside of Vancouver, and she was famously discovered at a Canadian Football League game when she was spotted in the stands and featured on the stadium's jumbotron.

At 22, her first ride on an airplane brought her to Los Angeles and the Playboy Mansion, and by the time she was the magazine's Playmate of the Month in February 1990, she was on her way to becoming the decade's defining bombshell.

From "Home Improvement" to "Baywatch" to her on-again, off-again (and very videotaped) relationship with Mötley Crüe drummer Tommy Lee, Anderson was the physical embodiment of sexuality for an entire generation. In 2006's "Borat," Sacha Baron Cohen's character attempts to kidnap her because of the crush he's harbored on her for years as a worldwide beauty icon.

During those years, Anderson says she always wanted more substance for her career, but wasn't sure how to pursue it.

"I just knew that I was capable of more as an artist, maybe?" she says, her soft voice slightly wavering when she says "artist." "But I don't come from an artist family. I come from a small town and I never knew anyone in this industry. And then I just kind of played it by ear, and I felt a little bit like Mrs. Magoo, navigating it the best I could. But I wasn't being offered serious material, so I just tried to be the best I could at those style of jobs, like 'Baywatch' or 'Barb Wire.'"

Her way of reconciling was using the light that was thrust upon her to bring awareness to her pet causes. "I knew I was getting attention for superficial things," she says, "and I was trying to share the attention with something more meaningful, like animal rights or environmental rights or vulnerable communities."

All the while, she says her work ethic — which goes back to her high school volleyball days — kept her going.

"I love hard work. You can't outwork me," Anderson says. "This is why I'm insistent I do everything, and I do everything right, and I go the extra mile. Because I have to. I've always had to, and I always will."

Recent years have seen a softening and a reconsideration of Anderson's image in the media. She had a successful run playing Roxie Hart in Broadway's "Chicago" in 2022, and in 2023 she starred in "Love, Pamela," a Netflix documentary where she openly and honestly looked back at her life and her personal struggles, which coincided with the release of her autobiography of the same name.

The 2022 Hulu series "Pam & Tommy," meanwhile, spurred a reevaluation of her famous sex tape with Tommy Lee, which was stolen from their home without permission; that the series was also made without her permission helped paint a more sympathetic portrait of Anderson, who for many years was chewed up and spit out by a vicious and unrelenting media.

Because everyone already knows so much about her, "I don't have anything to hide," Anderson says. "I'm an easy interview, because I'm an open book."

A 'Showgirl' rises

All of those lives she has lived are rolled into "The Last Showgirl," in which Anderson plays Shelly Gardner, a Vegas dancer who is desperately clinging to the last shimmer of glamour in a long faded show. She co-stars in the movie with Jamie Lee Curtis, Dave Bautista and Billie Lourd.

"I couldn't have played Shelly the way I played her if I didn't have the life experience I had," says the five-time divorcee. "Being married and having children and being there for my kids and trying to navigate some personal crises that happened to many of us while trying to have grace and dignity? It's been a wild, messy life to draw from."

"The Last Showgirl," which was adapted from an unproduced play that was written more than a decade ago, was shot over 18 days, on film, in early 2024. It's directed by Gia Coppola, the granddaughter of legendary Detroit-born filmmaker Francis Ford Coppola, who says she considered Anderson for the role after seeing her in "Love, Pamela."

"In watching that, I could see that she is kind of like our modern Marilyn Monroe," says Coppola, on the phone this week from her home in L.A. "She's known so much for the exterior, and typecasted in that way, but really craving to express herself more deeply. She's really interested in theater and classical cinema, and she kind of got stuck in this trope. Which is similar to Marilyn, and similar to our character Shelly, who is this lover of nostalgia, and very vulnerable and soft, but has a strong vision. And also she seemed like such a wonderful person, so it just made sense."

Coppola says she pursued Anderson for the part but was initially rejected by her representation. She eventually approached Anderson's son Brandon, who brought the project to his mother.

"She loved it. She was so excited about the project," says Coppola, who says Anderson brought something to the role no one else could have.

"I think, because of her similarities in her personal life, it adds a layer of meaning that I think as an audience we’re really intrigued by and have so much love for," says Coppola, 38. "And Shelly, just because of being undervalued as an artist, and the way (Anderson) worked on set and gave so much of herself to this project, you couldn’t have gotten it from someone who’s just been doing this for so long. Because she had so much of what Shelly was yearning for as well."

"The Last Showgirl" premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival in September and has been received warmly by critics. Anderson says she bonded with the cast and crew while making the film, and she first heard about her Golden Globe nomination on her "Last Showgirl" text thread.

"It's a team sport, and everyone's real thrilled for each other," she says.

And no one is more thrilled than Anderson herself. She's on the ride of her life, she says, and this time around, she gets to enjoy it.

"It's been a roller coaster, and this is the fun part," she says with a giggle. "Woo!"

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'THE LAST SHOWGIRL'

MPA rating: R (for language and nudity)

Running time: 1:29

How to watch: In theaters Dec. 10

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