“Pam & Tommy” begins with a romance, and early episodes follow a whirlwind affair between the titular celebrity couple. However, the show’s opening shot gives us a brief but powerful clue to the tense times ahead. A vintage TV shows Pamela trying to smile through an interview with late-night talk show host Jay Leno, who jokes about the “tape”, cracking jokes at the actress’s expense.
In keeping with the show’s delightfully 1990s aesthetic, the popular talk show and its longtime iconic former host are recreated to a startling degree. Some might briefly mistake it for archival footage of an actual interview. So how did the show recreate Jay Leno and the show so convincingly? And did such an interview actually take place? Let’s take stock of what is fact and what is fiction.
Who plays Jay Leno in Pam & Tommy?
Based on a 2014 Rolling Stone article by Amanda Chicago Lewis, “Pam & Tommy” features a remarkable cast of characters based on 1990s versions of real people. This includes, of course, Pamela Anderson (Lily James) and Tommy Lee (Sebastian Stan) but also members of the Mötley Crüe and even lesser-known individuals like Rand Gauthier and Seth Warshavsky.
The image of Jay Leno is loaned to the show by actor and comedian Adam Ray. Of course, a few facial prostheses also seem to be involved in completing the remarkable transition. The show seems to have an affinity for prosthetics, with Lily James and Sebastian Stan also sporting some interesting additions. However, the credit for the perfect mannerisms mimicking the talk show host that people have watched for the better part of two decades goes to Ray. In fact, the prolific voice actor, who lent his talents to shows like “Rick and Morty,” “American Dad!” and many others, shared a behind-the-scenes look at her transformation.
Did the Jay Leno interview take place in real life?
As authentic as the recreation may seem, it doesn’t appear to be an exact recreation of a specific interview between Jay Leno and Pamela Anderson. The former hosted NBC’s “The Tonight Show with Jay Leno” from 1992 to 2009, and after a brief hiatus, until 2014. In the long run, Anderson has actually been a guest on the show multiple times. Her attire in the recreated opening clip in ‘Pam & Tommy’ apparently matches a 1996 interview with Leno, though the actual version doesn’t seem to focus so blatantly on the infamous leaked tape.
From the few excerpts of their interviews still available, it appears that the topic of the tape was often not too far removed from the conversation in subsequent interviews. As the show shows, in the actual interviews, most mentions or allusions to the tape by the host were good-naturedly avoided. In one particular interview (apparently from 1999), Anderson even hinted that she expected Leno to bring up the subject of the tape. However, things remained fairly amicable.
The recreated clip from the talk show of ‘Pam & Tommy’ appears to be a fictionalized version of the real interview from 1996. In the recreation, the mention of the tape appears to be exaggerated to highlight how the media handled the whole affair and the intense spotlight Anderson found herself in at the time. Of course, there are still parts of the actual Pamela Anderson and Jay Leno interviews that no longer seem to be available, so the actual conversation could have taken place. However, given how blatant and repeated the mention of the tape is in the “Pam & Tommy” version, it’s unlikely the actual version would be that abrasive.
Read more: What website did Rand use to sell Pam and Tommy’s sex tapes? Is this real?
