Jamie Lee Curtis and Pamela Anderson Get Candid About Being Working Moms: 'There's No Perfect Way' (Exclusive)

Performing has come with sacrifices for Jamie Lee Curtis and Pamela Anderson.

The actresses, who both have two kids of their own, agree that there is "no perfect way" to be a working mother, something they could relate to in Anderson's The Last Showgirl character, Shelly.

"The center of the movie is the story of a single mother who has taken a choice to do her art and the consequences of having that child [played by Billie Lourd] come back and say, 'It hurts me that you chose your art over me,'" Curtis told Parade in an exclusive interview alongside her co-star. "Most working mothers in the world will see this movie and identify with that complex issue."

Curtis herself has worked throughout the lives of her daughters Ruby and Annie. "I have two children, 38 and 28, and I've worked all of their lives, and I have suffered for it," the Academy Award winner admitted. "And they have suffered for it, and that's the complicated dance."

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Anderson noted, "There's no perfect way to do it. We're all gonna face our adult children and beg for forgiveness."

The star of the upcoming The Naked Gun movie shares two sons, Brandon Thomas Lee and Dylan Jagger Lee, with her ex-husband Tommy Lee. The boy mom gushed that her "kids are so wonderful when they look at me and they say, 'Mom, you have nothing to be ashamed of.'"

"It's still always heartbreaking," she continued. "You just feel responsible."

"There's no perfect way," Curtis added.

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While a mother-daughter relationship is at the heart of The Last Showgirl, the film, directed by Gia Coppola, is about a 57-year-old dancer facing an uncertain future now that her Las Vegas revue, Le Razzle Dazzle, is closing. Anderson and Curtis play best friends Shelly and former showgirl Annette in the movie, which explores ageism in show business.

Anderson, who is the same age as her character, asserted that she's owned her age and identity "all along the way." She shared, "When I was a little kid, I always thought I'd recognize myself when I was older. I just thought I had to get through the next 50 years." The actress remarked that she was a "very strange kid," who wanted to become an adult.

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"But really, a couple years ago, kind of when I peeled it all back and thought, 'Who am I underneath all this?' I've been creating characters my whole life," Anderson said. "I want to play characters in movies. I don't want to play characters in my personal life. So this has been a journey for me, but I'm still exploring it. I'm still trying to figure it out."

Curtis, 66, acknowledged that "aging is not for the weak of heart." "It takes a real brave moment of looking in the mirror and you're looking at the truth," she said. "And today, social media and the way that we can filter things, it's not helping because people have to accept who they are."

The Everything Everywhere All at Once actress pointed out that it's something that everyone eventually confronts. "Nobody gets out of it without facing it," she stated. "You hope you do it with some grace at some point. I've tried to do it with some grace, but I fail at it."

Curtis encouraged embracing aging with grace and some humor, as well as with "a little bit of understanding that the world is a complicated place for everybody." The Freakier Friday star said, "Everybody has problems. And I think this movie [The Last Showgirl] explores that."

The Last Showgirl opens in theaters nationwide on Jan. 10.

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