Pamela Anderson is done playing characters in her personal life. An Oscar could be next.

Pamela Anderson has always been a serious actress.

As a young girl, she fondly remembers her dad watching “All in the Family” while she recited Shakespeare sonnets on an exercise bike.

“Even when I was shooting covers of Playboy, I was reading Tennessee Williams and Eugene O’Neill plays,” Anderson recalls. NBC’s “Baywatch” and tabloid infamy from her stolen sex tape followed, but “I felt disappointed I wasn’t doing things that were challenging me. I was getting away with murder in a bathing suit.”

Now, she might very well earn her first Oscar nomination for “The Last Showgirl” (in theaters now), playing an aging burlesque performer named Shelly. A naïve and imperfect idealist, Shelly desperately clings to her shuttering Las Vegas show as she tries to reconnect with her estranged daughter (Billie Lourd).

“If I had any other life, I couldn’t have played her the way I did,” says Anderson, 57, who caught the eye of director Gia Coppola with her 2023 documentary, "Pamela, A Love Story." She’s now in the midst of a career renaissance, with best actress nods from the Golden Globe and Screen Actors Guild awards, and more movies on the way co-starring Elle Fanning (“Rosebush Pruning”) and Liam Neeson (“The Naked Gun”).

It's been a reflective time for the iconic sex symbol, who wakes up each morning at 5 to journal.

On this particular Tuesday, “I was writing about the edge of the unknown, because that’s where I feel I am right now, which is a very exciting place to be,” Anderson says, speaking over Zoom from her Upper East Side hotel room in New York. Afterward, she took a stroll through Central Park and visited a tree she adopted in 2022 in honor of her two sons, Brandon (28) and Dylan (27), whom she shares with ex-husband Tommy Lee of Mötley Crüe.

“I adopted it when I played Roxie in ‘Chicago’ on Broadway,” Anderson recalls. “I got a little plaque for them that said, ‘Dreams do come true.’”

Anderson opens up to USA TODAY about "Last Showgirl," motherhood and her reaction to Hulu's "painful" miniseries "Pam & Tommy."

Question: Growing up, you wanted to either become a nun or a showgirl. With this film, does it feel like you’re making good on at least one of those dreams?

Answer: (Laughs.) I did! I loved the idea of solitude and there is part of me that is very nunnish, too. I’m both sides of the coin – it’s hard to imagine, but it’s true. I’ve learned that you have to believe in yourself before other people believe in you. I started to believe what other people thought and that’s why I peeled it all back: I wanted to remember who I was when I wasn’t dressing for other people. I wanted to stop playing characters in my personal life, and to start playing them on film or on stage. It’s interesting, at this age, to feel like I’m at the very beginning of my career.

Back during “Baywatch,” did you ever express to your team that you were interested in doing dramas and arthouse films?

Absolutely. But people around me were more commercial, and didn’t want to hear from me about the books I was reading or films I liked. I also didn’t think it was a possibility. I thought, “Well, I’m lucky to be on the beach and getting paid. I would’ve been here anyway with my dog.” I remember “Barb Wire” was initially more of a dark comedy and really kind of interesting, but then they made it more commercial and I don’t even know what the movie ended up being about. Things change and you just get swept up in it.

People also really only wanted to see me in TV series like “Baywatch” and “V.I.P.” I did “Stacked” for a short time because it was a good schedule with kids: a sitcom, short days, you can go to all your kids’ baseball games. But my heart wasn’t in it because it wasn’t what I was pitched in the first place – there was a bit too much making fun of my body. Then I just took a big break (for many years). I thought, “I’m going to have to figure out something else to do because this isn’t me.”

That’s where Brandon stepped in and said, “We need to do a documentary about your life.” I’m glad he did because that’s how it started: people seeing me in a new light and presenting me different roles. I was already in my garden thinking, “I’m going to make my life beautiful no matter what. Maybe I’ll open a flower shop.” Then this script came along and I thought, “OK, I can do that later.”

What did you learn about yourself through playing Shelly? Were you able to look back on any past experiences with new insight?

You can go to therapy or talk to your best friend all day long, but there’s nothing like an art project to heal parts of yourself. I just had so much empathy for the character; there’s no perfect way to be a parent, you know? The mother-daughter story really resonated with me, having two adult sons now and apologizing (to them). Your kids are going through what you’re going through, and in the moment, we don’t realize that. So I’ve been able to have those conversations with my boys and we’re so close. Having their mother objectified was always a difficult thing, so I’ve really made an effort to talk about feelings with my sons.

Your sons have really gone to bat and supported you in these last few years especially. What means the most to you about your relationship with them?

I’m a very lucky mom, but I’ve always felt a little guilty that they feel so protective of me. I wish our family survived intact; I’ve never gotten over it, and that’s something I’ve carried with me. Even now, my relationship is my work. I have two grown, beautiful kids who say, “Mom, all we want for you is to be you and realize your potential.” And that’s exactly how I feel for them. I don’t want to take up too much of their brain power. I want them to live their own lives: full of ups and downs, mistakes, and whatever they’re going to do in their careers, and not to worry about Mom.

After all you survived and endured in the tabloids, people have really come to recognize you as a trailblazer now. How does it feel to have your career reappraised in such a way?

Well, I definitely did it my own way; I took an unorthodox route to get here. I did endure some times where however I handled it was probably not the best way. But I feel very fortunate to be in this position now, it could have just as easily slipped through my fingers. You just have to recognize the moment you’re being handed. You have to get quiet and wait for what’s coming around the corner. And then when the opportunity comes, you grab it.

Do you feel that people still struggle to accept that women can be both the nun and the showgirl: sexy and smart?

I don’t know. I’m not a prude, but I see these hypersexual films that are out there. It’s great we can claim our own sexuality, but I also do feel very protective. I’ve navigated this life; I’ve navigated "Playboy"; I’ve seen people go down different roads and I’ve mentored women who have needed help to get back on track. I got through it, but it’s a tough business and it’s always going to be tough. I see so many other women in this business like Demi Moore, and it’s earned. It’s time spent. Women have to take a different route than male actors, and you have to have integrity and protect yourself and not give up. I’m just happy to be where I am now – this is the happiest time of my life.

Who are the directors you’d most love to work with next?

There’s so many: I love Sean Baker, Wim Wenders, Quentin Tarantino. I almost worked with Quentin a long time ago, but I got freaked out. He’s on my bucket list, though – I need to reclaim that moment!

What was the movie?

“Grindhouse.” I said, “Oh, I don’t want to be slaughtered because I have young children.” And he said, “No, you’ll be the only one who doesn’t die.” So we talked about it, but I didn’t go to the meeting. I was being chased by paparazzi – it was one of those times when they were being so brutal – and I just kept driving. But I was just looking for a reason not to go in because I was scared. Now I’m ready for anything because my kids are grown and I have no distractions.

Vanity is a prison. This has been such a free time for me to walk around as I am. No one’s falling over backward going, “Oh, no, I can’t look at that! She’s not wearing any makeup!” Nobody cares! We all care so much about ourselves – we’re our own worst critics, for sure.

You’ve released a documentary and a memoir, but would you ever consider making a film or miniseries about your life? Try to take back the narrative from "Pam & Tommy" somehow?

No, I think that would be boring. I mean, I’ve never seen that (show) and had nothing to do with it. I was pretty shocked that people could do something about you without your knowledge or blessing. I found out about that when I was doing the documentary and I was like, “What is happening? Why would they go to a place that was so painful for me, that I’ve taken all this time to get over?” I don’t even think I did get over it; that really left its mark. The last few decades were very dark for me. I wrote a lot of poetry and did a lot of writing, but I wasn’t happy. I was confused and trying to figure out what I was supposed to be doing.

Somehow it all worked out, but that’s not something I like to relive. It happened and I’m stronger for it now, I guess.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Pamela Anderson on Last Showgirl movie, ‘painful’ Pam and Tommy series