The iconic 1990s character almost played by Pamela Anderson: “Taller, leggier, blonder, and breastier”
Obviously, and for better or worse, Pamela Anderson was one of the defining figures in 1990s pop culture, but as it turns out, she could have played one of its most iconic characters, too.
The model and actor rose to prominence through her appearances in the pages of Playboy, but it was the one-two punch of Home Improvement and Baywatch that made her a global superstar, with the latter the most-watched TV show on the airwaves at its peak, for reasons that had little to do with plot, character, or David Hasselhoff’s chest hair.
Anderson experienced the sharpest side of that double-edged sword, though, with the endless tabloid intrusion and media frenzy that followed her everywhere she went, something that she’s still struggling to reconcile with, and for very many valid reasons. She might have been one of the most famous people on the planet, but you’d be hard-pressed to find many people who’d have called her a talented actor.
Earning three Razzie nominations for her first feature-length leading role in Barb Wire, it wouldn’t be until three decades later, and the release of Gia Coppola’s The Last Showgirl, that she was finally given the platform to deliver what instantly became her defining, career-best work, earning a deserved Golden Globe nomination in the bargain.
In the early 1990s, when Baywatch was just beginning to take off, Anderson found herself in contention for another episodic series that would make a completely different but equally important mark on pop culture. As hard as it is to imagine, she was approached by Fox, with the network keen to gauge her interest in playing the female lead in an in-development show called The X-Files.
“Pamela was somebody who was more familiar to them in terms of what was on TV at the time,” her namesake and eventual Dana Scully, Gillian Anderson, explained. “At the beginning, nobody trusted that I could do anything. I had no body of work behind me at all, and, certainly, Fox felt very strongly that I wasn’t the right person for the job.”
Of course, Anderson, who won a Golden Globe and a Primetime Emmy from four nominations apiece during The X-Files’ initial run between 1993 and 2002, proved those doubters wrong, with Scully becoming one of the most popular, influential, and inspirational TV characters of the modern era.
Could Pamela Anderson have played Scully? About as well as Gillian Anderson could have played CJ Parker, to be honest, which isn’t much. And yet, because it was the early ’90s and sex was selling more than ever, the execs wanted a bombshell. “It wasn’t just breasts,” the latter clarified. “It was taller, leggier, blonder, and breastier: the whole works.”
Common sense prevailed at the end of the day, with Anderson’s X-Files audition blowing away everybody in the room, leaving creator Chris Carter and his corporate overlords no other option but to give her the job, which became not only her breakthrough role as an actor but the one that will define her career.
