“It’s real,” enthuses director Gia Coppola as we discuss the acclaimed drama The Last Showgirl via Zoom. “These are real stories and I have experienced my own versions of them. It is a heartbreaking reality and truth, and much of it is a systemic economic circumstance. I think the strength of these women and getting to know these actresses as people is really inspiring. I think women in general and their persistence are unique.”

The Last ShowgirlWritten by Kate Gersten, the film stars Pamela Anderson as Shelly Gardner, a seasoned showgirl who faces an uncertain future after her career abruptly ends after 30 years. Jamie Lee Curtis plays Annette, Shelly’s waitress best friend and former showgirl, along with co-stars Dave Bautista, Brenda Song, Kiernan Shipka and Billie Lourd. The Last Showgirlwhose Hollywood premiere was among the events canceled due to the devastating fires in Los Angeles, will arrive exclusively in theaters on Friday, January 10, 2025, following a limited qualifying round for the awards ceremony in December. The Last Showgirl is currently not available to stream.

Anderson and Curtis receive wide recognition for their powerful performances and the lightning chemistry between them.

“What’s so fun about being a filmmaker is that it’s a collaborative medium. As a director, I just put all these pieces together and let them blossom,” explains Coppola. “I knew it. I had an instinctive feeling that it would work energetically and that they would become good friends. I’m glad I was right.”

Creating a Las Vegas so real you can almost taste it

When it comes to Las Vegas and the filmmaker’s vision is executed with such precision and vividness that the audience can almost taste and smell it. That does everything The Last Showgirl tangible, tactile and almost tangible.

“Las Vegas is such a sensory overload,” she says. “It’s visually littered with lights and you’re bombarded in every little corner. In terms of sound, there is always music. You go to the casino at six in the morning and there’s dance music playing. It never ends. Even when we were filming down in the basement, there was always music that was really difficult to produce.”

“Then there are always smells everywhere, like a weird Febreze smell that is disgusting, or food smells. I wish I could make this a scratch and sniff movie because that would be so cool. I’ve always talked about the sensory overload of Las Vegas and the music, so I’m happy that you feel like you can smell it and taste it. I think those elements are so overwhelming when you’re there that you just hope that somehow you can overcome them and get through them.”

Coppola, also known for Palo Alto and directing videos for Carly Rae Jepsen and Halsey, uses the light of Las Vegas, an intoxicating mix of natural and neon light, to breathtaking effect.

“I studied photography at university and am therefore very sensitive to light. I find that my mood is largely determined by it,” she explains. “In New York, for some reason I feel like I can’t see properly. I feel very cloudy there, but in Vegas or California there is a different awakening for me, an inspiration. During college, I drove across the country to Las Vegas to drop off my car and stopped there. I took photos and always wondered what life was like and what people’s everyday lives were like. Once my friend was robbed and we reported it to the police, but it led us through the casino channels. I looked behind the scenes, the employee of the month plaques and so on.”

“Literature, journalism, documentaries and photography were also some of my sources of inspiration, and there’s something very sobering about Vegas during the day. I started from my own experience of how I wanted to see Vegas and how I saw it. The fact of who these characters are and following them on their journey takes you into the daylight of their everyday lives, rather than you knowing when you’re in the casino where you have no idea of ​​time.

“The Last Showgirl costumes are amazing.”

Next to The Last ShowgirlCoppola, the granddaughter of director Francis Ford Coppola, went out of her way to ensure that the costumes Anderson and her fellow Showgirls wore matched the aesthetic elements they wore, were authentic. She couldn’t have gotten more real if she wanted to.

“My mother, Jacqueline Getty, was the costume designer and insisted that you have to get the real costumes. This movie doesn’t work if you don’t have them. You can’t reproduce that.’ That’s right,” the director remembers. “What they did back then was they spent millions of dollars on feathers alone. That was the beauty of those shows, and that level of production doesn’t exist anymore. We were very lucky that we took Bob Mackey and Pete Menefee’s real costumes out of the building. They hadn’t left the building for 30 years and are like museum pieces.”

“Pamela says there are still name tags in the seams of the dresses and pieces. They are real works of art and they are heavy. They are no joke; They are like armor and not intended for a film. They’re huge and you’re trying to figure out how to capture the camera in these huge costumes. You can’t mike them anywhere because they’re so blinded. It was a real dance in itself juggling them, but in a way they are like set pieces.”

“The Last Showgirl” was filmed in just 18 days

Everything the audience sees on the screen The Last Showgirl was shot in just over two weeks and for just $2 million. This meant it was all hands on deck at all times. The result is one of the best films of the year and absolutely deserves the recognition and accolades that it and everyone involved receive.

“I’m just so good that I can do it in 18 days. I’m just kidding,” Coppola laughs when I ask how she did it. “It was a labor of love and I feel like everyone was there for the right reasons. We all wore many different hats. Jamie Lee Curtis moved when he had to. She showed up on set on time and stayed there. The same thing happened with Dave Bautista.”

“Everyone was willing to support the film because we care about this story. Plus, since we were shooting on film, we couldn’t waste any time. We had to be strict about what we wanted to capture. Our cameraman Autumn Durald Arkapaw is a professional. She did handheld recordings and it was a collaborative effort. Since we didn’t have any idle time, we couldn’t think too much.”