Seth Rogen delves into his Pam & Tommy character Rand Gauthier, explaining his thought process behind portraying the real-life figure. In addition to starring as the Hulu series’ de facto bonehead villain, Rogen co-created Pam & Tommy with his longtime collaborator Evan Goldberg, who he first teamed up with on Superbad. The eight-episode series follows the tumultuous relationship between Baywatch star Pamela Anderson (Lily James) and Mötley Crüe drummer Tommy Lee (Sebastian Stan) and their notoriously leaked sex tape.
Rogen plays real-life character Rand Gauthier, the man who pilfered and leaked the tape, inciting the first viral sex scandal. Gauthier was an electrician working at Tommy Lee’s estate. When the musician fired him with no pay, a vengeful Gauthier retaliated by stealing Lee’s safe. In addition to your garden variety jewels and valuables, the safe contained a mysterious–and very private–Hi8 cassette tape.
In an interview with Variety, Seth Rogen explains the thought process that went into bringing Gauthier to the screen. Per Rogen, very little foresight went into his character’s scheming. “I wanted to play Rand as someone who has very little going on in his head,” says the actor, “someone whose ultimately evil acts [are] done…out of a complete lack of thinking.” Rogen’s version of Gauthier is sure to be a combination of impulsive, thoughtless, and downright dumb. Check out Rogen’s full quote below:
“Most people who are acting badly are doing so from a very simple place. I wanted to play Rand as someone who has very little going on in his head. Someone whose ultimately evil acts aren’t done out of some amazing and deep thought process, but actually out of a complete lack of thinking and caring about how his actions would affect other people.”
Gauthier’s partner in crime is his porn-producing buddy Milton “Uncle Miltie” Ingley, played by Nick Offerman. If the Pam & Tommy trailer is any indication, Ingley is similarly enterprising yet dim-witted. With the help of mob-backed money from Louis “Butchie” Peraino (Andrew Dice Clay), the pair begin selling copies before it snowballs out of control.
Though Pam & Tommy is said to be dramatized, the real-life details already feel cinematic. In 2014, Gauthier said in an interview that he snuck onto Lee’s estate wearing a fur rug in order to look like the couple’s dog. It remains to be seen which examples of real-life inanity will make it into Pam & Tommy. In any case, Rogen has plenty of experience playing bumbling characters who are in over their heads, whether it’s in Pineapple Express or The Interview. Audiences can see Rogen as Rand Gauthier when Pam & Tommy premieres on Hulu on February 2.
