For her next role, Pamela Anderson is cutting loose. Earlier this year, the actor made a major comeback with a stellar turn in Gia Coppola’s The Last Showgirl, displaying significant dramatic chops and entering awards consideration. Soon, though, she’s trading seriousness for silliness in The Naked Gun, starring opposite Liam Neeson in Akiva Schaffer’s reboot-quel. While Neeson is playing Frank Drebin Jr., the son of Leslie Nielsen’s original cop, Anderson is Beth – a femme fatale who has Drebin investigating the murder of her brother.

For Anderson, starring in a Naked Gun film is something of a full-circle moment – since she nearly made an appearance in the original trilogy decades ago, in 1994’s The Naked Gun 33 1/3. “The part that Anna Nicole [Smith] played, I almost played,” Anderson reveals to Empire. “It was just scheduling. I couldn’t do it. But it’s good: I’d rather play this role.” For all the fun of playing in the Naked Gun world, nerves were high when Anderson turned up for rehearsal. But as soon as she started getting into the groove opposite Neeson, they proved a perfect pairing. “We just had a ball. I was always showering him with loaves of bread and cookies and muffins,” she says. “There was a little book-shop on the set, and he found this poetry book by Ibsen, and he was explaining to me a little bit about him. And then for his birthday, I got him a first-edition Hemingway. He’s always got a book in hand, and the same with me.”

If the connection between Neeson and Anderson was more highbrow than a typical Drebin gag, The Naked Gun looks set to keep its giddy anything-goes sense of humour. Anderson teases a “musical element that will be very surprising”, and lines to have audiences rolling in the aisles. “Some of the things they made us say, I mean, it was just crazy stuff,” she recalls. “Akiva would say, ‘Oh my God, this is so fun. Look what I can make these people do.’” Over 30 years since 33 1/3, Anderson is ready to pull the trigger on The Naked Gun at last.

Read Empire’s full The Naked Gun feature – talking to Akiva Schaffer, Liam Neeson, Pamela Anderson and more – in the Tron: Ares issue, on sale now. Order a copy online here. The Naked Gun comes to UK cinemas from 1 August.