Mann on Mars: Wichita native joins Mötley Crüe for Hulu’s ‘Pam & Tommy’

Born out of pandemic frustration, Chris Mann’s parody song videos have been watched by millions of people — and were his entry point as a co-star in an upcoming Hulu miniseries.

“I would love for it to be a new direction,” the Wichita native said. “Nobody was as surprised as me when I got this job.”

In his first major screen acting role, the 39-year-old is playing Mötley Crüe lead guitarist and co-founder Mick Mars in “Pam & Tommy,” premiering on the streaming service Feb. 2. Although he’s not certain of how much screen time he’ll get, he does appear beginning in the fourth episode.

“I’ve always acted, and over the last two years, after the success of these parodies I made, my auditions been more and more in number,” Mann said from his home in Los Angeles.

Since his first national exposure as a finalist on “The Voice” in 2012, Mann has honed a reputation as a serious, romantic, quasi-classical vocalist, including two years as the title role in a touring production of “Phantom of the Opera.”

“That’s all they felt like I could really do,” he said of casting agents. “I couldn’t get a comedy audition if I tried or be seen outside this type that I’m known for.

“These parodies were such a blessing that the world opened for me in terms of what people knew me for, and they saw what I was capable of,” Mann added. “It just changed the thought of me.”

His agent and manager kept trying to get him to audition for “Pam & Tommy,” which tells the story of the short-lived marriage between Crüe drummer Tommy Lee and Playboy Playmate/“Baywatch” star Pamela Anderson, which made headlines after a sex tape of the two was stolen from them and released online.

Mann reluctantly agreed to record a video audition last year, necessary because of COVID precautions. He borrowed a guitar from a friend at his gym and got pointers to convincingly imitate playing Crüe hit “Kickstart My Heart.”

“At 2 in the morning, after we had a very colicky baby, we got Rocky to sleep and at some point we realized the audition was tomorrow, so I set up a camera in the living room at 2 in the morning, got the guitar and did the scene, where he’s chugging along, talking to Tommy on the drums, talking to Vince (Neil) and writing a song together,” Mann recalled. “I’m totally rocking out like I’m at the Staples Center or something. I really had fun with it because I thought, ‘There’s no way in hell I’m gonna get this.’”

Also in the audition was an improvisational scene where band members work on writing songs — something Mann has had plenty of experience with.

A call from his agent came a few weeks later.

“I hope you’ve got a lot of hair spray because you’ve booked Mötley Crüe,” Mann recalled the agent saying. I “literally couldn’t have been more surprised.”

With a photo of the guitarist from 1995, when the miniseries takes place, Mann was turned into Mars.

“When I put a wig on and they put all this makeup on me I totally have a likeness to him in some way,” Mann said. Mann said he loved getting into wardrobe, with vintage ‘90s clothes. “We’re talking Mötley Crüe glam, so it’s lace and layers and vests and leather and velvet and high-heel boots and tattoos.”

Because Mars had one visible tattoo, on his thumb, Mann didn’t have to spend the hours his co-stars had to in getting fake ink daily.

“We stood out like sore thumbs on the set, and people were coming up to us … like we were sort-of stars, because we looked so crazy,” Mann said.

Sebastian Stan, best known as Bucky Barnes/Winter Soldier in “Avengers” movies plays Lee. Lily James, who played the title role in Disney’s 2015 “Cinderella” and a veteran of the TV series “Downton Abbey,” plays Anderson.

As taping for scenes in Studio A of Capitol Records — where Mann has recorded an album — began, James playfully ran up and jumped into his arms.

“I thought, ‘Holy s---,’ we’re celebrating,” he said with a laugh. “I’m holding Lily James right now.”

The cast of the miniseries also includes Seth Rogan, Nick Offerman and Taylor Schilling, whom Mann didn’t get to meet.

The eight-part miniseries was not authorized by Anderson, Lee, or Mötley Crüe, and Anderson has spoken out against its creation. But Mann thinks “Pam & Tommy” is not exploitative and shows heart.

“It’s a beautiful and powerful story,” he said. “They’re shedding a light on this really awful thing that happened to Pam and Tommy — that we can make light of now, it’s the first sex tape — but it was literally stolen from them by the Seth Rogen character and sold. The law failed to protect them. This got released in a way that would never happen today.

“It’s a powerful film that shows them in a very powerful light,” Mann added. “In retrospect, everybody’s going to be very proud of it and pleased. It’s actually telling a really important story.”

Mann gone viral

Mann’s parody videos were a gut reaction in mid-March 2020 to the beginnings of the coronavirus pandemic. His wife asked him to go to the grocery store and he found bedlam as people were grabbing toilet paper and hand sanitizer off the shelves.

“I just came home and — I don’t know why, I’ve never written a parody before — but I sat down and wrote ‘My Corona’ (to the tune of The Knack’s ‘My Sharona’). I went into the bathroom and I did a pass of this rant that sort of described what happened at the store.

“I put it online and didn’t think twice,” he continued. “It got 20 million views in four days. We were looking at the numbers and going ‘What? Is this right?’ I’d never experienced anything like it. … I was embarrassed because I didn’t think I sang very well. I couldn’t believe I was singing about toilet paper. I’ve had PBS specials and sung for the president, but this cannot be the biggest thing I’ve ever done.”

He ended up making more than 30 videos, some song parodies and others comedy bits using his wife, Laura, and his sons, 4-year-old Hugo and 1-year-old Rocky.

Mann’s most successful video is a parody of Adele’s “Hello,” which, as of mid-January, has received 14.5 million views.

“The Adele ‘Hello’ video totally put it over the top,” he said. “It was worldwide, everywhere. It was this fulfilling and liberating thing, speaking from the heart for the very first time as an artist and creative person, and even though it’s comedy, I’m talking about my fears and things I think are ridiculous.”

The production values of his self-recorded videos got better each time, he said, even introducing green screens to make it look like a variety of backgrounds.

His most recent — “My Flurona,” again to the tune from The Knack — was in response to him being diagnosed with the double-whammy flu-corona combination while spending the holidays back home.

“I think I actually had it in Wichita over Christmas,” Mann said. “I landed in Wichita and tested positive, and I had a really horrible Christmas with, I’m fairly certain, flurona, because it went on forever.”

Based on the success of the videos and the online comments that accompany them, Mann is starting an internet community he’s calling FML.

“We’re just taking what has happened organically on these comment boards,” he said. “People have come together to talk together, laugh together, vent together.”

He will eventually make videos exclusively for the FML community, Mann said.

Mann will soon also offer his “Hello” video as a non fungible token, or NFT, to give the public proof of ownership.

For the second year, Mann appeared as a talking head on NBC’s New Year’s Eve special and will appear with his gym buddies this spring on the Netflix series “The Floor is Lava,” competing as nerdy ‘90s fathers in a team called Bad Daditude.

In the studio, he’ll be working with the team behind Jon Batiste’s multiple-Grammy Award nominated album “We Are” on a new album, with tour dates “technically happening” in the spring.

And the Southeast High graduate is always appreciative of the support from his hometown.

“I always appreciate Wichita’s support,” he said.

This story was originally published January 30, 2022 at 3:23 AM with the headline "Mann on Mars: Wichita native joins Mötley Crüe for Hulu’s ‘Pam & Tommy’."