FILM:

Sasha Grey not closing curtain on X-rated films

Adult film actress ponders what’s next after crossing over to mainstream movies

Saturday, May 30, 2009 | 6:32 p.m.

Denise Truscello/Las Vegas Weekly

Sasha Grey celebrates her birthday March 17, 2009, at Tao nightclub in Las Vegas. The adult film actress was in Las Vegas Friday night for a party celebrating Steven Soderbergh film, “The Girlfriend Experience,” in which she has her first mainstream acting role.

Award-winning pornstar Sasha Grey may have made it to the mainstream but she’s not about to abandon her X-rated roots.

The AVN and XRCO 2008 “Female Performer of the Year” has recently attracted a lot of attention for her role in the Steven Soderbergh film, “the Girlfriend Experience.”

Grey’s first major mainstream role certainly won’t be her last: She has two more mainstream movies, “Quit” and “Smash Cut,” due out this summer.

Still, Grey isn’t about to turn her back on the industry that made her a (porn) star.

Unlike many adult film stars, who try to use their X-rated stardom to transition into mainstream roles, Grey said she never intended to make the switch.

“It’s not something that I ever sought out,” she said, suggesting the mainstream came to her, not the other way around.

“Stephen and his writer … contacted me,” she said.

Grey said she hoped to become the first actress to simultaneously appear in both adult and mainstream films.

“There’s never really been anybody, any woman, in the adult business to really hold both at the same time,” she observed.

And Grey, 21, is up for the challenge.

“I enjoy the challenge of people telling me no and proving them wrong,” she said.

Despite all the mainstream attention, Grey is still focusing a lot of her attention on initiatives within the adult industry.

“I just launched my own production company for adult films and I’ll be doing another film in August, so it’s busy, busy,” she said Friday night as she arrived for a “Girlfriend Experience” party at Lavo nightclub in Las Vegas.

Though she may count “Escape from New York” as her favorite film (Kurt Russell was one of her first crushes), Grey is a bonafide film buff: Her top five favorite films is rounded out by 1977’s “Stroszek;” 2001’s “Fat Girl;” 1965’s “Pierrot le Fou;” and 1974’s “A Woman Under the Influence.”

As “the Girlfriend Experience” prepares to hit theaters tomorrow, Grey said she doesn’t know what to expect.

“I don’t really read reviews,” she said, “(And) it’s not easy to view something that you’ve done.”

She explained how working on a film, doing press, and now, waiting for its public release has been an enlightening experience.

“You’re done and you’ve finished with the project and you feel like that’s it, but now here it is for the world to see and it’s the first time they’re seeing it , hearing about it, relating to it, or hating it,” she said.

The enterprising brunette said she was “grateful” for everything she had experienced throughout the process and said working with Soderbergh was “amazing.”

“You can always see the wheels spinning in his head,” she said.

While Grey admitted it took her a few days to acclimatize herself to the set, she said she quickly learned to expect the unexpected from her new director, and roll with it.

“You’d expect to hear one thing or do one thing and he’d come up with the last thing that you did not think of,” she said.

Grey is busy, both on camera and behind it.

“Right now I’m focusing on my brand new production company I just launched, it’s called Grey Art, and in August I go to shoot another independent film and I was just handed a couple more scripts so I’m juggling a little bit of everything right now,“ she said.

In addition to bridging the adult-mainstream divide, Grey hopes to add another title to her growing list of credentials – “director” -- and produce some independent films of her own, as well.

A far as advice for aspiring starlets, the seemingly wise-beyond-her-years star eagerly shares the wisdom she’s acquired over the last three years: “I would have to say, be sure you want to do this, and tell your parents because they will find out, and save your money.”

Discussion: 8 comments so far…

By MysterMr

5/31/09 at 4:33 p.m.

Suggest removal

Sasha Grey is the coolest girl ever.
By Bone_Daddy

5/31/09 at 6:46 p.m.

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not blond either, what's this world coming to?
By RustyShackleford

6/1/09 at 11:01 a.m.

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I must have missed the announcement that this is somehow relevant. We've got a national economy that is in shambles; last I checked service men and women are still dying in Iraq and Afghanistan; North Korea is testing nuclear weapons; Iran is itching for a fight; locally we lead the nation in foreclosed homes; jobs are disappearing and those promised by projects like CityCenter, Cosmopolitan and Fontainebleau might not come to fruition (or be near as many FTEs as predicted in those beautiful years of 2006 and 2007); and yet the Pulitzer Prize-winning Las Vegas Sun has a 650-word story about a porn star who is crossing over into mainstream films. Who cares? What's next, a feature on how the lady who does the donkey shows in Tijuana is working with Martin Scorsese?
I hope the Pulitzer folks take away your prize for delivering such drivel to your readers. Can you do us all a favor in these trying times and focus on the news and leave this garbage to TMZ and Variety? You're the Las Vegas Sun, not the U.K. Sun. Remember that. Please. We need at least one newspaper in Las Vegas.
By netlivinginc

6/1/09 at 12:31 p.m.

Suggest removal

Let's throw in a little entertainment once in a while. Just how any stories can you read about homes being foreclosed before it all becomes redundant?
By Bodytalk555

6/1/09 at 2:33 p.m.

Suggest removal

I'm pretty wild but I think there is something disturbing about having sex on camera. There must be some pretty messed up lives for so many people to be involved with porn. I would rather not read about it in this fine publication.
By RustyShackleford

6/1/09 at 4:11 p.m.

Suggest removal

Looking at the picture I can't help but think of Charlie Sheen in Ferris Bueller's Day Off:
"You wear too much eye makeup. My sister wears too much. People think she's a whore."
By rob (Staff)

6/1/09 at 6:06 p.m.

Suggest removal

Hey Rusty -- the Las Vegas Sun has a wide audience of readers, especially on the Internet. Some are interested in our in-depth analytical and investigative stories that basically come from the print edition. Some follow our breaking news stories that are published primarily online, and others like reading our sports and entertainment coverage.

Well-rounded news organizations offer a wide variety of content.

Other newspapers that have also won Pulitzer prizes -- including The Washington Post, Los Angeles Times and New York Times -- also regularly cover entertainment stories and celebrity news as part of their overall mix of content.

When it comes to celebrity news on lasvegassun.com, one of our rules is that the story has to be local -- as in happened in Las Vegas or has ties to our city. We write these types of stories frequently when actors, sports figures and other celebrities come to town, giving us a chance to catch them on our home court for interviews.

If you have read the print edition of, say, The Washington Post, you would know that in its daily Style section, there is a gossip and celebrity column very similar to this. The LA Times also has something similar.

We believe the Las Vegas Sun is in good company with those other newspapers in covering such stories. Also, Las Vegas is considered by many readers as the Entertainment Capital of the World. So, we will continue to provide stories, features and reviews on entertainment events and celebrities.

And finally, one of the great attributes of an online news site is that reading every story is completely opt-in; you make the choice to read or view something on a news site by clicking on the link.

Our suggestion would be to stay away from the stories that involve the celebrity side of Las Vegas and focus on reading our news organization's stories that seem to fall more in your interests. A good rule of thumb might be to only read the stories on this page:

http://www.lasvegassun.com/todays-paper/...

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