'09
Steven Soderbergh’s new low-budget indie film, The Girlfriend Experience, has an unusual star: one of the p*rnography industry’s most in-demand female stars, Sasha Grey. In an interview with the LA Times, Soderbergh says that casting Sasha was like casting Brad Pitt - there would be more interest in the actor than in the film.
Still, he cops to a certain degree of exploitation. Soderbergh gave Grey the lead role in the film (which opens Friday) fully intending to milk her X-rated fame for all it is worth. “I was very much counting on the fact that the interest in her would be greater than the interest in the movie,” Soderbergh said. “We would be drafting off her notoriety rather than vice versa. I needed her. That’s no different than getting Brad Pitt to be in your movie, albeit in a different context.”
In that regard, it probably helps that Grey, 21, can be considered a porn star only by the same reductive logic that would characterize Kobe Bryant as merely a “basketball player.” The actress — real name Marina Ann Hantzis — is professionally distinguished by her take-no-prisoners attitude toward the hardest of hard-core sex scenes and consensual degradation. Aggressively staking a claim for herself in the industry from almost the moment she turned 18, Grey’s porn oeuvre extends to more than 150 films — “Sasha Grey’s Anatomy,” “House of Sex & Domination” and “Teenage Whores” (parts 2 and 3) being among the few titles printable in a family newspaper. For her ambitiousness, she took home the Adult Video News Awards’ female performer of the year in 2008, becoming the youngest person to win.
Moreover, Grey is establishing herself as a burgeoning multimedia mogul. She calls herself a “performance artist,” is filming a documentary, writing a graphic novel and a “sex philosophy” book and recently launched her own production company with the twin goals of changing the look of pornography and empowering women.
“Part of the reason I got into this business was to change it,” Grey said. “I can take my fantasies and ideas and deliver those to an audience. It’s all an extension of who I am.”
Dan Miller, editor in chief of AVN magazine, explained what separates Grey from her industry’s rank and file. “She brings it in her sex scenes,” he said. “She means business. Sasha’s been able to showcase a way of going about it, a fearlessness, that has resonated with adult critics and made producers take notice. She’s in the top 10 in-demand female performers.”
Over lunch in a Hollywood restaurant, picking at a salad she variously described as tasting “like ammonia” and later, wasabi, Grey made working with Soderbergh — the force behind the blockbuster “Ocean’s” franchise as well as more personal projects starring non-pro actors such as “Bubble” and the HBO series “K Street” — seem like no biggie. Never mind that, outside of adult films, she had never professionally acted (despite having studied theater from age 12 to 18). And that working from a bare-bones plot “outline,” she was responsible for improvising her own dialogue.
“Steven wanted a natural quality and for things to be spontaneous,” Grey said. “So it was about trying to find a way to bring my training into the film and also leaving room for this open-ended, never-ending surprise that came into each scene.”
[from LA Times]
As for Sasha, who is known in the industry as having a “ferocious” attitude and the gumption to do just about anything, the movie is just another step into the mainstream. She says that she got into the business “in order to change it” and she is in the middle of making a documentary, as well as writing a book on “sex philosophy.”
The plan going forward [for Sasha] is for her to act as her own manager, work exclusively for herself (rather than one of the big agencies that represent most porn performers) and even direct her own movies.
“All women have the right to be feminist whether you’re pro-porn or anti-porn,” she said. “But I think it’s definitely about continuing to put the control in women’s hands. And sending a positive message to our society that every girl in porn is not abused and cracked out.”
Grey continued: “I have this brand, I have my name. And I’m going to do what I want because people will buy it. People will enjoy it. So don’t tell me I have to follow this formula and sit inside the box. Because I don’t.”
[from LA Times]
It’s an interesting choice, casting someone from the adult film industry in a Soderbergh film. Soderbergh’s projects encompass a wide range (Ocean’s Eleven, Erin Brokovich, Solaris, K Street, and Traffic are just a few), and this adds just another dimension to his body of work.
Adult film stars are finding it easier these days to become mainstream. Jenna Jameson was one of the first to successfully cross over, and now with television like The Girls Next Door showing everything but the sex, you’ll be sure to see more cross-overs in the future.
Here’s the trailer for The Girlfriend Experience
Sasha Grey is shown on 5/9/09, 4/28/09, and 3/14/09. Credit: WENN.com
Written by SamHill
Posted in Movies, Sasha Grey
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19 Responses to “Steven Soderbergh compares casting Sasha Grey to casting Brad Pitt”
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Yea, I gotta say, Sasha strikes me as a fairly intelligent young woman.
At least she’s smart enough to get paid millions for having sex. The rest of us idiots are doing it for free! LOL
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I’m not sure about this. On the one hand, she has the right to do whatever she wants and is paid well for it, but on the other hand, she’s glorifying a business that is still male-centric and market driven to the point that having such a take not prisoners attitude is a necessity to do some of the degrading stuff she does. I’m not anti-sex or even anti-porn if it is any good, but I will never agree that the rank and file of it empowers women–unless she actually succeeds at making something that focuses on women’s fantasies.
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interesting how her “liberation” involves being screwed hardcore, vomited on and being punched. i think maybe therapy might have been a better choice - at 18 she may have been legal to make those films but she was barely out of childhood and just beginning to explore herself and her sexuality. also, she’s what now- 21? 22? she’s already had gonorrhea twice and she is starting to get that used up, tired out look that all female porn stars get. her eyes look kind of dead. i don’t know - maybe i’m naive but she makes me sad. i just want to feed her a healthy meal and tell her to go to college.
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Hard to tell a 21 year old that climbing the financial ladder and having a prada purse are worth the abuse that she’s putting her mind and body through. Although there are a lot of women who sell out in their early twenties for the kids, house and picket fence hoping for the same outcome as Sasha. I’m not sure what’s worse. However it appears to me that Sasha at least has a good business sense about her.
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Ugh, as far as stunt casting goes, I find this the most distasteful thing…ever. As much as I like porn, that doesn’t mean I think we should drag these women out front and center. Talk liberation all you want, most of these women are bound by their own addictions, victimization, or greed. The pornography industry rarely treats women like equal human beings (most male on female porn glorifies the brutalization of the woman and does not focus on a single concern or interest for the woman’s arousal. And ever notice how ALL porn, gay, straight, and lesbian, is made and marketed for men…?) and I don’t think its something to glorify or treat as “main stream” at all.
She may sound “intelligent”, but if she’s allowing herself to be brutalized in the way another poster described, then she’s just another brainwashed fool that thinks subjecting yourself to objectification willingly is liberation. Any woman who can promote sexual violence through porn is just scum, to me.
Performance artist, indeed. She’s like the Lady Gaga of porn. When all else fails (especially your looks), “reinvent” yourself into something outrageous that has nothing to do with talent and more to do with talking about sex. Great way to get famous, if you have no problem with not having a soul!
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Was it REALLY necessary to edit the “o” out of pornography??
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What exactly has Jenna Jameson done that’s mainstream?
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Traci Lords made a few mainstream appearances…wasn’t she the first?
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When I saw the header pic, I thought to myself, “Gee, whoever that Sasha Gray is, she looks like a porn star.” That can’t be good for business, when your skank is that evident. Or, maybe it is?
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You mean Zombie Strippers isn’t considered mainstream?!
What is this world coming to?
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I am sad for her. She is on the defensive, the truth is that she can’t be that happy with what she does but because it is what she does, she has decided not to whine about it. I wonder why all porn stars have that dirty cheap look about them, even those who are making some little money.
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Yeah…I know I’m all about the feminist women’s lib talk all the time, but porn disgusts me.
I’m so sick of everyone using the “sexual liberation” argument to praise acting like a skank. It’s not that I lack a sex drive…but I find that pornography is partially what’s contributing to the degeneration of society, especially for women.
My distaste for pornography is that it’s shallow. While mainstream media on the whole has become increasingly vapid:
1. Porn portrays human sexuality in a childish and unnatural manner.
2. Women using their bodies and screwing their ways to the top rather than talent to become successful? Isn’t that a contradiction of what feminists have been fighting for?
3. And because of #2, negates social equality among women.
4. Encourages infidelity.And if that doesn’t make me “progressive” and makes me a little behind on the times, oh well.
And sadly, I knew this chick was a porn star before I even clicked on the link to find out who she was. They all have the same bitchy, cold, dead eyed look.
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It has nothing to do with women’s needs and feelings and wants– the most it can do to arouse a woman is through the show of naked bodies; but even still, its so much about portraying the woman as the attractive thing…. when it comes to the mans body its all abotu power and a symbol of authority/conquering.
I find most pron, not sex, SICK in its twisted setup of how sex ‘ought to be’- totally wrong. And whats worse is men come of age to that sh&t thats way WAY off in terms of basically everything– the physical standards are wrong, the situations totally ficticious, theres no emotions r intimacy between the people involved, its about conquer/subdue and most of all USE of the woman’s body just for the man’s fulfillment, and on and on I could go.
I wouldnt be so against it if it were done somewhat humanistically or realisitcally, and with the woman in mind for once.
In no way, can a womans conformingherself to mans wishes and doing as THEY please, in any way be empowering to er or any other woman, it just pushes us further down; I dont care if you do it with business savvy or an edgier attitude, your still being the pawn tht they want you to be in their empty-headed and out of touch fantasies…. -
How on earth do you get into porn at 18. Seriously.
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i agree - it isn’t “feminist”, it’s actually “post feminist.” there is a big difference.
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Original Kate: You’re right, her eyes really do look dead. Like she checked out a long time ago.
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Drugs aren’t cool to use,sex toys, I think that using it is not dangerous, it makes pleasure.
You can find many sex products here TheEroticSection.com, adult job, escort agencies, etc. -
Women need to shut the hell up and go back top why God made them. Feminism, porn, sexual liberation is all trash.
The American society is degenerated because of whores like Sasha Gray and other immoral porn losers. There, of course, is more to why the American society is self destructing. The porn industry is one HUGE reason why.
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Its a brilliant move. all actors are whores , in my own opinion , thou they wont admit to it
sasha is an exception Porn stars aren’t generally very bright.
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