Sasha Grey's mainstream breakout role in The Girlfriend Experience, playing later this month at the Tribeca Film Festival before a wider release in May, is exciting the elitist media on the east coast. They're all big fans of Grey, which means they've been waiting for years to get her (half?) naked for their magazines while interviewing her on their office couch. Thankfully, Grey is too wise and experienced to fall for their tricks... she ends up coming off as a well-adjusted, well, porn star.
In this week's New York Magazine, Grey talked about playing a Ashley Alexandra Dupre-era prostitute in her first "legitimate" feature film...
How were you cast?
One of Soderbergh’s writers, Brian Koppelman, contacted me through MySpace. I thought it was a joke, because I get a lot of fake offers on MySpace. Then Steven left me a voice mail.
What, as they say, was your motivation?
Steven was really secretive about the character, but he wanted me to bring a natural, uninhibited quality to the film. There’s a lot of scenes where I’m improvising. I sat at home, writing a lot, figuring out who she was. I’d take my notes to Steven.
You don’t actually have sex onscreen.
When I had the first meeting I assumed I would be naked and do a sex scene. Did I think I would do five, like in my adult work? No, but even up to the point where we were shooting, I thought there was going to be at least one sex scene.
That’s usually the first thing actresses clear up in their contracts.
The contract did say that I would be nude. But one of the clauses was [laughing] “You cannot have [real] sex.” To me, that was a pretty funny legality.
I imagine you’d never seen that before?
It was pretty weird. But it was great not to have sex—that would have been too easy. If you want to see me having sex, you can do that! Not doing it shifts the focus, because a lot of clients are there for more than the sex.
What’s your plan?
I’ve got to diversify myself. Do I want to be 35, having sex on-camera? No. I want to be sitting on a fucking porch at my beach house with my own successful company.
Via New York Magazine.
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