In the film, your character is an escort who juggles her profession with the complications of a relationship. Do the issues your character faces with her boyfriend compare to your real-life relationship with your fiancé?
It wasn’t very similar because I actually care about my fiancé. The characters are vain people just looking for a bigger mirror. That relationship dynamic is different from mine at home. If someone didn’t like what I did for a living, they wouldn’t be with me, so I don’t have that problem. And [in the film] they both use each other as a crutch. That’s very different from my life.

In 2006, Steven Soderbergh told The Believer magazine that he thinks a person’s views on porn are a better indicator of their mindset, than saying they’re Republican or Democrat. Would you agree?
We never talked about that. But I think there’s a lot to that point. There are a lot of people who would say that we are numb to violence — but when we depict sex on screen, or talk about porn, some people get totally freaked out. Like it’s gross, or wrong. There’s this belief out there that you have to be so guilty and ashamed when you talk about sex. That’s not everyone of course, but maybe in a way a person’s outlook on porn does show you who they are, and what they believe.

You’re known for doing extreme stuff in your movies. What’s something you haven’t done that you really want to?
There’s plenty of stuff I haven’t done that I’d like to do. But there are a lot of things I won’t do because I don’t want to go to fucking jail. It wouldn’t be worth it.

Can you name one of those things?
I’ll leave it up to your imagination.

We hear you’re a fan of the late Hunter S. Thompson. What do you think he would make of the term gonzo being applied to porn?

There are a lot of things I won’t do because I don’t want to go to jail

[Laughs]

Why is that so funny?
That’s funny because I did a screening of this adult film recently, and I used the word "gonzo" when I was talking. This girl in the audience asked what gonzo was. And I told her it wasn’t Hunter S. Thompson’s type of gonzo, but she didn’t know who he was. That’s kind of sad.

As for gonzo porn, I have very mixed feelings. It was a great thing and some of the pioneers of gonzo really did some amazing work, but it also allowed an influx of people who aren’t that great. There’s no plot in gonzo, and so people without creativity just call it gonzo and they end up just ripping off what everyone else is doing.

There’s a great deal of media buzz about you, right now. A lot of the headlines are titillation: porn star acts, reads Sartre! Do you worry fans will focus more on you, than on the movie?
I think people will come to see the film with a preconceived bias, and I’m not sure there’s much I can do about that. Some people won’t allow themselves to strip the idea of me away from the character. They’ll just see a porn star, not the character.

Who is the character?
You can’t just boil down the character in a few words. She’s not me, but that’s my point. There are similarities. I have a boyfriend, and so does my character — but almost everyone has a relationship, and they’re all hard. So, I hope that people can see these two characters for who they really are, because that’s what the film is about.