Judging by the current scores on Rotten Tomatoes (22% critics, 24% audience), The Canyons isn’t exactly the most popular film right now. Our own Luke Walton lookalike and leader Vince wasn’t very fond of it, and short of Andrew O’Heir at Salon, very few people seem to be happy that it was ever made. But I’m sure that the film’s star, James Deen, is happy that it was made, because he seems to be happy with just about everything in his easy-go-lucky life.
Deen, porn’s leading man by day (and night, I guess), recently discussed The Canyons and life in general with Vulture, and it seems that the only thing he’s not mostly positive about is the adult film industry’s relationship with former porn starlet Sasha Grey, who has since tried to go mainstream.
You’ve done scenes with Sasha Grey in the past, who capitalized on her porn notoriety with a role in a micro-budget indie — The Girlfriend Experience — that was also directed by a notable auteur. She’s since gone on to an acting career that included a role in Entourage. Have you talked to her about your own foray into Hollywood?
Sasha Grey has not engaged with anyone in pornography for a really long time. That’s, like, the name that is not said in this business. I don’t have anything against her, but in the adult-film world she has a very bad reputation for many reasons. The reality is that she was 18 when she started doing porn and between 18 and 23 her goals changed, and she wants to do different things now. Actually, my ex-girlfriend and her have the same manager, and her manager dropped her because in the Entourage meeting, apparently she had this whole freakout about how porn ruined her life. The second they left the meeting, in the elevator, she was like, “I think I’ll get the part now.” And the manager was like, “Are you serious? You just said that porn ruined your life and you’re just laughing about it now? What was that, fake?” You know, when she was 18, she wanted to be Belladonna, and she pushed the envelope and got dirty and nasty and all of this stuff, and then she wanted to be like Jenna Jameson and be glamorous, and then she wanted to do acting. I’m sure that in the time between I’m 27 and 35, I’m going to have a bunch of different goals and change my opinions on things. Maybe when I’m 50, what’s going to make me happy is making balloon animals on the beach. [Laughs.]
The point about Belladonna makes a ton of sense, because anyone who is familiar with some of Grey’s more, um, gaggy work would have to wonder how she could expect people in mainstream Hollywood to take her seriously, when most of them would be watching her eat a banana and wondering when she was going to throw up on it.
But it’s not hurting her career too much, as Grey has several projects in the works, including the campy-sounding, exploitation throwback Skinny Dip. Danny Trejo will seriously appear in anything.