Jenna Jameson is the most successful porn star of our time. Of any time. Unprecedented in the porn industry, she owned her own production company at a time when women just didn't "do" that, and recently sold it to
Playboy for millions of dollars. During her career, she directed several of her own films including the horror-themed
Bella Loves Jenna, and starred in numerous genre-themed adult movies like the
Devil in Miss Jones remake. She's a very smart, driven businesswoman and filmmaker who is using her retirement to star in fun and crazy horror movies like the upcoming
Zombie Strippers, in which she plays the Nietzsche-reading, existential heroine Kat who is actually a zombie for more than 3/4 of the whole film. Pretty/Scary doesn't think porn rocks, and we don't condemn it, either. What we do love are women in charge of their own careers who make a grand wave in the land of horror. After all, Jenna is a self-proclaimed HUGE horror movie fan. She stopped by Pretty/Scary to talk about
Zombie Strippers, porn, rebelling against the system, and being politically responsible to yourself…
Jenna is the first to say what a huge horror film fan she is. Not only in this interview, but in many previous interviews, she cites her reasons why she loves horror so much.
"I used to sneak out of my bedroom at night and turn on HBO, and my favorite movie was John Carpenter's The Thing because I loved the fact that it made it so I couldn't sleep. I freaked me out so bad that I couldn't sleep. And I loved that adrenaline rush," she says. Because of that 'rush" she got ultra excited when she got the script for Zombie Strippers…
"Obviously, I am a porn star, so I have a thing with adrenaline. Obviously. Horror movie always made me have that weird yummy sexual feeling. I had no idea it was sexual. But there is that weird indescribable feeling that I get from horror movies, so when they put the script in front of me... I mean, the title is brilliant, Zombie Strippers, everybody's going to love this movie, esp. if you're male. But once I started reading the script I was like, this is so telltale of what my life has been. It's been fighting against the establishment, being a rebel, never letting anyone tell me who I should and shouldn't be. So I loved the fact that it had so many political undertones. It's not really what you would expect with a campy dark movie like this. It was exciting to even be a part of it."
Jenna as "Kat" in 'Zombie Strippers'
She also loved the existential-ridden dialogue and action.
"I kind of fancy myself a smart chick, so I went into it thinking I'm well versed, I know what I'm talking about".
And Jenna gets naked. She strips and gets totally naked in this film.
"For me, nudity is incredibly expected. People know more about my body than I know. So I really want to approach this in a different way. I want to do things that aren't expected. I think that getting great roles in on my agenda. And if nudity comes along with it and is called for, then word. It's very easy for me. "
So, you might be wondering why Jenna would make the switch to horror films after such a long and successful career in pornography.
"After 13-14 years in the industry" she says, "I was becoming a bit… jaded, a bit bored, so I was excited to do something that I was super passionate about. I really loved the idea of being a scream queen. I got to be a powerful girl in a horror movie. It wasn't just like this girl getting her head ripped off or her throat ripped out. I played a powerful woman that eats men. I love that. I always wanted to eat a man".
But ultimately, it was the character of Kat - bitchy and strippy – that connected with Jenna.
"When I read this script, I said, this character is me. It's not going to be a big stretch for me. It's this bossy, street-wise, jaded stripper. I'm like, okay, that's me".
Zombie Strippers is filled with some of the best over-the-top gore scenes in a film in a long time. They are done well and they look great. Jenna herself is slowly transformed from a sexy stripper into a rotting corpse with flesh-filled razor-sharp teeth, and even gets her limbs torn form her body in truly gruesome detail. Jenna calls the makeup process "brutal. 8 hours in the makeup chair. I think for my end fight scene, where I get my legs and arms ripped off I had to have an exoskeleton put onto my body and I had to stand on these weird bars that propped me up and the skeleton dangled beneath.. It was crazy, there was a lot put into this movie. I didn't really know what I was getting into when I signed up. Halfway through it I was like, 'Oh my god'. 2 hours a night trying to get the blood off. That stuff stains your skin and your hair's pink for like a month after. "
The reason we liked Zombie Strippers so much, and the reason we were so eager to cover it, is because we just loved it. It's really fun. It's got so much of what other horror films seems to lack these days.
"It captures what horror fans really want to see," explains Jenna. "That being super gore. If I watch a horror movie, I don't want it to have the whole buildup, like the Alien movie, which is great, but, I want it to get right to the part where the zombies rip their heads of. Rip Their Heads Off!!!
The extremely blatant (and funny) political mockery in Zombie Strippers is a huge part of what made Jenna love the script so much. Because she's had to deal with assholes in government trying to put her in jail for "obscenities" her entire adult life. The hypocrisy in our government makes so-called "smut peddlers' like Jenna's view on things quite refreshing. It also made her connect with the movie and some of the messages the filmmakers, Jay and Angela Lee, were trying to get across.
"My whole entire career has been based upon taking cover from the establishment, really. When Bush came into office, I had just started Club Jenna, and I was producing my own movies, which was a big departure for women in my industry, no women did what I did, so all of a sudden I have this glaring spotlight on me from the right wing psychos going 'You're going to go to jail. This I obscenity', and I'm like, 'hold on a sec, what do you mean, this is art!' are you kidding me? So I really spent a good portion of my career worrying that I was going to go to jail."
Porn, not porn, marijuana, (in my case, Los Angeles's public transportation nightmare, ugh); whatever your problem is, Jenna encourages you to get off your ass and make a difference.
"It's about living free. Whenever there is something that bothers you , whether it is something going on in your community or something going on in your government, you need to do something about it, don't just sit there and freaking complain about it, Go out and do something about it because it makes a difference."
Jenna has some very specific stories about how she was singled out by government, local and federal, because of her sex and her choice to have sex for a living.
"I bought a strip club in Scottsdale; it's been there for 30 years. When I bought it, the mayor of Scottsdale tried to close me down. This strip club had been there for 30 years. Just the fact that I bought it made her want to close it down. Because she thought that I was going to be bringing in drugs and prostitution... this is what people think of my industry. People that aren't in the know. And it's kind of embarrassing that people can have such lack of knowledge. So I went and fought city council and I won, and she ended up stepping down. She is no longer mayor, which is amazing. But it just goes to show, you know, one person can make a difference when it comes to those kinds of things. So you know, vote!"
Jenna personality is a force to be reckoned with. It's not difficult to see that her super popularity in the porn field is actually a result of her personality and magnetism rather than her physical attributes (which, while impressive are not so different from other girls in the porn industry).
"I'm really driven to be number one. My whole life, always have been. I feel like anything I do I have to monsterize it. I have to exceed everybody's expectations. I want to change people's views and surprise people and I need that. Being a porn star is something a lot of people, at the time, really looked down on. And I knew that I was going to be able to bring a new kind of power... feminism, actually, to what people perceived to be pornography".
Jenna has changed things about her appearance since leaving porn behind, however. I think she'd be the first to admit that there are some unrealistic expectations for women's bodies in the pornography industry, and that she has no desire to fully keep up with them now that she's retired.
"I had my bust implants removed last year. And that was partially because I didn't feel comfortable with them. But it's kind of a right of passage for me, retiring. I felt like it was something that held me back as a woman. I didn't feel as real as I do now".
And she works out like a fiend, but for different reasons now.
"I bust my ass in the gym. Not because I want to be thin or paparazzi ready; I do it now because it is health. I went through a cancer scare about three years ago and I beat it, and every since then I really focus myself on being healthy, and doing well. Now I have a lot of time on my hands to work out. I think a lot of women out there don't really have that. They have kids, they have husbands, they have jobs, and we can't expect everybody to look like a supermodel. I'm just lucky because it's my job."
What does he think about how mainstream images of pornography are becoming in entertainment news? I mean, it almost seems that pornography is becoming more mainstream than horror movies.
"Nowadays, a lot of celebrity B-list, C-list actresses have to become semi porn stars in order to become popular. Paris Hilton, Kim Kardashian, should I go on? There's a lot of them. The little girl on the hills, who just released the nude pictures, Audrina. They need to start polishing up their game. After watching that Kim Kardashian movie.. I mean, come on… Every time thee paparazzi are waiting for me that's what they ask me. 'What do you think of this girl, or that girl?' Obviously that's what they have to do to be a star now… they're just making what I do so much more solid."
Oh, Jenna… All that monkey-bar, leg-swinging shit on the pole that strippers do… is that really "hot", or is that just being impressive?
"I think being impressive is hot…"
Support strong women in horror. Go see Zombie Strippers, you'll actually like it! It's out in theaters on April 18th, 2008.
You can see Jenna in Evil Breed: The Legend of Samhain (It sucks) and Sin Jin-Smyth, and look for her in Horrorween in 2008.
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