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May 31, 2009 · 11:16 AM

From X to R: Sasha Grey bridges the gap

By Melissa Arseniuk

Sasha Grey

Award-winning pornstar Sasha Grey may have made it to the mainstream but she’s not about to abandon her X-rated roots.

The AVN and XRCO 2008 “Female Performer of the Year” has recently attracted a lot of attention for her role in the Steven Soderbergh film, The Girlfriend Experience.

Grey’s first major mainstream role certainly won’t be her last: She has two more mainstream movies, Quit and Smash Cut, due out this summer.

Sasha Grey on her First Time

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Still, Grey isn’t about to turn her back on the industry that made her a (porn) star.

Unlike many adult film stars, who try to use their X-rated stardom to transition into mainstream roles, Grey says she never intended to make the switch.

“It’s not something that I ever sought out,” she said. “Stephen and his writer … contacted me.”

Grey said she hopes to become the first actress to simultaneously appear in both adult and mainstream films.

“There’s never really been anybody, any woman, in the adult business to really hold both at the same time,” she observed.

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And Grey, 21, is up for the challenge.

“I enjoy the challenge of people telling me no and proving them wrong.”

Despite all the mainstream attention, Grey is still focusing a lot of her attention on initiatives within the adult industry.

“I just launched my own production company for adult films and I’ll be doing another film in August, so it’s busy, busy,” she said Friday night as she arrived for a Girlfriend Experience party at Lavo.

And Grey, who counts Escape from New York as her favorite movie, (Kurt Russell was one of her first crushes), is a bonafide film buff. Her top five favorite films are rounded out by 1977’s Stroszek, 2001’s Fat Girl, 1965’s Pierrot le Fou and 1974’s A Woman Under the Influence.

As The Girlfriend Experience prepares to hit theaters this weekend, Grey said she doesn’t know what to expect.

“I don’t really read reviews,” she said, “(And) it’s not easy to view something that you’ve done.”

She explained how working on a film, doing press, and now, waiting for its public release has been an enlightening experience.

“You’re done and you’ve finished with the project and you feel like that’s it, but now here it is for the world to see and it’s the first time they’re seeing it, hearing about it, relating to it or hating it.”

The enterprising brunette said she is “grateful” for everything she has experienced throughout the process and said working with Soderbergh was “amazing.”

“You can always see the wheels spinning in his head,” she explained.

While Grey admitted it took her a few days to acclimatize herself to the set, she quickly learned to expect the unexpected from her new director, and roll with it.

“You’d expect to hear one thing or do one thing and he’d come up with the last thing that you did not think of,” she said.

In addition to bridging the adult-mainstream divide, Grey hopes to add another title to her growing list of credentials – “director” -- and produce some independent films of her own, as well.

A far as advice for aspiring starlets, the seemingly wise-beyond-her-years star eagerly shares the experience she’s acquired over the last three years: “I would have to say, be sure you want to do this, and tell your parents because they will find out, and save your money.”

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