What is it that separates this era of porn stars from any other? Is it that we are seeing superstars of the modern era step behind the camera for the first time? No, not necessarily. Women like screen legend Porsche Lynn were known for being hard-nosed directors and devilish angels all at the same time, and of course, who doesn’t know the name Belladonna? What these XXX legends (as well as our subject for today’s interview) have in common is that they were able to wow their massive fan bases with everything in performances in both worlds of fetish and mainstream porn, then earned the respect of their fellow performers with their dedicated style they kept consistent behind the camera. Here at HotMovies, we bring you a special interview with the one and only Casey Calvert, conducted in the middle of the 2021 awards season to talk about accomplishment and drive that has only been done this well rarely in every generation of performers.
Join us as we talk about her award-winning film Primary, her start with Girlsway, and a look into the mind of a woman sparking the modern-day sexual revolution with her pen, her passion, and her fateful poise.
DJD: May I first say, dear Casey, it really means something to a writer, when he critiques someone’s film, and they see where they are coming from. Basically, thank you for not butchering me in half, madam. A critic’s job is one that consists of walking on eggshells in many instances. It really means the world to me that you have always given me the benefit of the doubt and been so kind and professional.
CC: Well, you know I think that a critic’s job is incredibly difficult, and you have to balance what you like personally versus political pressures, versus company pressures. Especially in the adult film world and all the bullshit that comes with doing work in this space, that you as well, have always been incredibly kind to me. The least I can do is watch your short.
Madam, bless you for being that wonderful person. When I get to know talent, people and actors that I work with, I will give them my writing straight-up, because I believe in calling it as I see it, and at times, I will have the director or producer yell at me saying, “No, YOU DO NOT KNOW SHIT!” My response as I cower in the corner is, “Yes, I do. I love film as well. I have studied, I have created it, and I know how hard it is to do what you do.” So, once again, thank you Casey.
As an adult film critic, you are constantly reviewing films and productions that are made by trained students of the game. As for Casey Calvert—many may not know that she majored in Film Studies at the university she attended. From the day that she got behind the camera, I have been reviewing her work, and Casey is the person who respects what I have done, even when I have not given her the best review, and that is something that meant a lot to me. That is also what makes her a true artist and director, to be one of the greats. To be a true creator and director, they say you must be open to criticism, and never once has Casey been anything less than kind, cordial, and professional. As I found out when she began, this is a feeling shared by her fellow talent. Casey is one of the genius minds of this industry. Since her start with Adult Time, she has been a part of every process: from shooting with a camera, to spending hours in the editing room—something not as common as you might think in the modern XXX film world.
**I remember, I don’t know if this was the first time that you got the big gig with Girlsway, but I remember my girl, she is friends with Kenzie Reeves, and she tells me one evening, “Kenzie is going to be shooting with Casey, and she is so excited, and she is going to be shooting at Casey’s amazing studio.” I will always remember that. The spark that you bring, and you create in your fellow performers, it travels across the continent.
Well, good. [She chuckles] That is very important to me that I do that. That is very high on my list of priorities.
I was talking with Bree Mills, and we were talking about what is the best way to shape the article about that shoot and how to write something fans will understand. Let’s just say, what impresses me the most about you, and I think we are cut from the same cloth this way—no matter who it is, you have people who have your back. The best way I can explain this, Bree was in full Casey-Calvert-protection-mode as we messaged back and forth, and that is something that I respect so much. That is what makes this business special: when people like you create that in others. This industry needs more of that.
Well, thank you.
So I want to make sure that we have all this correct. We are now going on your ninth year in the business?
It was eight years in November, so yes.
Congratulations on that. I really love this, finding out that you got your Bachelors degree is one thing, but finding out that you were a Film major… My first reaction was that I must learn more. I dig that. Seeing that you are a woman who went to school for Film, it shows in so many of your actions and creations in this business.
I feel that I am relatively lucky that I had the opportunity to go to Film school and to learn some technical stuff. I graduated from college in 2012, and so much about filmmaking has changed since then, and technology has changed so dramatically. A lot of what I learned in school isn’t even applicable anymore. I have learned so much more by just being on set and working. There is still that rudimentary film/theory basis though.
You said it all right there. I really mean this, Primary, it is so—the only way that I can describe it—it is the most interesting production that I have seen in many years. It has me looking for more from Casey Calvert. You show a very unique style of not only shooting, but you told a story so differently. It stands out more than any other series that I have seen in 2020.
Well, thank you. I am just going to be saying thank you a lot in this interview. [We share another of many ongoing laughs within the interview.]
You know, as I was researching you, and once again I should have known better—I had no clue of the fetish aspect of your career, and the knowledge that you have of the brain and where sexuality goes in that department. The first person that you made me think of was Dee Williams, and that was because she talked to me about what it was like being a fetish performer first. She would talk about working back in the day, and how a fetish performer could only be a fetish performer; there was no crossing over to the “mainstream” side of the business. Getting to thoroughly research you was one hell of a treat, and a very cool tale of growth.
That is where I started, and I was just in fetish. When I first started working, I never had any… well, I can’t say that I didn’t have any mainstream aspirations. It just wasn’t where my head was when I very first started working.
You are talking to a man who thought he was cooler than cool. When I first found my first true love in this industry, I went to this woman who forever changed my life, who was a fetish performer that I met while covering a convention. I told this beauty, “I am going to be the hopeless romantic who changes your ways and turns you into a hopeless romantic as well.” Long story short, I am the man who came out of our little bet loving BDSM and learning a lot about rope binding.
It is fascinating to me how your sexuality evolves and changes with a person who we enjoy being with.
Yes, I could not have said it better. I met this great love of my life covering Fet-Con, and it was amazing, being that I consider myself to be a romancer of romancers… if that even is a word. I loved seeing how many people who you interviewed with and as they sat and picked your brain and discovered your passion for fetish, they were so shocked and dumbfounded. We need to take pictures of how people react to discovering this about the great Casey Calvert.
That is so amazing.
Okay, let’s get into the heart of this interview. I must begin these in-depth questions by asking, when did you get the urge to start directing? When did the “itch” grab hold of you?
This is a great question because I do not know if I really have an answer for it. When I first started working in adult, it was never my intention to start directing. I never had this long-term trajectory in my head. I never said, “I am going to do this performing thing, and then I am going to transition into directing.” That was never in my thoughts. Then, I don’t know, about five years in, I am feeling like a veteran at this point, and I was thinking—what would I do if I was directing? I was also feeling that I knew this business well enough to know that I do not exactly have the funds to be able to jump head-first into directing. I knew that I did not have the means to just start a production company. I used to say, “If I am still working in the business and the opportunity to direct presents itself, I will take it,” and then the opportunity presents itself, and Bree [Mills] offered me the opportunity. I went with it, and that is that.
I ask this question because I see the way that you work and something inside me is saying, “is she perhaps a fellow movie buff? A cinema lover like myself?”
Oh, yeah for sure. I am a movie nerd for sure in my own very weird way. That is because when I was a kid, I was not really allowed to watch movies. I grew up very sheltered. I had parents that said, “You can’t watch PG-13 movies until you are thirteen!” Or, “you can’t watch rated-R movies until you are seventeen!” So, I watched a lot of television as a teenager growing up and around that same time, I was thinking about what I wanted to do with my life. My thoughts were more, “I want to work in TV, not work in movies.” I have always had this love affair with telling stories that took longer to form. I wanted to make something that would encompass a season of television, rather than an hour to an hour-and-a-half of film.
It shows. Now I can see where a series like Primary is constructed. I am so anxious to see more of your work. Now, not to get too far ahead and fast-forward through questions. I cannot tell you how fucking cool it was to see an escape room in an adult production. I was blown the fuck away! It was awesome. I said to myself, this is real reality, and truthfully, something that makes you such a talented person at making your audience relate. You wrote it to where there is nothing cheesy about how you tell this tale. I am a person who loves going out, who loves trying new things. I made me say while watching, “This woman captured exactly what it feels like to go to an escape room:” having a genuine moment with people that you love and their many personalities.
First of all, I am not good at cheese. I cannot write cheese, but I enjoy watching cheese. It just is not how my writer’s brain works at all. I am very lucky to have a friend who owns an escape room, who is so good that I can just go to and say, “Hey, can I rent your room out for a day. I will buy your room for a day.” I didn’t just cold-call an escape room. What we did, we started in the trenches. We began by taking the actors to an escape room, and it was out in San Bernardino, so it was a little bit of a trek. We just went out there, and I put them in this puzzle and what you saw on screen was us telling them, “Go on, play the game.” We just let them play. A lot of the frustration that you see with Aaron, what you see in the final edit, that is the actual person being frustrated at an escape room. I gave them some hints here and there, but they had to really play the game and call the game master if they wanted to get hints. Then, on occasion, I would tell them to, “Freeze! Let’s do that again!” All so we could get the shot that we needed. I think we spent maybe an hour-and-a-half to two hours in that escape room.
See, this is how I can tell that you have film and storytelling in your DNA. A person never speaks highly of themselves when they possess true talent. I have realized this over all of the years that I have worked with writers and I dread the ones who begin a project with, “YEAH! I am going to write you the greatest fucking novel because that is what I do!”
Oh, I bet.
My response now is like, “Oh shit!” I used to love those kinds of souls once upon a time when I was first starting out in that line of work, but now I know better. I think as people, we tend to learn some of our lessons the hard way in life when it comes to things like that. At least that is how it went for me. [We share another massive laugh.] I think about what you said, about writing cheese and what you can and cannot do. When I watched the first chapter of Primary open up the way that it does, my first thought to myself was, “how is she going to do this?” Then you put Kira Noir in a situation fans have never seen her in. You get to see her engage and talk with her co-stars. I think that was just one of the most magnificent setups that I have ever seen.
Well, thank you.
When people give that film and series a chance, and they see that very thing we speak of, you are going to make people all over say to themselves, “Holy shit, okay, you have my attention.” You know, I would love to come back to Primary here in a bit.
Oh yes, of course.
What I would really love to talk about is how everything began with Girlsway, and that day I was speaking about with Bree Mills. From day one, you have been that woman who performers throughout this industry will jump for joy over when they find out they are working for you. I would love for you to take us back to the day and the moment you got that news that you were going to be working for Bree and Adult Time. I would love to have you tell that story to our fans of what you felt going from performer to director when you got that offer, that news.
Well, it was an email, and it was at a time in my life when a lot of things were very much in flux. I had been living at the warehouse, and to make a very long story short: we knew that we were going to be getting kicked out of the warehouse. We were having some legal issues with the warehouse. I mean this was a time in my life when a lot of things felt very much up in the air for me and very uncertain. I woke up to this email and I said, “Well, I guess I am going to do this now.” It totally and completely changed my life. I would not have made it through 2019 without that job. It provided a place of sanity with me that I needed, and a paycheck that I really, really needed. It very much changed everything.
Oh, wow… you know, being a writer, I used to always believe that being a poet and poetry in general, that it’s something that is always made up. The more I live my life, the older that I get, the more I think that some things are just fate with some people—especially those who have talent, faith, drive, and desire. I love that story. To know how your entrance as a director was made, life truly does imitate art. You prove that. Maybe that is what fate really is, very inspiring.
I firmly believe in that, yes.
I can remember at that time, the business was transitioning to the way things are going now. There were so many people that were facing a lot of tough times everywhere. It is nice to know some things began with something good like that, which turned into something great—not just for you, but so many others in the industry. Those tales of destiny are what a poet dreams of.
Yes, yes! Very unexpected and incredibly terrifying to be perfectly honest. I firmly believe that everything happens for a reason, and when opportunities present themselves, they present themselves for a reason.
Oh yes, I am right there with you. I love that all of this began with talk of the warehouse. I have a quote here from Jon Ronson:
“Casey Calvert, she is the only porn star who lives in a house, befitting of a porn star. Everyone else seems to live in very modest apartments somewhere in the valley, but Casey, she lives in this giant, industrial unit.”
I always love the interpretations whenever anyone interviews you. There is this amazing substance, or magic if you will, that comes with each instance. It makes the viewer’s brain go to many places with the chemicals in our heads when we see what and who you are Casey.
I have also thought that quote from Jon is very funny. I don’t live in the warehouse anymore. I do live in a “house-house” now, and now I have a studio.
I have always loved the interpretations of industry people within the view of civilians outside the business. This article from The Guardian, it just was done so well. What a fascinating read that was. I loved the way that he described everything about these amazing minds in the business. I have always wondered how many times you get this with the people that interview you?
Oh, from civilians, very, very rarely. Jon is just a very special person.
Oh my goodness, what a talented writer he is. He has that ability to suck you into his world and then by the time you know it, you have read four or five pieces of his work, and you are wondering where the day has gone.
Yes, he really is.
Okay, now I would love to dive head-first into Primary. How did this idea come into your head? Where did this marvelous script come from? It seems like there is so much of you in this film, showing the reality of who Casey Calvert is and she believes.
There is definitely a lot of reality and a lot of personal experiences that come through in different characters. The story started from the very, very beginning. It was actually Episode Two, which was the bar scene. That is where it started and that is where it actually began with me talking to a friend and telling them, “Wouldn’t this make a really great story?” I wrote just as if it were a creative-writing exercise while I was sitting in an airport one day in Vegas. Then I started talking to Erika [Lust] about doing a series, and how many episodes that we were going to be making the series. It was there that I just fell in love with this story that I wrote. That’s where I began thinking, “How can I take this story and just grow it?” At the same time, I was watching Easy on Netflix. I was just super inspired by the way that the stories were woven together, and the thought of a character that seemed very inconsequential to one episode who would come back in the following episode and be someone whose story that you got to know.
I was just so inspired with the thought of all that. I was also very inspired by life, sexuality, and polyamory. At that time, when I was writing Primary, I was neighboring a new relationship and that just felt very inspiring to me. I just wanted to tell stories about that and how I was feeling about life and working out different outcomes. One of my favorite things to do while I am writing, is to try and predict the future. So, I did a lot of that and everything just seemed to click right into place. There was a lot of moving pieces around, so that each episode could work on its own and have a sex scene in it, but also fit into the larger story.
I love it. When I watched the first episode, I said, “Is this woman in my brain? What the fuck?” I shit you not, that Penny Pax character, I have dated a lot of people like her. People who have that fast, “I am going to go into things quickly and not use my head whatsoever for any part of this relationship” mindset. It is grandiose to see that in a film and see it written in so well. To pen something where the character will crash and burn, man, that is so difficult to make into a production, but you did just that Casey. When I first messaged you about that bar, you brought back so many fond memories of when I first began as a writer and I had two best friends that I worked with: the cutest lesbian couple you have ever seen in your life. They showed me the magic of going to gay bars and finding the greatest fucking drink specials and conversation that I have ever found in a watering hole.
For the bar scene specifically, so much of that was Kira and Michael being amazing! The woman playing the bartender, she was also my wardrobe stylist, and she was also amazing! Then Mo Reese came in and said, “I am going to play a creeper!” I told him, “Go do your thing!” That was one of the hardest scenes to create. We shot in that bar for a long, long time. In editing, it was tricky to get it to feel the way that I wanted it to feel. We spent a lot of time going back and forth, working on it and massaging it, and I am very, very pleased with how it all came together in the end.
I am telling you that bar, Aaron on the couch, all those different personas: they are burned into my memory. You are going to have so many viewers see the same things, and they are going to go into the file cabinets of their minds, and they are going to go back in time and see so many things they recognize. How does it get any better than that? It is so difficult to plant that seed in a viewer’s mind. I just do not know how you did it, and hearing this story, we are more in awe with this film’s creation.
Thank you, and for me, that is the point that I look to create. I want people to understand that what they see onscreen may be fiction, but to me, if it does not feel real, then there is no point to what I am doing.
The greatest editor I ever had, he once told me, “Those things that make your readers feel that gut instinct, that is what only the greatest artists can do. That is what is in all they do, no matter how small or how big.” Boy, your words make his come alive in my memories. So many people looked to have that spot that you now have with Erika Lust Films. May I say Casey, from the bottom of my heart: the job went to the right person. It is your tales, your stories, and scripts that deserve to be made with the fierce dedication that you have.
Well, thank you. That’s another thing that happened in my life and career that has me believing that all of this was fate, that everything happens for a reason. I was up in the desert, shooting for Kink.com when I got an email from Erika asking if I wanted to audition for her first movie, which was The Intern. I had always wanted to work for Erika and I had discussed with my talent manager a couple of times, debating if I should fly to Europe. Maybe I could make things work out, I thought. I just found that I never had the time to just buy a plane ticket and drop everything to just fly out there and take a chance. It did not make sense to me to fly out to Europe for just one project at that time. That just did not seem to make sense. It just never really worked out which is something that turned out to be so wonderful.
That was when I had another one of those moments that just seemed like fate. I figured one day that I could just go to Spain, head over to Barcelona, and I would either click with Erika, and it would be amazing; or we would fight the whole weekend, and it would be a terrible time. Turns out it was the better of the two, and it all just went from there. We talked about directing when she was out here in LA. She invited me over to the AirBNB that she and her husband were staying at. That is where she offered me Primary. Erika [Lust] is just incredible to work for. She gives me so much creative freedom. Sometimes I am like, “Could you give me some notes and little direction, because I also want to do something that is going to sell really well for you.” I’m not complaining. I am incredibly lucky!
You are talking to a History major and my favorite quote of all time is from the great Thomas Jefferson, and he once said, “I am a great believer in luck, and I find that the harder that I work, the more I have of it.” That is Casey Calvert.
I like that quote very much.
I was talking with a lot of people. Friends, acquaintances, performers, directors, when it comes to the subject of Erika Lust and what she was looking to create when she started to build her company. That statement she made, “Making films that go beyond mainstream porn,” those are the stories and films that I think XXX has always been capable of. Sexuality, sex, lust, those emotions, those places in the body and mind: they are locations and feelings that we all know as humans, and they are things that we all do, no matter if people admit that or not.
Yes, it very much is. It is true that a lot of people and a lot of companies say, “I want to do something that has never been done before.” Or, they want to do something that is not really porn, it just happens to have explicit sex in it. I think that when I’m working for Erika, I actually get to accomplish that.
You know, the “erotic” anything—the thriller, the erotic drama, or comedy—it is something that is so forgotten in the film world today. People forget that those were the films that fascinated the world most. With what I see in Primary, I see something bold, something new. I see someone who is doing just what Erika stated that she was out to do. It is a film that can go many places.
Thank you. I want to eventually take the time to cut the XXX out of Primary and either send it to some mainstream festivals, or throw it up online somewhere. I have Erika’s blessing to do this, and we will see what happens.
Yes, please do! You have to do this, you have to! Anything that you can do to get that series in the people’s hands, that is a must. The people will fall in love with it. You are talking to a cinema lover, one who has loved film since the eighties, and I think it is a win/win for you to explore such options. I really do.
It is time-consuming activity and I have quite a bit of work that has to be done also. I am thinking that I will do this once I have Season Two of Primary in the can, and I will be able to devote more time to work with the materials from both Season One and Season Two to cut something from both.
That would be great! Once again, you are lining up fate to be within your reach, because that will be when this COVID shit is ending, and we all get to see each other again at these conventions and awards shows. Of course, we get to go to those movie festivals too, because I am telling you, I will be there with bells on.
Yes, fingers crossed! We were going to shoot Season Two of Primary this past fall, and that obviously didn’t happen because I just wasn’t interested in compromising anything artistic for the sake of COVID. We had a crew of about 25 on Season One, and I want to do that again. It just did not make any sense to even attempt to do that this fall. So, we are now in the process of trying to figure out what makes sense and how to do things in a timeframe that is still reasonable, and not wait two more years to do something when it really does not make sense anymore if we can’t make it by then. It is important to me to keep the same artistic integrity and effort that the first one had. It is a work in progress and a conversation that is very much active right now.
Whatever you have to do to get this series made, you got to get it there. As we head to the last question, I must share this about AVN voting this year. The voters, we talked about Primary of course, and that is because this is the best damn series made this year, in my opinion. We also talked about Casey Calvert. We talked about the director, and everybody’s tone was keen on the notion that these are the years we are seeing a true artist come into her own, and that if she does not see success this year, it is right around the corner for her. You are putting to shame a lot of these other films that had a lot of bullshit attached to them. You are defeating them with great stories and fantasies that are real, plain and simple.
That is wonderful to hear. I got an incredible amount of nominations this year that made me speechless and flabbergasted. I have gotten nominations in the past before, but never anything like it was this year and yes, I am really hoping that I win a couple of trophies. To win this year, that would just be amazing! I do feel like I am just getting started. I don’t want to be a flash in the pan success for 2020, or a person who wins and then just goes about her business and loses focus.
You have to keep making these stories about sexuality and human emotion and the relationships they create. I am a firm believer that sexuality is something powerful in this business, something that unlocks the human character. That in return opens up the human mind and heart to more things that are even bigger than sex, but have sexuality at its core. The way you are able to communicate such things. I can tell you this, being a man who is paid to watch porn, what you put out into this world, how you create and do it better than anyone else who is looking to do what you are in the business: it is something special. Many people have tried in this digital age we live in to create true film and not come close. People never talk about sexuality, and these films allow the conversation to begin, you know? I think that is what you will revolutionize.
Yes, yes, I do know. It is so common to see in mainstream movies, all of this, crazy, graphic violence and the excuse is, “Oh, it’s just an action movie.” Or it’s a film where the guy goes on a killing rampage, but God forbid you see a penis. This is why I am so grateful to Erika that she lets me tell these stories. That I can have things like “casual” nudity, and that is because I love casual nudity. That is because people do it in their lives, and you never see it onscreen, and that’s because of censorship.
Yes! Then those same people who censor the world say to those who partake that they are crazy and to have such likes and loves is crazy. They say all of this, despite the fact they think and feel the same fucking way that we do, that the fans do. It is ridiculous! Now that’s what I call true insanity.
In closing and once again, I really mean this from the heart Casey, thank you for taking part in this. Thank you for making time for me. It just means the world to this writer. I cannot say thank you enough for being the person that you are in this business. It is something very heartfelt to know a person like you exists in this business.
That is my absolute pleasure. It really, really is.
So in closing, what do we have next on the horizon, post-AVN? What can we expect from the one and only Casey Calvert?
Well, hopefully we get Primary Season Two done in time for qualifications for the 2022 awards. So that is my goal right now, to get everything done by the end of September. Otherwise, I have six shorter projects that are going to be coming out as well, that I will be doing throughout the year. One, we actually shot already, and we are going to be finishing up with it tomorrow. We finish production, and then it is off to edit. That is actually going to be a Valentine’s Day film.
Romance and Casey Calvert! YES!
Yes, this one is quite romantic. Then, some shorter filmed projects after that, and of course, I am still performing as much as COVID allows. I am still doing that, all while trying to balance my time between creating and performing, then being behind the camera and doing all the different things that I love to do so much.
It just humbles me to see such wonder. Casey, thank you again, and know that you are one of the shining beacons of goodness and truth in this industry, and you always have been and I see that you always will be. Thank you!
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