The 7 Best Performances by Porn Stars in Mainstream Movies
Occasionally porn actors leave their pants on, and the results aren’t always awful
Once upon a time, every porn star's dream was to crossover and go mainstream. These days, porn is mainstream, and it's not uncommon to see your favorite porn star in a bonafide Hollywood movie.
Of course, not all adult performers are gifted when it comes to the non-sex scenes. Here, we present our top seven favorite performances by porn stars in movies that aren't intended to inspire masturbation.
And speaking of those other movies, the ones where pleasuring yourself is encouraged, here's How to Erase Porn from Your Old Computers (from a Tech Guy Tired of Cleaning Up Your Porn).
Belladonna in "Inherent Vice"
The latest in the porn-to-mainstream category is now-retired porn star/director/producer Belladonna, who makes a brief but convincing appearance in Paul Thomas Anderson's latest, the Academy Award-nominated Inherent Vice, based on a novel by Thomas Pynchon.
The tattooed actress plays Clancy Charlock, the sister of a murdered biker, and she scored the role because she's friends with Joaquin Phoenix. For the movie, she filmed a sex scene with costar Michael Kenneth Williams—Omar from The Wire—but it didn't make the final cut.
Jenna Jameson in "Zombie Strippers"
Porn stars, strippers, zombies. What's not to like? This tongue-in-cheek walking dead flick focuses on a cadre of strippers who battle an army of zombies.
Jameson plays Kat, the strip club's star attraction, and she delivers a considerably entertaining performance as a zombie stripper who woos the crowd with her flesh-eating moves and necro-gyrations.
In one of the movie's more compelling scenes, zombie Jameson takes out a rival zombie stripper by firing a hail of golf balls and cue balls out of her vagina.
Ron Jeremy in "Killing Zoe"
The Hedgehog, as he is known, may hold the record for Most Appearances by a Professional Woodsman in a Hollywood Film. His credits include: Ghostbusters, Orgazmo, The Boondock Saints, The Rules of Attraction, and Crank: High Voltage. He even has his own documentary: Porn Star: The Legend of Ron Jeremy. But Jeremy's most memorable performance is in 1994's Killing Zoe, starring Eric Stoltz and written and directed by Roger Avary.
Blink and you'll miss it: Jeremy steals the show as the dialogue-less security guard who gets shotgunned to death by bank robbers.
(Ron was probably just happy to be off a porn set. It's not quite as sexy to be a guy in porn as you might think. For proof, read The Unsexy Truth about Porn Actors.)
Sasha Grey in "The Girlfriend Experience"
Grey's acting abilities in Steven Soderbergh's profile of a high-end call girl have generated much debate. Is her wooden, expressionless turn as a New York City escort the worst thing ever or a considered study of what happens when you find yourself selling sex for a living? Judge for yourself.
Arguably, Grey's a better actor in HBO’s Entourage, but if the intention here is to show what happens to people when everything is reduced to a transaction, this former porn star's girlfriend experience is winning.
Scott Schwartz in "A Christmas Story"
Most porn stars go from porn to mainstream, but Schwartz went from mainstream to porn. You may remember him as the kid in The Toy with Richard Pryor and Jackie Gleason, or as the kid in A Christmas Story who got his tongue stuck to a frozen pole.
As an adult, he ended up starring in Scotty's X-Rated Adventure with Juli Ashton and Michael J. Cox. Schwartz had better luck as a non-sex actor. When it came time to perform with Ashton, he confessed, "I sank just about as fast as the Titanic."
(We're not saying this is what happened with Scott, but it's possible that Porn Causes Erectile Dysfunction.)
Nina Hartley in "Boogie Nights"
In P. T. Anderson's homage to the Golden Age of Porn, Hartley—who's been acting in porn movies since 1984—plays the promiscuous wife of adult movie assistant director "Little" Bill Thompson, played by William H. Macy.
Little Bill stumbles upon his wife boning another man in the driveway while a crowd of people watch, and then later, walks on her boning antics yet again, in a bedroom during a New Year's Eve party. He's so distraught that he shoots her, her lover, and himself.
("Spot the Porn Star" Fun Fact: In another scene, adult performer and director Veronica Hart is cast as a judge, who decides whether porn star Amber Waves (played by Julianne Moore) gets custody of her son.)
Traci Lords in "Cry-Baby"
At 15, Lords made her debut in porn, thanks to a fake ID, an incident that led to a porn industry crackdown, arrests, and fines. After studying at the Lee Strasberg Theater Institute, Lords ended up in director John Waters' Cry-Baby, acting opposite Johnny Depp, Iggy Pop, and Ricki Lake.
Lords is Wanda Woodward, a bratty bad girl who thrusts her hips as she pops off lines like, "I'm just a bee-bop-baby, and I don't take nothing from no one!" Looking back now, she says of the role, "I wanted to leave my teenage porn years behind."
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