A Filmmaker Gets Real
The Oscar-winning director explores the world of call girls -- with a porn star in the lead role
By CANDACE JACKSON
Oscar-winning director Steven Soderbergh is known for going back and forth between genres with his films. His credits include the star-driven popcorn flick "Ocean's 13"; the critically-acclaimed 2000 hit, "Traffic"; and the two-part, four-hour Spanish-language film "Che." With its $1.8 million budget, improvised script and a porn actress in the lead, his latest film may be one of his most unusual.
Set during the very recent past -- October 2008 -- "The Girlfriend Experience" chronicles six days in the life of a $2,000-an-hour call girl in the midst of an economically uncertain era. (Mr. Soderbergh says it was conceived at least a year before the Eliot Spitzer prostitution scandal.) The film, which hits theaters in New York and Los Angeles on May 22, was shot on location at a variety of of-the-moment restaurants and hotels in Manhattan over 16 days leading up to the 2008 election. It stars a cast of mostly non-professional actors. The screenplay is by Brian Koppelman and David Levien, a duo that's scripted such films as "Rounders" and "Ocean's Thirteen."
Twenty-one-year-old adult film star Sasha Grey plays Chelsea, or Christine, as she's also known, an emotionally steely young woman juggling her job as a girlfriend-for-hire and her relationship 
with her real-life boyfriend. There's not much nudity in the film, though Ms. Grey's character keeps a detailed record of her work. ("I met with Philip on October 5th and 6th," she says. "I wore Michael Kors dress and shoes with La Perla lingerie underneath.") She also frets about how to expand her "brand" to reach more customers.
Mr. Soderbergh says after experimenting by casting a few politicians and journalists to play themselves in previous movies like "Erin Brockovich" and "Traffic," he wanted to make an entire film with a cast of non-actors. New York magazine writer Mark Jacobson plays a journalist and Chelsea's real boyfriend, a personal trainer, is played by Chris Santos, a personal trainer. "It's a way to retain a messiness or life-like feeling of not being too planned out," says Mr. Soderbergh. "You never know what you're going to get."
For instance, a scene where Mr. Santos's character interviews for a job at a gym was done in a single take. Mr. Soderbergh says he simply set up two cameras and instructed Mr. Santos and the gym's actual manager to do a mock interview. "I just said, 'try and get a job from this guy. See if you can convince him to give you a job."' The exchange lasted about eight minutes, and was edited down to a one minute scene in the final version of the film. "My experience has been, the more takes you do, the worse it gets," says Mr. Soderbergh.
Since being cast in the film, Ms. Grey, who has starred in over 150 adult films since turning 18 (many of them on the hardcore end of the porn spectrum) has drawn comparisons to Jenna Jameson, another adult film actor who has crossed over to the mainstream with a best-selling book and guest hosting slots on E!. Ms. Grey has modeled for American Apparel and appeared in a music video for the rock band Smashing Pumpkins. Mr. Soderbergh says he discovered her when he read an interview in a Los Angeles magazine where she discussed her career choice. One of film's screenwriters then contacted her by sending a message through her MySpace page.
"I write him back and say, 'OK, how am I supposed to believe you?' " says Ms. Grey, who didn't have a manager at the time. Then, "I got home one day and there was a voicemail [from] Steven Soderbergh and I pretty much lost it, it was pretty amazing," says the actress.
A few weeks ago, Ms. Grey formed her own production company, and plans to produce and direct her own adult films. She says she has no illusions about becoming a conventional movie star, but she hopes to have a career that crosses over into the mainstream. "I think the climate is right, though I do know I have an uphill battle," says Ms. Grey.
Mr. Soderbergh says it's no longer taboo to hire porn actors for jobs outside the sex industry. "It's so mainstream now," he says. "When you look at people who are transmitting the news to you on television they all look like they're in porn, the way they're coiffed. It's really crazy. There's this like hyper-grooming thing going on now, men and women. I was never thinking, oh, what an outré thing to do to put a porn actor in a quote-unquote normal movie. I just thought she was interesting."
Despite the subject matter and the casting, "The Girlfriend Experience" isn't really about sex at all, says Mr. Soderbergh, who also directed the 1989 film "Sex, Lies and Videotape." It's more about "transactions," he says. The October timing of the shoot was a lucky break, allowing the actors to naturally engage in anxious discussions about the economic collapse and the election. "I think it certainly plays to the core of the movie that everybody was obsessed with the economy during this period we were making the movie," he says. "For me, it was just fun to listen to them talk."
Write to Candace Jackson at candace.jackson@wsj.com
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