AINews: You are so busy! I see stuff that you're doing all over the place.

Juli Ashton: Yeah, we're doing a little bit of everything. Pretty much tons to do every day.

AINews: How's Risqué Business going? That was your first thing right?

Juli: The company that manages me is Risqué Business. The team of Shayla LaVeaux, Vicca, Nikita, Keri Windsor, Devinn Lane, Julia Ann, Phaedra Alexis and me so it's actually pretty amazing, this is the tightest and I think the best group that Risqué has ever had. It's very strong, we're all very good friends, we're all motivated, we're all top players, it's great!

AINews: And a couple of these people just signed on with you, right?

Juli: Yeah, Phaedra is pretty new. She is the look of spice. She's the new spice girl. Julia Ann signed on just recently and Devin Lane the new contract girl for Wicked are the three newest.

AINews: Is Devinn's hair really dark brown?

Juli: Yeah, dark brown and super long. It's beautiful!

AINews: And what about Adult Diary?

Juli: Adult Diary is great because it's a different point of view. We do a lot of things there with a co-op feel, like there are power in numbers. If it's good for one of us then we all benefit. Adult Diary is kind of that concept, taking all of us in common and putting us out there on the 'net for everybody to get to know us.

AINews: Like interviews and an inside kind of view?

Juli: Absolutely! And we have a couple of sites going, we have the Risqué site which is all of us girls, and the Adult Diary which is more through the eyes of Bernie and Debbie who are doing the Adult Diary site. So it's not from the point of view of a fan but it's also not my point of view. It's kind of a nice middle point of view of what's happening in all of our lives. It works, it's nice.

Juli: I've been working really hard on Ashton View. I have a really good deal with Playboy. They have been doing a series for (I think) two years now called Essentially Juli. A lot of my production tends to focus more on that, than it does for the hardcore releases. The hardcore market right now is very difficult. It's not as fun right now. There is too much competition. And it is not really even competition really, it is too much product. I was looking at the AVN sales, you know they send out the slip that says the top 40 sales, and the top 25 rentals, or something like that. Of the top 40 sales, over 30 were a sequel, had some kind of number. Like #27, #12, Do Me 8, it is so much of a volume market right now that I am just not interested in putting all my energies into that. So I am focusing more on Playboy productions and specific productions that catch my eye, but I'm not just throwing out product.

AINews: Not cranking out something, but rather focusing on quality?

"I think one of the most important things as a human is to create, and that is one of the most exciting things for me is to see the finished product and have something out of nothing."

Juli: Yeah, and creativity. I think one of the most important things as a human is to create, and that is one of the most exciting things for me is to see the finished product and have something out of nothing. I want to be able to hold on to that. I want to be able to keep that mentality and not just, suck, suck, there's another one. Suck, suck, there's another one. (Laughs) It doesn't appeal to me. Slow going this way, but it is more fun in the end.

AINews: How about Night Calls?

Juli: Night Calls just signed for another year. We are contracted through December 2000. It's going great. It is a lot of fun actually. I was on the Mad Cow Show this morning, out of Chicago. I called in to the Chicago Show. Mad Cow is a morning drive shock jock, in the same vein as Howard Stern, but definitely competition, syndicated all over the country. We are doing a lot of things like that, a lot of publicity has comes out of it but mostly it is just so much fun. The team has come together really tight this year. Everybody is putting a lot of energy into it. Making for a really great day on set but it is also getting to come up with some ideas for the show. That's what is nice about it, they are open to ideas. It is not just come in and do this. It is kind of nice.

AINews: So you have some creative input too?

Juli: Exactly.

AINews: Now if people want to work with you, how do they go about contacting you?

Juli: I am still under contract with VCA, I don't do a lot, but as much as my schedule allows I still work with VCA. Doing video is pretty difficult. Doing Essentially Juli, if people email me at juliashton@risque.com and if they have a good enough story, and somewhere I want to go then you never know.

AINews: So, they could get in contact with you like that.

Juli: Absolutely. Absolutely. We are getting ready to go to Tennessee. And another couple in Indiana we are getting ready to go see, a virgin that I'm working with in March. If it catches my eye, we will start a dialogue. And this business is very difficult, I think, to be asked about the difference between sex and love and all that.

AINews: That's an important question.

"...it's not as fun for me to just walk up and go, "Hi, we're working, let's go fuck." I tend to develop friendships and dialogue and stuff like that with the people..."

Juli: It is. And it is hard. And I think the longer you have been in it, it's not as fun for me to just walk up and go, "Hi, we're working, let's go fuck." I tend to develop friendships and dialogue and stuff like that with the people I use in the Essentially line. We meet, instead of just, OK you're done. It takes a little bit longer to develop that rapport, before we'll shoot. But it is possible. You have just got to try.

AINews: The Loving Sex Series. What is that all about?

Juli: I was approached by the Alexander Institute. They had done things before like The Loving Woman Series. I liked their product and I knew that it was something I wanted to branch out into because I think that a lot of pornography is a little too hard for people's first time. Some of it is really hard. Mine is not as hard as it gets, obviously, but it is hard. It is very open about the scenes and this is kind of a beginner's porno. (Laughs!) I don't know! It's more tips about how to please each other. Ideas about how to keep romance active. One of them we just did was called Toys. It introduces people [to toys.] It's very intimidating if you have never been into an adult bookstore or never bought a sex toy. The packaging can be kind of weird or you're not sure how it works or what's the best one. It is just kind of a guide. It is a good place to start. That's what it is. That's why we did it.

Juli: (Laughs!) That was a great experience! Holy Cow!

AINews: Was that fun?

Juli: It was so much fun! So many levels of fun! I hadn't really done that much mainstream really. I had done a couple of music videos, and movies and stuff, and this wasn't even major budget. Obviously much larger than our [Adult Industry] budgets. Just to see the scope of it was exciting. All the different crews, private dressing rooms, little vans with dressing rooms. Just to see the scope of a movie being made that much bigger than what we do is really exciting. Just the people we met. Matt and Trey, they always bring their people in. They are very much a family. They take care of the people they hire. This being one of their first ones, it was all their friends from college. It was funny. It was like a bunch of kids doing this movie. I thought, "I can't believe this is going to end up as a movie." (Laughs!) It was fun to watch the process because they would go off on these tangents. You would have a basic script but then people would start throwing stuff in and everyone would be dying laughing and adding to it and improvising. It was hilarious. It was just a laugh a minute. Great experience! Did you like it?

AINews: I loved it! One of my favorite lines was the take 2 for when Orgazmo first came into the room. Your tone of voice was so unenthusiastic! It was great.

Juli: It was a great parody!

AINews: Any up coming ventures you can tell me about?

Juli: The pay site. Up 'til now our Internet has always been free. We've finally got enough stuff together, the hardcore good stuff, that it's worth putting up. For over a year it has been, "Why don't you have a pay site?" Well, I didn't want to put up crap. The Internet is becoming just like the video business, everybody and their brother has a pay site with sex on it. So, I didn't just want to be another site like that. We have really spent a lot of time and energy getting it the way we want it. Hopefully, it will be worth the money.

AINews: So you're not going to be selling plastic frogs and knick-knacks?

Juli: NO! (Laughs!) No plastic frogs and knick-knacks! We will have a catalogue where we sell videos and toys and things like that, but this is more hardcore photos, more hardcore stories, behind the scenes of our lives, the harder versions.

AINews: Stuff you couldn't really get any other place.

Juli: Exactly. We're looking forward to that. It should be in the next few months that we'll launch the pay site. That will be a group of us again. Shayla, Nina Hartley, and me all doing this co-op thing with the Internet. What other projects do I have going? A lot of the Ashton View. Producing for Playboy. More Playboy shows, and definitely more hardcore releases, but not as often.

AINews: I have seen over the past few months, a couple of magazine shoots that you have done. You've got one in High Society…

Juli: You have them with you?

AINews: I have them right here. You haven't seen them?

Juli: No, I haven't. This is so funny.

AINews: They are good.

Juli: Oh yeah! This was great! We were also videoing this for Essentially Dee. I shoot a lot of footage and I don't know where it goes. [Looking through photo layout in High Society.] This was so much fun! Dee is so amazing!

AINews: This one is a pretty good one too. [Showing Juli another magazine.] You also have a review in there, about "Black Boots".

Juli: Yeah. How did it do?

AINews: Quite well.

Juli: These were shot in Jamaica.

AINews: There it is Black Boots. There's another one I read about called "Cum Shots". That got a good review too. Do you remember Cum Shots?

Juli: It must be a comp. I remember most of them, it must be a compilation.

AINews: How is it working with Chi Chi Larue as a director?

Juli: It was so much fun. I don't know why, but we just hit it off, a long time ago. Like the very first time I met her we had a rapport. So we would see each other at shows, we never got to hang out or anything, so when they approached me it was an excellent opportunity, just because it was from a different frame of mind, coming from a different place. I like that. I do different perceptions. That's why I like watching porn directed by women and directed by gays, you know what I mean? Everyone has a different point of view of life. It was really interesting to work with her particular point of view.

AINews: You ever spend a night in an igloo?

Juli: (Laughs!) Interlaken, Switzerland.

AINews: Really? Would you tell me about that?

"[They said,] 'Can you go to Interlaken, Switzerland, for five days and let us put you up at a beautiful spa and take you out in an igloo?' It was one of those things that every once in a while drops in your lap."

Juli: "E!" called up Playboy, looking for me and Tiffany to go to Switzerland for while on the Swiss Alps. It was a life experience. Every once in a while in this business something like, REALLY cool comes along. Like when I did "Passion" in Venice, way back, it was one of those situations where they called me up out of the blue and said, "Can you get to Venice, TOMORROW." Well, "OK". I packed like crazy. It was kind of like how this was. [They said,] "Can you go to Interlaken, Switzerland, for five days and let us put you up at a beautiful spa and take you out in an igloo?" It was one of those things that every once in a while drops in your lap.

AINews: Do you plan on traveling other places in the near future? Those were interesting places to go.

Juli: Actually we just got back from Fiji, and Australia. We were shooting the Best of Essentially Juli, in Fiji. So that was pretty amazing. Then we went to Sydney for three days for another movie, a hardcore movie I have coming out called Buried Treasure, which is some scenes I had from the Playboy stuff. I always shoot hard, even though with the Playboy version we can only show softcore, it's really obvious if you're not shooting hardcore, it's too hard to fake. So we shoot it hard anyway then I take all these hard core scenes and put them all together in a movie called Buried Treasure, and tie it all together with an Australian knot and hope someone watches it and enjoys it! (Laughs!)

AINews: The less that winds up on the floor the better, right? Especially if you're having fun!

Juli: Absolutely! So I think I'll be staying around in the U.S. for a while. That kind of got my travel bug out of me.

AINews: Do you think you will feature dance again soon out on the road?

Juli: I do, I think last year I went out four times. It's not as creative to me. I'm not a great dancer.

AINews: Yes you are.

Juli: (Laughs!) I'm NOT! I've seen myself on stage! Oh my god! Not a lot of rhythm!

AINews: I saw you at Bob's Classy Lady the last time you were there. I enjoyed the hell out of it!

Juli: Thank you, It is fun, but it's hard for one thing. I start to feel my age, staying up late like that. My muscles ache. I feel like a big whiner! (Laughs!) I do have so many things going on I just don't have many weeks I can be away. I do four days here and there. I'm also really picky. It's not about money to me. This career, this life, this adventure I'm on is not about money. If a club I want to work in comes around, or maybe if I see someone is in an area I will see if I can dance there and combine a few things. But to just to go hit the road for a month because of the cash I just can't do it.

AINews: What kind of roles do you like to portray when you are filming? Have you gotten any ideas of roles you haven't played that you would like to?

Juli: People don't tend to cast me in very dominant roles.

AINews: Would you like to play a dominant role?

Juli: Absolutely. Maybe it's just my squeaky voice or my girl next door persona… (Laughs!) I don't know what it is. I don't get a lot of dominant roles. Bliss from VCA Antonio Passolini directed it. I really enjoyed it. It was a much darker side of me. I wouldn't want to do that all the time, but it was really fun to find that inside of myself. This angst, this anger…

AINews: You got to portray somebody mean?

Juli: Yeah, not only just mean, but depressed, dark, and cheating and hypocritical. All of these things that no one has ever cast me as. It was a real challenge for one thing, because I like sex and it is a light atmosphere and I know everybody. It was like, Hey! Now I've got to be depressed. It was a lot of fun to try to do that. I've never done a bondage movie before. That is something I would like to explore, obviously starting as a sub, before I could be a Dom. I'd like to see if that's in me. I know that it's in everybody, so I'd like to find the Dom part of my personality.

AINews: That's interesting. It could be real fun.

Juli: It could. I figure you don't have to be anything forever. If I don't like it I won't do it again.

AINews: When you first got into the business, who helped you the most?

Juli: I think three people, at the very, very beginning, helped me the most. My manager, obviously. Shayla LaVeaux, who gave me a lot of support. She had been there and done it, she knew the hurdles. She knew the anxiety. She was really supportive. Steve Orenstein from Wicked Pictures. Without those three I wouldn't be here. I owe a lot to those three people.

AINews: It sounds like you've had a good experience in the business.

Juli: Absolutely. A lot of it I am grateful everyday for is that I have had such a positive experience. I read stories about these poor girls in the Industry that are being taken advantage of for this or that. I feel as if I am in a gilded cage because I don't see it. I joined VCA so early in my career, and they have been so incredible! What a family! And Wicked! The people that I've been able to work with have been so wonderful that I never saw the dark side of the Industry. It's wonderful, I love it. I feel really bad for the people that do get involved with the darker, slimier side. Because I know its there. It's not that I don't know it, but I have been fortunate enough to be kept away from it. I wish I could do that for other girls.

AINews: Are you involved with anticensorship?

Juli: I do the lobbying, when ever they have lobbying days for the Free Speech Coalition I go up and I went to Houston for a party they had there. I am definitely willing to do anything like that. I talk about it a lot in interviews and whenever I can, to put the word out there.

One of my goals for the Internet is for my site to become more active in education showing how to get a hold of your senator or representative to write them a letter. I do what I can.

AINews: How has this business changed you?

Juli: I've grown up a lot. I think I'm a lot stronger. When I used to teach school in Colorado I was just out of college. I wasn't very good at discipline and I didn't know how to handle people, I didn't know how to put my foot down. I didn't know the bottom line and I think this business has made me a lot stronger in that sense. I don't take as much bullshit from people as I used to. I get caught up in it every once in a while, but more often than not I know bullshit and I don't take it anymore. And more focused I think. I know where I want to be. I know my end goals. It is a little easier for me to focus now than just being all over the place.

AINews: I'm out of questions!

Juli: (Laughs!) Oh my God! You know everything now!

AINews: I wish I knew everything! You're my favorite porn Star, Juli. You're one girl I'd be proud to bring home to mom.

Juli: Thank you.

AINews: A wholesome porn star. (Laughs!)

Juli: Isn't that weird. It's so odd!

AINews: It's like a paradox.

"I think that if people just let go of their fear, they'll find joy."

Juli: I think that if people just let go of their fear, they'll find joy. They're such similar emotions. You get the same sensations from both. If people would let go of that fear and go with the joy they would realize that we are not bad people. We're not sluts, we're not drug addicts, and there is nothing wrong with it, we're all consenting adults. I think some of the industry is judgmental, but I think it's much less judgmental than the rest of society. We accept each other, our quirks, our weirdness, a little bit better than the rest of the world accepts us, I think. When people in the industry accept that and get into it they have a lot of fun. That's why I really like these girls that I'm working with now. They're all just happy and they don't care what people think about what they do for a living. They are very confident in themselves and I think it's a beautiful thing.

AINews: My last comment is: "The guy who winds up with Juli Ashton is really LUCKY."

Juli: (Laughs!) Thank you!

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