SexHerald: When you were younger, what did you imagine yourself doing at this time in your life?

Kylie Ireland: As a little girl, I entertained being a veterinarian for a while but then I realized that required a lot of math, which I’m not really fond of. I always enjoyed writing, so I started going in that direction. In high school and college, I discovered I enjoyed radio, and so I was going to school for broadcast journalism. I always figured I’d be somewhere in the radio, television industry. I kind of went full circle. I went from wanting to get into radio and studying to get into radio and television to 14 years later I have a show on Sirius satellite (The Friday Night Threeway with Kylie Ireland and Derrick Pierce every Friday night, 7-9 p.m. Pacific Time, on Playboy Radio).

SH: Do you have any regrets of the path you took?

Ireland: Of the path as a whole, no. I’m a believer that everything happens for a reason. I’ve stumbled onto a career that I’m comfortable in and that I enjoy; I find it fun, and it allows me to experience new things, and become more comfortable with my sexuality. I get to travel the world and I’m experiencing more of life than I probably ever would have had I been a normal person. So, I can’t really say I have any regrets about that.

SH: Being that you’ve been in the business for 14 years, does ageism still exist in the industry and has that affected you? Have you been a victim of it?

Ireland: Ageism, that’s interesting. Technically, porn is a young girl’s game I guess. It’s all about the young and the beautiful, just like Hollywood. It’s all about being young and gorgeous and beautiful, and you don’t age and it’s all la, la, la, la, la. The world is perfect. But the truth of the matter is not everybody wants to see 18-year-old girls having sex. I’m one of those people because I personally think that at 18 you probably don’t really know what you’re doing, or what you like or what you enjoy. I, personally, as I’ve watched myself grow up on film, I think I aged better than most. I think I like the way I look now. I’m happier with my body and the curves of it. Your facial structure changes, your hips change, you just keep growing. When you reach 30, you continue to grow. My facial structure is weird. My cheekbones got higher, and I don’t really know why. Then I went back to the red hair, and that was a big plus. I think that was an improvement. I’m a whole different person than I was when I was a young blonde newbie in the business. And I like me now better.

SH: The way you’ve turned out physically you mean?

Ireland: Yeah. And the way I’ve turned out as a person, too. I’m more wise and self-centered. My self-esteem is better. There are things that come with age. You learn what you like in your life, your work and your sexuality. Everything just kind of improves as you get older and you get smarter.

SH: I’m glad to see you’ve grown as a performer, going from features to doing harder stuff. I love it when girls move on and go to the next level.

Ireland: I’ve found that a lot of people have liked it. I’ve gotten really positive feedback since I started doing nastier stuff on film. Really, I wasn’t ready before. I started doing anal when I signed my contract with VCA. I just kind of grew from there. When I hit 30, it was like all over. Talk about girls and their dirty 30s. I wanted to have all kinds of extreme sex and I wanted to try new things, and I wanted to try the freaky stuff. I found that I really do like it. I like rough sex, and I love anal. Nowadays, even in my personal life, anal is required.

SH: Do you ever work with younger guys?

Ireland: Yeah, I do. It’s kind of an interesting thing. With the MILF phenomenon, which is kind of a pet peeve of mine . . . But the MILF phenomenon has been good because it’s brought a lot of mature girls back into the business and I think the fans are a lot more appreciative of that, where before once you hit 30, you were kind of done. Now, look at Nina Hartley. Nina’s done great scenes these days. I’m not sure how old she is. But she was in the business 10, 12 years before I was. And there’s a lot of people who want to see that. They like having more mature women, someone who’s comfortable with themselves, comfortable with their sexuality . . . not everybody wants the really young girl.

They want to put you with younger guys when you’re playing a MILF or cougar role and all of that. I’ve found that, for the most part, most of the younger guys I’ve worked with are kind of boring to me, with the exception of James Dean, who actually I have not worked with but I know I would like him. He’s got a dirty side. For someone that young, he really can be a very nasty boy.

SH: With that said, I guess congratulations are in order for your recent XRCO win (MILF of the Year).

Ireland: Yes, and I should preface that by saying, now that I’ve bashed the whole MILF thing, I am very appreciative of that award, despite what you may have read on Adult DVD Talk. It’s an honor to be recognized for your work. And that’s what that award is. It’s a recognition of my work. So [for] that I’m very appreciative of, even though I technically like to say: “I am not a MILF—I just play one on TV!”

SH: Being one of the all-time great performers, you are porn royalty. How does it feel being part of that legendary list of performers?

Ireland: The class of ‘94 was a really good year. I remember when I came into the business, every other page of AVN it was me, Kaitlynn Ashley, Asia Carerra, Misty Rain, Chasey Lain, Jenna came back. Actually, our first movies were shot at the same time. And then she went back to Vegas for a while, then she came back about nine months later. But that was a good year for porn. It really was. There were some outstanding chicks that year. There are a few of us still lurking around, aren’t there? Not really, now that I think about it. Kaitlynn’s gone, Chasey keeps trying to come around.

SH: Obviously, there’s Jenna but she doesn’t perform anymore. There’s just you and Stephanie Swift; she’s trying to make a bit of a comeback.

Ireland: Yeah, I actually ran into Stephanie on a set the other day. We were talking about how she used to be all nasty with Rob Black. She was like, “Can you help me find the nasty girl again?” I said, “Honey, come on over.” [Laughs] I’ll help you find the nasty girl.

SH: I’m sure you’re asked all the time how the business has changed in the last 14 years. How have the fans changed in the last 14 years? Are they friendlier, more flirtier, more aggressive . . .

Ireland: That’s something I never thought about. Overall, I’d have to say that maybe they’ve gotten younger. There’s more couples. They always say that porn is becoming mainstream. Yeah, well, they’ve been saying that for 14 years. Personalities, and attitudes in general, are becoming more open-minded. So I think we’re seeing a lot of younger people and a lot of couples. And especially because of the Internet. The Internet has definitely brought us a lot more younger guys.

SH: Have you noticed a lot more women taking an interest in porn, more women at the conventions?

Ireland: The conventions I wouldn’t say really so much other than couples. You see a lot of couples. And I’ve always been a big draw with couples anyway. I think that’s just from all the features I used to do. All the Wicked stuff and Vivid stuff. But as far as the women, single women that email me, I get a lot of those from women and from young girls. By young I mean 20, 21 that email me. I have one in England that I actually talk to via Myspace, and I have another one in Ohio. And they’re just fans of mine. I talk to them because they’re just fascinating. I’m just floored that I have female fans that are that young. I see more of the female presence on the Internet than I do in person.

SH: Do you have fans that go as far back to 1994?

Ireland: Yes. Fans pick the girls that they like and they stick with them. And as long as that girl is going to be in the business they continue to watch. I don’t ever hear from people that go, “Oh yeah, I used to like you when you were young and blonde and I don’t watch you anymore.” Mostly it’s, “I’ve been watching you since then.” The thing that is disturbing to me is that I get these emails from guys that say, “I’ve watched you since high school….” I’m like, “Don’t do that to me.” [Laughs] Now they’re in their 20s and that’s not right. [Laughs] The ones that are even more disturbing than that are the ones that say, “I learned how to eat pussy from watching your movies.” God no, don’t do that ever! You know this, we cheat for the camera, and we turn certain ways and you stick out your tongue longer. Don’t ever, ever learn anything from watching porn. And don’t attempt a lot of the stuff you see, especially nowadays in porn with the slapping and choking. Even anal sex. My god, no wonder women are getting scared away by anal sex, because guys are learning how to do it by watching porn and they just shove it in. The part that gets cut out is the part where we’re warming up off camera. It’s not quite what you see on film, so I’m just always frightened to death when people say stuff like that.

SH: People should realize that there’s a lot of editing involved in a scene, that it’s not one continuous flow.

Ireland: I have seen scenes that were terrible that have been saved by editing. There’s one of those in Corruption, and I’m not going to say which one it is. But it was a horrible scene. I saw the first edit of it and it was like, “That’s kind of boring. That’s not very good.” Then they went back and they re-edited it, and when it came out it was just amazing. The two most important things in porn when you’re directing a movie, is good casting—you want to cast responsible people that are going to show up, they’re going to know their lines, look good, and you want to cast people together who are going to want to work together, because you’re going to get a better scene. That’s the first thing. The second thing is a good editor because a good editor can save any piece of shit. Almost any piece of shit. [Laughs] If you have those two things, I think you can at least crank out a decent movie.

SH: Do you still love performing?

Ireland: I only do scenes because I enjoy them. I turn down so much work because I don’t want to do it. If I’m bored, what’s the point? I have over 400 movies. I don’t need to do more scenes. I don’t need box covers to go on the road. I’m done with that part of my life. I danced for six years. So, if I’m doing a scene it’s because I want to be doing it. So that’s kind of why I decided to do it, and a lot of people thought I was under contract with SexZ Pictures, or that I only shot my own stuff. So a lot of people are going to be able to shoot me when they thought that they couldn’t.

SH: Of the girls from today, who do you like working with or would like to work with one day?

Ireland: I adore Sandra Romain. She kind of scares me. Sandra, I worked with her on Corruption, and actually, that’s the only time I’ve worked with her. Which is unfortunate because she’s great. It was just so much fun because she’s just a great chick. Miss her. I miss her a lot.

SH: She’s back in Romania now.

Ireland: Yeah, she is. And if we do this big movie for SexZ Pictures, which looks like it’s going to be a mainstream horror movie now instead, she’s going to be the lead in it. So, we’re kind of bringing her out of retirement for this one last movie. We’re trying to figure out when we’re going to shoot that. Soon, I hope. It’ll be five weeks of shooting in Budapest. That’ll be the biggest project I probably ever worked on, but it’s going to be mainstream. It’ll be fun. I’m a producer and I’m head of art direction. I’m doing set design and wardrobe. My job is to make the set look right. That’s the hard part, it really is. I did it on Corruption, and I did it on Upload. And on Upload it was really challenging because it was the future. Creating a movie that’s 20, 30 years in the future, you have to think about things. What are the clothes like? What are the computers like? The computers in Upload, I created those. That was kind of interesting. Creating the guns had to be retro-fitted to make them look new and different. There were props, just taser guns and hypodermic needles that we had to create.

I like doing stuff like that. It’s challenging, it feeds my creativeness, and I find it a lot of fun. There’s something so satisfying about . . . like on Upload, there were a couple of scenes that I really, really loved. One of them is the Emergency Cut on the 3rd or 4th disc of Upload. When the movie was over, I produced and directed that, and I made a 12-minute sock puppet version of Upload. It is absolutely fucking hysterical. That’s just my personality coming out a little bit. But there were sets that I looked at, like the scene with Hillary Scott and James Dean. That set, I remember putting that all together and standing back and looking at it on the monitor, and going, “Wow! That rocked! I’m so happy with that.” That just makes your whole day. It makes all of that work worth it. You look at it and go, “Goddamn, that looks cool!” The SIM Shop, when they first caught Hillary, that was another one. It was a job well done by me and my team, Team Upload. They consist of David Lord, Aiden Star, and the prop guy you never heard of. He’s Eli’s friend and they’ve known each other since they were 7. [Laughs] He keeps his friends close. Our production manager is Jim Van Cooney, and he’s known Eli since he was 11.

SH: Speaking of Eli Cross, is his obsession with action figures, sci-fi, and action heroes affect the way he makes his movies?

Ireland: Yeah, I think it does. Especially in Upload you see a lot more of his sci-fi influence, than you do in others. Upload is shot a little bit like Battlestar Galactica. It’s got a lot of a Blade Runner look to it. If you’re a total geek you’ll go through that movie and you’ll be just like “Hey, that looks familiar.” He has loved filmmaking ever since Star Wars, and he always wanted to make movies after that. I think that’s kind of what led him there. He moved to LA with the desire to be a filmmaker. He worked for Roger Corman for several years cranking out really bad B movies. Then he kind of fell into porn, worked for several different magazines, ran AVN for five years where everybody learned to hate him because of his honest reviews. He could be snarky and bitter.

It’s funny that people get mad over reviews because reviews are an opinion. It’s the opinion of the person who watched it. So if somebody gives it a bad review, you can’t call and yell at them. I’ve had people who have given some of the movies I directed bad reviews, and I don’t call them up and yell at them. It’s their opinion. Somebody else might love it. So, it’s not your cup of tea. It’s not the end of the world. That’s why there’s so much of everything in porn. You don’t like blondes, go watch a brunette. You want a redhead, you want somebody older, younger . . . you want feature, you want gonzo? There’s something for everybody in this industry. So reviews are just that. They’re opinions. People get so uptight over them.

Eli is doing something that’s totally different and I’m totally behind that. He’s making an actual movie and he’s putting production value into it. He’s able to do that because SexZ Pictures has believed in him and has given him free reign and the money to do it properly. They give him $150,000 and he gives them a movie that looks like $300,000. He puts so much into it, and all of us when we work on those movies, it’s our life and we care, and it’s like we’re making a real movie. It’s a unique experience when you’re used to working in porn where it’s good enough.

SH: What I respect about Eli is that, unlike other feature directors today, he doesn’t forget to add heat to the sex scenes nor does he just throws in a sex scene in his films. He really makes it part of the story, which a lot of feature directors forget to do or make the sex secondary to their films.

Ireland: He makes features with gonzo style sex. And he hires the performers that can do that. He doesn’t want the sex scenes to be lame. He’s making a movie that he would want to watch. And you know what, he’s a pervert. We live in a huge 10,000 square foot loft in downtown LA, and a good portion of it is dungeon. The dungeon scene in Upload was shot at our place, but there are portions of it that look like a New York style loft. In Corruption,the scene where James Dean takes Hillary Scott back to his house, and it’s kind of like a loft with red bricks, that’s our bedroom. But yeah, he’s a true pervert, but he wants every scene to be good and he wants it to be nasty. So he hires performers that like doing what they do. That’s very important, and I agree. Some of the nastiest scenes I’ve ever done have been in those two movies. It’s really neat to see the reactions. It’s fun to be a part of something that big and something that’s that different.

I was talking to Eli the other day about directors who have made an impact on the industry like that. You can name a few, and within their timeframes they are absolutely a part of the rocks that the industry is built on. But over the years it’s definitely changed. It’s become nastier.

SH: Nothing wrong with that.

Ireland: No. I appreciate those kinds of movies. I think they’re great, because as a performer there’s nothing more frustrating than shooting a movie like Layout, which I won two awards for. And don’t take this the wrong way but God bless Paul Fishbein for not taking away that film category last year. If he had taken away the film category—because it’s not going to exist next year—I wouldn’t have won. So, I’m glad he didn’t. But I remember shooting the group scene in Layout, and I would hop off—I’m doing a double penetration—a cock, and I’d go down to suck it and do an ATM, and they would be like, “You can’t do that!” “What do you mean I can’t do that, I just did it. Don’t tell me I can’t do something! [Laughs] If you don’t want it don’t put it in.”

SH: Tell me about your company Slutwerkz.

Ireland: Basically, it was born out of the idea that . . . I worked for a lot of companies that I didn’t like them telling me what I could and couldn’t do. I didn’t like them telling me that I couldn’t shoot slapping or choking. That drove me insane, and it also comes from the fact that I worked for a certain company that had a lot of male director/performers who would tell me they didn’t think there should be female directors in porn. That they shouldn’t direct porn, that they couldn’t direct porn. On top of all it, my movies would outsell theirs a lot of the time. “How can you tell me I can’t? I’m creative, my stuff is hotter than yours, the girls are doing nastier acts than they are for you. How dare you tell me I can’t!”

Not only am I woman and empowered in this business, but I’m feisty. I’m an Irish Gemini. Don’t fuck with me! So, that’s where Slutwerkz came from. I wanted to do it my way. Slutwerkz is all female directors shooting hardcore gonzo. The website has given us some fits because we’re dealing with some new technology that’s kind of different for us. It’s going to be—it’s not a membership site. It’s all VOD download—it’s going to be basically, the iTunes of adult. You go in, buy a scene and download it immediately. It’s yours and it’s DVD quality. If you want the box cover art, there you go. You can have it too. We have over a 100 scenes that we shot that we haven’t done anything with them yet because the website has been given us some challenges. It’s finally to the point where we should have it up soon. I hope so because it would be nice to see some of that money come back in. But there are really no rules. Katja Kassin has directed some stuff for me. Kimberly Kane just finished some amazing stuff. I’ve done a lot for the site.

I’m demanding that we have production quality in all our scenes. In an Internet world where production quality is not important, I want my scenes to be hot and fabulous, and well lit, well edited, well shot, well performed in. I want the performers to have fun and to live out their sickest, most twisted fantasies on film. I think that is one of the ways that Slutwerkz will stand out against other places, other websites aside from the fact that we have chicks directing the sickest most twisted stuff anybody could dream up. Girls are more creative than guys when it comes to sex. They come up with these fantasies that are just amazing.

SH: Did you ever go through a dark period during your career?

Ireland: Yeah, I did. When I shot the movie Raw, and I started learning what I wanted sexually. I was married for, at that point, probably for about nine years. I was married 10 years total. I realized that we had grown apart. Actually, I hadn’t realized it but now I realize that’s what it was. We thought our marriage was good and our communication was good, and it really wasn’t what we thought it was. When I turned 30, I freaked out and I just dismantled my life. I left my husband, and even before I left my husband I was drinking a lot. I was also doing publicity for VCA, so I didn’t drink while I was on the job, but I would drink while I was doing scenes. I’d drink when I would get home at night. I would go through a bottle and a half of wine or maybe two a night.

When I danced, I was going through a big bottle of Absolut a night. I’m not shy about my alcoholism. I’m Irish, it’s kind of expected. It comes with the territory. But when I finally realized it was a problem, I would wake up so hung over that I would call in and cancel a scene. That’s when I started looking at my drinking. I was suppose to shoot Babewatch 13 or 14, and I called and I canceled the scene. And I remember laying there going, “What did you just do? You tried your entire career to be responsible, a good performer and on time and a pleasant person, and you’re canceling because you’re hung over? What the hell is going on?” I thought that in order to be a nasty dirty girl, I had to drink. And that’s not the truth. It was an avenue to let it out but I didn’t realize that it wasn’t the need to do it. I drank because I wanted to forget. When I was in huge distress, I’d find that I would drink.

When I decided to get sober, Chloe was a very good friend of mine. She had been sober for five years at that point. I pretty much woke up one morning, and I went, “My god I feel like shit. I’m drinking too much, what the hell is wrong with me. Oh my god, I’m living with Jonathan Morgan, I have to get sober!” [Laughs] That was it. I realized at that point I was drinking too much. I went to Chloe and asked her to help me out. She and Nic Andrews—who was also a big part of my getting sober too—but she was my sponsor in the early days. Ginger Lynn was my sponsor for a while too. And I’ve been sober seven years on August 12. That’s kind of amazing! [Laughs]

So there was that that I had to deal with, and that was really hard. When I quit drinking, I gained weight because that’s a pretty common thing that happens when you quit drinking. My weight has always fluctuated anyway. I will go from 115 to 140 lbs. You see all this on camera. Sometimes I’m heavy, sometimes I’m not. Around 2000, 2001 I was the skinniest I probably had ever been. I was 110 lbs. It was sick. I was too skinny. I call it the booze and sex diet because all I did was drink and fuck. There was that, but you know what’s interesting? I tell people I’m sober and directors and stuff, they didn’t even know I had a drinking problem. I’d be drinking on their sets. I remember drinking on a Bud Lee set, Beauty and the Bitch, and we shot a scene at four in the morning, and I had vodka in a plastic bottle. Before we started the oral I had downed 3-4 shots. And after the oral, before we started the sex, I would go in and do it again. Before the anal, I’d go and do it again. By the time the scene is done, it’s 6 a.m. and I’ve had 12 shots of vodka over two hours. And I drove home. I look at stuff like that now and I go, “Oh my god, that’s retarded, that’s ridiculous. What was I thinking?”

SH: And no one knew you were drunk during that whole time?

Ireland: No. No. I think some of the talent knew but probably didn’t think about it much. Bud Lee, he never knew. Antonio Pasalini, he didn’t know.

SH: Did you try very hard to keep it a secret?

Ireland: Yeah, I always kept it in a bottle that wasn’t a vodka bottle. So I hid it. I was very good at hiding it. Even when I was living with Jonathan, he didn’t know. He didn’t know a lot of it. He discovered it, but when I decided to get sober I did involve him the first time. It took two tries. We went through the entire house trying to find my hidden stashes. I had them stashed. I would have plastic bottles of vodka stashed in tall boots in the closet. So we went through and found all of those and we threw them away, and dumped them down the disposal. It was a very interesting time and it was a difficult thing to do. All in all, it was what needed to be done. I don’t go to meetings and I probably should. I’m very stubborn, that keeps me sober. I’m stubborn and Irish. I come from a long line of alcoholics. [Laughs] And I still, goddamnit, I still want a drink!

SH: Now times are good.

Ireland: Times are good. I look good, I work out a lot. I’ve been working out with a trainer three times a week, do cardio two times. I rollerblade on the beach. I eat healthy, I take care of myself. And in turn, I like being in front of the camera because I look good. As long as I look good and enjoy what I do, then I’ll continue to do it.