SexHerald: Congrats on winning AEBN/VOD Performer of the year. How much does that award mean to you? I understand you keep it on your office desk.

Nica Noelle: Yes, I do. Why would I not? I look at it every day and I’m very proud of it, being my age, and getting performer of the year is very exciting. I don’t think it’s ever gone to a MILF before. It’s just so factual. It’s factual by downloads, so it’s easy to track the numbers. It’s actually by fans, so that’s really exciting.

SH: Also, congratulations on AVN: winning MILF of the year and being inducted into the AVN Hall of Fame. What’s it like being part of such a legendary list of legends?

Ann: All good stuff this year, huh? As for the hall of fame, it’s really wonderful because having the agency (Lisa Ann Talent Management) and being able to show my talent that I’ve been here for a while and I put my time in, and I’m still doing very well and I still love the business. And being a member of the hall of fame with people like Nina Hartley and Sean Michaels and Julia Ann and Ginger Lynn, these are all the legends that I’m glad now to be representing. So, it’s all tenfold for me.

SH: When you first started performing, did you think you’d be in the business this long?

Ann: No, because when you’re that age you don’t think of anything to happen to you for this long. At that age, your babysitter was like so old.

SH: What year did you start out?

Ann: Nineteen ninety-four is when I came out here to start doing movies, and I have been dancing back in Pennsylvania before that. So, I’ve been part of the adult industry my whole life.

SH: You’re from the East coast originally?

Ann: Yes, I am. I’m from Easton, Pennsylvania. My home club was Al’s Diamond Cabaret in Reading, Pennsylvania.

SH: A lot of girls have come from there.

Ann: Al churns out a really good worker. You work very hard there and if you can endure that place, you can do pretty much anything. He’s a great man that way. He made us good, solid workers. There was no flaking on your schedule.

SH: With the MILF of the Year award, are you comfortable with being labeled a MILF?

Ann: I sure am. I mean, c’mon. We’re so lucky to be able to still be shooting. When I got into this business, nobody was really shooting anybody in their 30s or 40s. So, I think it’s a phenomenon. Of course, when I get girls at the agency, they’ll be a little reluctant at first. And some of them will say, “I really don’t want to be in the MILF stuff.” I say to them, “Well, you’re definitely not going to get hired for the teen anal series. So you better just be grateful that you’re getting hired to be a MILF.” Right? We’re lucky to have the appeal to be able to still be shooting and still be welcomed into the industry like we are.

SH: Of course, the years have been good to you. You don’t look your age if I may say that.

Ann: Thank you. Thank you very much!

SH: I still watch you in the non-MILF stuff like Anal Cavity Search 6. Most MILFs in this industry tend to do just the MILF stuff but you’re able to do any role.

Ann: I’m very lucky. People still hire me. I just did a girl/girl series for Metro, Babes Illustrated I believe. I said, “Oh my god, this isn’t a MILF thing?” They said, “No Lisa. We just hired you because you’re hot.” I thought that was so nice. [laughs]

SH: I asked about the MILF thing because other people, such as Candida Royale and Kylie Ireland, have expressed some reservations with that term. So personally, you’re fine with it?

Ann: Personally, I’m perfectly fine with it. And if you really think about it, now that I’m out dancing again—I was at the Spearmint Rhino in Oxnard recently, which is 18 and up to go there—you get a lot of 18-to-22 year olds that are into older women. They’re into the MILF thing. So if you’re getting hung up on it, I tell the girls, “Listen, you’re appealing to a fan base and that’s a fan base that’s really into the hot older woman. So enjoy the fact that that fan base is out there for you and love it.”

When they come into the club, the younger guys tend to be a little bit easier for me to dance for, because they’re a little bit more intimidated by you. You can turn your back on them and play with them in a very playful way, without [them] trying something. They very seldom will grab you or do anything without you letting them do it. So it’s more fun to dance with them because, as you’re pushing it with them, I’ll climb over the stage and climb on them; they’re horrified because they don’t know how far it’s going to go. But yet, they’re happy about it, right? So it’s such a fun thing to play with. I absolutely love it. I’m a MILF through and through; even though I don’t have any children, I love younger guys. So for me, the MILF/cougar—whatever you want to call it—I play really well into that category because I appeal to the younger fan and I love the younger fan.

SH: How difficult was it to shoot Interactive Sex with Lisa Ann, because shooting an interactive DVD is not easy.

Ann: It’s a totally different concept in shooting a real scene because, in the scene, you’re actually able to connect with the performer and you’re filming the entire scene, whereas for the interactive it has to be cut at certain intervals. And this is how they edit it so that the viewer can play with it. I use the analogy of…it’s almost like a Playstation or Xbox game. They are interactive. They are there with you, so you have to customize it and they can use it the way they want to use it. So, it’s a completely different mindset. And while you’re doing the interactive, you gotta understand the interactive. I watched and played with a bunch of them before I did it. You have to understand that you are doing this 100 percent for the viewer. You may not be getting off every three-minute interval of course, but what you’re doing is putting this together so that they can play with you however they want. It’s a great concept.

I know my fans have been asking me to do one for years. I know Zero Tolerance has been asking me to do one for years. I wasn’t yet as comfortable with anal, and now I’ve gotten comfortable with it. Erik Everhard has really helped me along my progression at getting better at anal, and helping me understand it and I love working with him. I was finally at the right place at the right time, and then when we finally decided to do it, it just so happen to be the most fun week I’ve ever shot in my life because I love Mike Quasar. We have so much history together, and we had a great crew on set, and everybody had a great time because it’s a lot of work. It takes the girl who’s the glue of the set to keep the energy up and to keep everything going. At the end of the shoot everybody went, “Oh my god, I can’t believe how well you did.” I get it now and I really wanted to do it. When they were asking me before, I wasn’t ready. Being ready means you can endure the 12-hour days.

SH: Will the interactive DVD be marketed as a MILF interactive?

Ann: It is the first MILF interactive and yes it’s going to be marketed as a MILF interactive and a regular interactive. That was the fact behind us doing it: It would be the first MILF interactive.

SH: Of course, Nailin’ Palin was such a huge hit and it earned you a lot of press coverage. Were you surprised by the reaction?

Ann: Oh my god, it changed my life. I really was surprised. I knew it was going to be big but I had no concept at all that it would even be close to this big. And, it’s still big. I’m still getting a lot of press from it. We’re planning on doing another one because, of course, Governor Palin isn’t going away. She just keeps putting herself in front of that television and giving us more material to work off of. So, we’re going to roll with it. It was a lot of fun doing it. I definitely know that the Palin movie opened me up to not just your everyday porn viewer, but it opened me up to people who are political and just thought it was humorous. I see people at places I go that’ll recognize me. It’s not just a porn fan. It’s like a regular person who walks up to me and say, “Aw, that was so funny.” Or they give me a thumbs up. So it opened my demographic, and I’m getting fans that are coming in now saying that that movie made them go out and get a bunch of my other stuff.

SH: How has your life changed—professionally and personally—because of Nailin’ Palin?

Ann: Personally, I get recognized a lot more than I ever did before. So, that’s big. Professionally, the industry said it was so humorous because nobody was going to be voting for Palin, so they give me credit in possibly assisting in the demise of that whole situation. It definitely made me more popular with the companies because everything I’ve done in the past year has sold more because people have started to search out my name. So people have said to me, “I’m so glad you did that because it helped this movie do better.” So that’s exciting, especially in a recession to know that you could’ve helped someone sell more product.

SH: How do you find time to do movies, feature dancing and running your talent agency? How do you do it and does it take any sort of toll on you?

Ann: I try to take a little down time. Once every six weeks, I’ll take a weekend off where I’ll go to the beach, see my friends, or get out of town for a day or two; go to Vegas and do something fun where I don’t have to be a slave to the alarm clock, and get a little bit of time to play. But, I’ve always been a worker so it doesn’t bother me to only have a weekend off every six or seven weeks. There’s times when I wish I could have more sleep or more time at the gym, but other than that I’m really grateful to have this many things going on. When I do get tired or do get a little burned out, I say to myself, “Well, it’s better than having nothing going on.” There are a lot of people right now who aren’t in as good as a place as me but are wishing they had more in their life, so I can’t complain at all.

SH: What goals do you have for the Lisa Ann Talent Management agency in 2009?

Ann: I just want to keep all my people busy and happy, and that comes from my staff within and my girls and guys that are represented by me.

SH: Has the recession affected your business in any way? Has it caused you to alter future plans, expansions, etc?

Ann: It’s definitely slowed down because we’re losing some distributors along the way, and we’re losing some companies. But for the most part, we’re staying pretty steady. I just got to remain positive. I can only see the best that’s going to come to us and wait it out. We’re still in a better place than a lot of other businesses.

SH: Has it affected the other talent agencies?

Ann: I’m sure it has. We do our agents’ meetings where all the licensed talent agents get together once or twice a month, and we sit and talk about things, and it’s definitely affected everyone.

SH: As an executive in this business, with the recession going on, what are the biggest challenges facing the industry as a whole this coming year?

Ann: I think we’re going to see a lot of the smaller DVD companies really struggle. The Internet is going to keep continuing to grow. The more young guys that I talk to when I feature dance, the more I realize that guys don’t own DVDs anymore. They download everything. Sadly, they download stolen stuff. So I just talk to them about the fact that if they want us to just keep making movies and be there for them, they can’t do free porn and they can’t steal stuff from the Internet because it’s only going to put us all out of work. So I see the smaller DVD companies struggling a little bit, which is tough. The Internet market is just growing and growing and growing.

SH: What are the pros and cons of being a female executive in the adult industry?

Ann: I don’t see any or either. I see the one pro as being people love doing business with a hot girl. That’s always going to happen. But, I don’t see it that way. It’s like a non-sex situation to me, because my friends and people who know me personally will always joke with me and say that I’m definitely a woman in the exterior but I’m a man in a woman’s body, because I think like a man, I do business like a man. So, I don’t allow those things to come into my mind or restrict me.

SH: As for the girls that are a part of your agency, what sort of advice do you give them, especially the younger girls just starting out?

Ann: I think the number one thing they need to know is to stay away from drugs and partying, because the lifestyle can so quickly swallow them up and then they start to look old. It’s really hard on your body. You can [also] get into situations with being around bad people or being out too much. Try to stay focused, try to workout a lot. Try to take the time that you have when you’re not shooting—because you have such a lax schedule—to enjoy the world. When I was just shooting and dancing, I took my summers off, I went to the beach every day. I had such a great, great life then, and I want them to just live and explore and take little trips. You can also go to classes, you can do online classes . . . with a schedule that free, value your time because you’ll never get it back. Then also, I really promote to them to try and get to the gym. It’s not whether they needed or not, it’s just to get into the habit of doing it. When you get older and you need it, your body is already pretty conditioned.

SH: Do you look for anything in particular when recruiting a new girl into your agency?

Ann: It’s important to me that the girls are in it for the sex as well as the career. I don’t like paycheck performers, because their scenes are always lame and we have a lot of that out there. So, I like to see that they’re really sexual beings and they want to experiment and learn more about themselves on set and try new things; get more comfortable with their sexuality instead of just doing it to do it. I want them to understand the power of what they do and having fans, and keeping their fans happy and really enjoying the sex.

SH: Janine once told me she feels very protective of the younger girls she performs with. Do you feel the same way when you work with young girls?

Ann: I do, I do. I protect them when we’re out places too, even if they’re not with my agency. They’re just little girls that I love. People come up to talk to them and I just tell them to leave them alone. I am protective of the young girls. I give them my couple of pieces of advice and try to keep tabs on them, get their numbers, say hello. I check in with them about saving their money and what are they doing for fun, and if they’ve traveled to Europe, what are they doing on their free time, and all that stuff.

SH: What about the guys you represent? Are you protective of them and do you give them the same sort of advice?

Ann: I am, but you know, the guys are easy. They have that male mindset where they’re very business-oriented. So they don’t really flake on things, they answer their phones, they want it and they’re very committed. So, I love meeting with my guys.

SH: What are some of your own personal long-term goals?

Ann: I would like to stay in the business forever. I know I won’t be able to shoot forever, so I know that one day I’ll just be fulltime here at the agency. I’d like to get more active in things in the industry, like the Free Speech Coalition. I just moderated a panel for Xbiz, and I really enjoyed it. So, I’d just like to stay around on different levels and try new things. I’ll probably be featuring for at least the next 3-4 years, and I hope to be shooting for the next 3-4 years as well—as long as they’ll have me!