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Finding Bliss

Coverage by Nobuhiro Hosoki

Story :A romantic comedy that explores the adult film industry through the eyes of an idealistic 25 year-old award winning film school grad.

 

Interview with Julie Davis and Ron Jeremy

 

(Q): How do you two know each other? How did you two meet?

(Ron Jeremy): She’s a doll because I was two hours late, and rather than fire me and say you’re an asshole, you’re late, which I was and I deserved it, I did work on that movie. But she called me to be in a tv series years later called “Tuxedo Nights.”
 
(Julie Davis): I’m going to interrupt you for a minute because you need to breathe. And I can really talk but you would never know it when I’m with him. That’s what I love. My first film that I did in 1996 was called “I Love You, Don’t Touch Me,” I had $60,000 and I was working at “Playboy” at the time. And so a guy that I worked with was friends with Ron, and when I went to make the film I said I have this great line.

The character goes on a bunch of dates, the girl lead character goes on all these days with all these horrible men, and there was one man who said “I’m a vegetarian but I still eat pussy.” And I said I want Ron Jeremy to say that line, can you put me in touch with him? So the guy gave me Ron’s number and I called him up and I said there’s no money, this is the address, this is the line you have to say, we’re shooting at night.

Two and a half hours he comes, we’re already in a new setup; he missed it. Michael DeLuise from “NYPD Blue” ended up doing the line. Dom DeLuise’s son. By the way, Michael DeLuise, when he saw the movie and saw himself saying that line was so mortified.
 
(Ron Jeremy): Who else was in the film?
 
(Julie Davis): All unknowns. Finding Bliss was the first film I’ve done with actors you’ve heard of. And let me tell you; I want to go back to the way it used to be.
 
(Ron Jeremy): So she put me in “Tuxedo Nights.”

 (Julie Davis): A couple of years later I was directing a series for Cinemax under a pseudonym that I use when I direct erotica. And there was a whole episode, it was 13 half hours about a dating service. And one of the episodes was when Ron Jeremy plays himself, comes to the dating service, and says “Everyone knows who I am.”
 
(Q): What was the series?
 
 (Julie Davis): “Black Tie Nights.” It was 2005; it ran the whole year a hundred times like a week. And the episode was about Ron playing himself; he comes to the dating service saying “I want to meet a nice girl who doesn’t know who I am. Everyone I go out with knows who I am so they think I’m a certain way. I want to go out with someone who doesn’t know who I am.”

It was really cute and I was working on this script at the time and I thought this is a great way for me to really get to know him, to really pick his brain about how to shoot a sex scene, which this had, which is why I took the job in the first place. How do I shoot a sex scene? To really research this movie, “Finding Bliss,” and it was one of the reasons I took that job. So that’s how we really got to know each other.
 
(Ron Jeremy): And then she put me in this, “Finding Bliss,” and I helped her out with different things and different ideas and she gave me this fun role where I play myself as the MC. Did you see the movie?
 
(Q): Yes.
 
(Ron Jeremy): It’s a fun film. I think it has a little more heart and soul than that other film, what’s it called?
 
 (Julie Davis): “Zack and Miri Make a Porno.”
 
(Ron Jeremy): Because that’s so typical; a director and a leading lady they have sex and they fall in love. Hers is a little more subplots and sub-subplots.

(Q): How did you get into the business initially?
 
(Ron Jeremy): I did theater Off Broadway. I did Café La MaMa, my teacher was Joel Zwick, who directed “My Big Fat Greek Wedding.” And then I got a masters degree in special ed. Two bachelors: theater and education. So I quick teaching to become an actor and it was torture because in New York City you just can’t get a job.

You’ve got hundreds of kids chasing no work. So when I was approached to do “Playgirl Magazine,” when an ex-girlfriend sent a picture in, I said what the heck, let’s try it. So it’s exposure, kind of, and it might lead to other things. So I did “Playgirl” and then it led to me meeting a guy named Joe, who died two weeks ago in his 90s.

He did a lot of B movies and I interviewed him for that, but he goes listen I also do X-rated films and I could use you, I saw your picture in “Playgirl.” I said alright, so I worked with him. My first film was called “Tigresses and Other Man-eaters.” And then here’s the important part: a lot of directors back then were doing both adult and mainstream. So I figured if they like my work they’ll put me in a regular movie and I’ll get into the Screen Actors Guild, which is exactly what happened because Chuck Vincent was doing mainstream films and he put me in his mainstream movies and I got into the union. In a film called “C.O.D.” starring Jack Lemmon’s son, Chris Lemmon.

Then I consulted “Nine ½ Weeks.” I had a small part in that that got cut but I became friends with Mickey Rourke who put me in a lot more films years later. So things led to things led to things. The only ones I can mention would be Wes Craven and Abel Ferrara; those are two famous directors who got their start doing some adult stuff. I could mention a few other but as a courtesy I won’t.
 
 (Julie Davis): Oh no mention them. I know some of them. Oliver Stone wrote porn. Scorsese, Coppola, Barry Sonnenfeld, the cinematographer. They all did adult.
 
(Ron Jeremy): Now Wes Craven, who did “Nightmare on Elm Street” and “Last House on the Left,” and he put a porn star director, Fred Lincoln, in the movie because he knew him from the world of porn. Fred gets his [whistle] bitten off during the movie. Back then there was no dvd, no vhs, no cd-rom, no interactivity, no computers, it was all film. So that’s why the needed real filmmakers to do porn because there was no video. You had no automatic focus; you had to have a camera man, a loader, an assistant director, a best boy, a gaffer. Now today they use that sometimes, but not a lot.
 
(Q): That same thing happened in Japan. In the ‘60s big time directors in Japan couldn’t make studio movies and all these talented directors made porno movies, which is called a pink film in Japan.
 
(Ron Jeremy): Japan’s films are so strange. They were so kinky. Japanese films were so strange. It took Americans that went over to Japan. I didn’t go, but my friends told me it was so weird in Japan. They wouldn’t show pubic hair, they wouldn’t show actual insertion, but they’d show urinating; you could see a guy peeing on a girl. We couldn’t show that, but we could show pubic hair and hard core. Now they show hard core in Japan.

I even know some Japanese actors and actresses. But it became a very popular market; Japanese love blond hair and big titty girls. They brought a lot of Japanese girls to America and I worked with a lot of them and the first thing they always say is oh hair, they touch my hair, because they’re not used to having guys with hairy chests. It always cracks me up.

Watch this flattery. Also, they weren’t used to men being this small. After being used to Japanese guys being hung like a bull moose it’s hard to get used to Americans who are hung like a ton of dynamite with a two inch fuse. How am I doing? Was my ass kissing good?
 
(Q): You should have shot a whole side movie of just him.
 
(Julie Davis): Let me tell you one of my biggest regrets, I have many of them, but on this movie I wish I would have written a bigger part for him.
 
(Ron Jeremy): I feel the same way.

 (Julie Davis): Just stop. Just stop. Stop for a minute. I didn’t because the hard thing with Ron is people know who he is, he’s an icon and he’s the most famous porn star in the world. We walked in, they were staring at him like he was Obama for 10 minutes. In the airport we had 10 policemen stop us so each one of them could take a photo. We couldn’t even get through the cab line. So how do you then put him in a movie?

Everyone knows who you are so you almost have to play yourself, especially in a movie like this. So I didn’t write a part for him but then I felt like he had to be in the movie. I love Ron, I love that his passion is acting. It started as acting. Yes, he loves to have sex, but it started as acting, it’s still acting, and I have a very soft spot for someone with a dream who will do whatever it takes. I want him to have that opportunity.

So I wish I would have done that in this. I wish I would have figured out a way to do that in the script, and I didn’t. And now to see how supportive he is in this whole press thing, he’s just an angel. The stars in the movie are clichés in the way that they behave with all this stuff. He’s like a Jewish mother; he’s proud, he’s loving, he’s supportive. So I wish I had given him a bigger part on many levels.
 
(Ron Jeremy): There’s always future movies.
 
 (Julie Davis): Yes I know, I know. But the next one won’t have anything to do with the adult film business so it’s going to be even harder because he’s going to be playing a part that has nothing to do with who he is and I don’t want it to throw people out of it.
 
(Ron Jeremy): My three biggest cult films, which are huge in colleges, I didn’t play me. In reversing order, “Detroit Rock City,” Adams film, which I play an MC of a club. Second biggest was “Orgazmo” where I played a henchman. And then the first one being “Boondock Saints,” where I played Vincenzo. No one even knows that I’m in it; they changed my look not to be Ron Jeremy. They gave me a weird hairdo, a blue leisure suit, and I played Vincenzo.
 
(Q): That’s why Troy Duffy(The Boondock Saints) is in your movie, the documentary.
 
(Ron Jeremy): Yes, because he put me in “Orgazmo” and he gave me a nice part. He wanted to put me in the sequel to come back in the dream scene, but I died and he thought it would be too hokey. But I’ve done films where I did not play me, and some there I have.
 
 (Julie Davis): I want to create something for him where he does not play who he is.
 
(Ron Jeremy): Adam put me in a film called “Night at the Golden Eagle” with James Cahn, I had to have a long beard and a tattooed neck, tattooed cheeks. My best friends didn’t even know it was me.
 
(Q): So you were saying before that this idea of doing this film has been there a long time. This script has been there for a while, right? Talk a little bit about that.
 
 (Julie Davis): This is based on when I first moved out to LA. I’m from Miami and went to Dartmouth and moved out to LA, and I didn’t know anybody, I couldn’t get a job, the job I had was just making no money, no benefits. The first real job I got where it was a real job with a 401K, great medical benefits, nice people, was at the Playboy Channel. I was a head editor at the Playboy Channel; I cut all the trailers and promos and produced them, wrote them and edited them.
 
(Ron Jeremy): Hardcore ones or softcore ones? They do both.
 
 (Julie Davis): What they did is they had a separate channel that didn’t go under the name of Playboy because Playboy’s thought of as classy. They had another channel where they took hardcore films…
 
(Ron Jeremy): Spice?
 
 (Julie Davis): No it wasn’t called Spice, and I forget what it was called. They took hardcore films from Vivid Video, they had a joint venture, so they took these hardcore films and I needed to cut them down to softcore promos.
 
(Ron Jeremy): Were they shot that way too?
 
 (Julie Davis): No they were shot hardcore. I got the hardcore and actually sometimes I would get hardcore dailies, which was shocking. Take one, take two, take three, take four, of a blowjob; I mean it’s bizarre. And I thought what am I doing here? I mean I really felt like Alice in Wonderland, and I knew I had to make it into a movie. It was a year that changed my life. It changed my life on so many levels; having that experience and being forced to reevaluate all of my prejudices and clichés.
 
(Q): Well you forget that porn has evolved in various weird ways over the years.
 
(Ron Jeremy): Imagine a poor girl after looking at schmekel – that’s nice Jewish penis – looking at schmekels all day long, then she goes home to her husband, hey honey. Oh no, please! Get back! Get that thing away from me! I’ve been looking at dicks all day! Look, she ordered a hamburger, she can’t order a hot dog. I’m telling you; she’s a new person because of this.
 
(Q): What do you think about the internet business in the porno industry? It’s totally changing the landscape.
 
(Ron Jeremy): The way it works is this, and you can take this to the bank. The economy isn’t killing porn, or the recording industry. Right now it’s gotten so bad with the recording industry and the porn industry that the sales of dvds and cds are so down and vhs is so gone that on Sunset Boulevard alone they have closed Tower Records and Tower Video, Virgin Megastore, Wherehouse, in a matter of weeks.

It got so bad that all the rock stars are touring and they don’t want to. Guns N’ Roses was what, five times platinum? Their last album, “Chinese Democracy,” didn’t even go gold. My rap song did better, and I suck. It’s destroying the business because if you can get stuff for free why are you going to pay for it? Uporn, porntubes, sexforfree.com, flirtfree.com. A good friend of mine, he spent three grand a year on porn, now he sees the same thing for nothing. He goes how do you guys survive?

A lot of us don’t. A lot of people are going out of business. They make their money through advertising and a few companies are trying to take over the internet. Their overhead is lower, they don’t have to duplicate anything, they don’t have a warehouse, they’ve just got a little office this big and they can be sending out things into the internet. The internet is hurting. You know what’s going to save the major industry?

Because even now films are on the internet before they even go to the theaters now. You just have to get one crooked projectionist who will give his reel to some crook, he makes a one inch master out of it, they can duplicate a million dvds and vhs all over the world. It’s disgusting and it’s crooked and here’s the saving grace for the mainstream film industry; 3D. You can’t pirate 3D yet. But the fact is it’s hurting the major industry as well.
 
(Q): Are you actually getting into the internet business a little bit?
 
(Ron Jeremy): I was on CNN and I was on BBC, and if you want to research it you’ll see the stories about this; it was really funny. I hate the internet; I just don’t like it. It taught me how to take care of my pet tortoise; that’s it. I’m a schoolteacher and I understand the value of it, I understand it’s necessary, but what bothers me is I was the victim of identity theft twice.

Someone tried to steel money out of my account using the internet. I’ve been the victim of fraud over and over again. To me it’s like nuclear energy; it’s really good to have but it also made the bomb. The internet can be a wonderful thing but it’s been misused so badly. Creeps, thieves, lowlifes, and just people who are just scumbags have become millionaires because of the internet, because they squat.

They’re squatters, they’re thieves, and they’re becoming rich, when under normal circumstances they wouldn’t hire them at this diner to be a dishwasher. But because they’re thieves and crooks they make money on the internet. That’s why I have a problem with it.
 
(Q): What was the worst experience you’ve had? were there any blooper shots?
 
(Ron Jeremy): I’ve been in a bunch of those blooper tapes. They’re very funny in porn. One’s called “Boobs, Butts, and Bloopers,” and they had a few of them. It’s very funny. The most common one is when the guy can’t get hard. “And action!” and the girl goes “He’s not ready. He’s not ready.” And you see the guy going “Just give a second. Another second.” And I used to goof around and I made a bloopers tape and said to the director “Keep rolling. Just get this. Don’t tell the guy the camera’s rolling.”

The guy’s sitting in a corner by himself. Just like in “Boogie Nights,” which I consulted, he’s going “Please god, let me get hard.” I said hold on a second, you haven’t been to church or synagogue in probably 10 years; you’re asking god for a favor like this? They play this after the credits. He’s not busy enough with war, crimes in the Mid East; you want him to stop what he’s doing and help you get your dick hard to fuck some girl in the rearend?

Which by the way is sodomy and he doesn’t like that either. That’s my favorite blooper. The other one is I was in “Caught from Behind Part Four.” The girl from Boston named Keli Richards, I have a telescope aimed into the sky, she steps right in front of it, and my favorite line: on a clear night, I can see Uranus.
 
 (Julie Davis): Oh god, I can’t go after you. You can’t do an interview with him.
 
(Ron Jeremy): I love that line.
 
(Julie Davis): He did a whole standup thing in the movie when we were shooting the ABN Awards to get the crowd to laugh, and it was so funny with all of his jokes. I couldn’t keep it in because…
 
(Q): That’s a bad choice of words.
 
(Julie Davis): Everything turns into that by the way. The more time you spend with him you can’t say anything. The movie was just too long. There wasn’t time for a Ron Jeremy standup routine at that point in the film, but it was so funny. He was so funny. You had that audience in stitches.
 
(Q): Besides your research you did with him who else did you talk to when you were thinking of developing the film?
 
(Julie Davis): Nina Hartley helped me a lot. Her and her husband, Ira Levine, who specializes in fetish, S&M stuff. I went to their apartment and watched them shoot for a whole day. I’d never been on a set before. I was an editor, I saw the stuff in the editing room. It’s different.
 
(Ron Jeremy): Just the two of them?
 
(Julie Davis): No, it was a bunch of girls. Kylie Ireland was one of them. It was really surreal. And what was really surreal was when I showed up on the set ,there was a guy I knew who was running sound, who was a struggling filmmaker who I had known a couple of years before that.

To see that that’s what he was doing for a living, it was like my heart broke. Because he was embarrassed that I was there. I said I’m here doing research and he was like I caught him what he was really doing for a living. The whole thing was just very strange, and it was their last shoot for Adam and Eve, because I guess this part of Adam and Eve that was making these fetish videos was going out of business and it was their last shoot for the series.

And they were so upset, they were such a family, they were like crying. They had just gone from all having sex and then they were crying in each other’s arms. It was such a surreal thing. They broke for lunch. I remember Nina was eating during lunch with a top on and no bottoms talking about the Iraq war, which was a scene that I had tried to get into this film. Half the scenes in the movie were cut out because we didn’t have any money.
 
(Ron Jeremy): She’s fairly intelligent too.
 
(Julie Davis): She’s very intelligent. She’s Jewish; one of the few Jewish female porn stars. For her sex is political. It’s a political statement, she’s very educated, she’s a nurse. She says that for her, her dream in life would be to have sex in Dodger Stadium with a million people watching. She’s a pure exhibitionist; she loves to be watched.
 
(Q): Ron, you have a degree and everything. Did you ever think of giving lectures in some of the colleges when you retire?
 
(Ron Jeremy): I do it all the time. Wolfman Productions books me all the time. In your computer right now you could put in ABCnews.com then put in Nightline. I did a big debate at Yale University and Nightline covered it. It’s on there. I lecture colleges all the time about sex and the law, about how to videotape. I lecture all the time.
 
(Q): Have you thought about giving a lecture in that line of work when you retire?

(Ron Jeremy): Well I don’t do porn as much as I used to. I do more regular stuff. I lecture about politics, the law, state laws. Or I do a comedy act. Or I debate the Triple X Church. Or I debate feminists, like Susan Cole.

End.