An interview with five-time AVN Award winner - Penny Flame

By Troy Michael

In the adult business since 2001 Penny Flame has made more than 250 films and directed a handful. The sexy brunette born in Aurora Co, Flame is a five-time AVN award winner and has recently signed on to direct her own line of films for Vivid Alt at the recommendation of writer/director Tristan Taormino.

The 36C-25-35 star performer earned a scholarship to San Diego State University thanks to her 3.6 grade-point-average. Once at SDSU, Flame didn’t conform to the college dorm life and couldn’t find a decent paying job to afford a place of her own. She would pick up the college newspaper, The Daily Aztec, and read the 18-plus modeling ads in the back while walking home from class. Fed up with the hustle and bustle of college life, Flame sent in an innocent enough picture and waited for a response.

Flame received the call from a guy whose name she can’t remember and that is where it all began. During the first few years in the adult industry Flame only did girl on girl porn and solo scenes, then in 2005 this fiery beauty made her hardcore boy/girl debut in Red Light District’s Darkside and in turn won two AVN Awards.

Flame’s AVN Awards include Best Solo Sex Scene – Repo Girl (2005); Best Couples Sex Scene (Film) – Darkside with Herschel Savage; Best Group Sex Scene (Film) – Darkside with Alicia Alighatti, Dillan Lauren, Hillary Scott, Randy Spears and John West (2006); Best Actress (Film) – Layout; Best Couples Sex Scene (Film) - Layout with Tom Byron (2008)

It hasn’t been all fun and awards for Penny Flame as she has had a few major hurdles to overcome. As a result, this down and dirty California girl has become one of the most popular girls in the business. I had a chance to sit down with this beautifully honest, hilarious and sexy porn star while she was on vacation in Hawaii.

How are the islands treating you?

It is beautiful down here. I am getting ready to go watch the hump-backed whales. They come to Hawaii for the whoppee with the female whales.

It is like nothing I have ever seen before in my life. I am so hokey about it because I see them and I start jumping up and down and screaming and laughing like a little kid. I wanted to go out there in a canoe or a kayak to get close to the whales but my Mom thought they might eat me.

Maybe you could track down Dog the Bounty Hunter to help you get closer to the whales. He lives in Hawaii.

Yeah, I know right? I keep asking for help to set me up with the show because I think it would be so awesome. I want to hook up with Leland [Dog’s son]. We would be the sexiest couple with those big boots and the gun belt. Damn that is hot.

You are a voracious reader, what are you currently reading while you lay on the beach in your thong bikini?

I just finished Norman Mailer’s “American Dream.” He’s my boyfriend even though I am done with his book. I read about a book a week. Books have become like my iPhone, they are beginning to interfere with my relationships because when I do something I do it overkill.

You are also a accomplished painter. What inspires you?

I am bursting with something, I don’t know what.

Bursting with fruit flavor?

Mostly marijuana and red wine actually.  The best things I have done happened after tragedy or when I am stressed. Painting allows you to get it all out and fuck I am not depressed anymore.

As a painter, who is your favorite artist?

I absolutely adore [Salvador] Dali. He is this quirky, skinny guy with a funny mustache. He is just amazing. I don’t know where he gets it. I wish more than anything I could be like Dali. If I could have three of my fingers to be as good as his ten fingers, I would love that.

Do you think porn fans want their favorite stars to be a porn star all the time, or do you think the fans really want to get to know the star as a person?

It is difficult actually to be myself and be a porn star, I struggle with that. I don’t recognize me as a porn star and I don’t like to be recognized because I feel incredibly awkward.

For example, yesterday I was down at the beach lying in the sun and this guy comes up to me. He was stuttering, not that he was a stutter, but he was nervous. And I am not an unapproachable, because I am very friendly and down to earth. So he worked up the courage to come talk to me and I told him my real name and he repeated it three times for some reason. Maybe he knew me as Penny Flame.

You once said you were “an escape artist.” What did you mean by that?

I think a lot of it stems from moving every three to five years of my life. I used the drug addiction as an escape from my life, this July it will be four years clean. I just climbed out of a 200,000 dollar debt from a destructive lifestyle.

Anyway I never planted my roots anywhere really and that made me hard to get connected with people for a long period of time. So I escape. Even with men and relationships, I escape them. I have a hard time dealing with reality.

Do you do porn to escape the reality?

Yeah probably, but porn has been really good to me. I have been in the business for seven years now and I have only had one bad experience. That happened just the other day in fact. It fucked with my head a little, but I am ok with it now.

You have also had some great accomplishment winning five AVN awards, not many performers have racked up that kind of hardware. What do the AVN Awards or any awards really mean to you?

Five awards wow - Yay me! I put a lot of stock in it, not because I buy AVN stock or anything. AVN has been the one magazine that has supported my career even when way back and I was only doing girl/girl and not even using toys. I mean what else do porn performers have to show where we are going and where we have been.

Over your seven years you have had some hurdles to overcome. Did you ever imagine you would have achieved this type of success?

Never in a million years.  I just thought about being in porn as a hobby. I never really accept the fact that this is what I do for a living. I never consider myself like Stormy Daniels, who I love for her honesty. But honestly, it terrifies me, but I am learning after all these years, porn is what I am good at weather it is on film or directing.

How did your family feel about your decision to do porn while you were attending college?

When I got in the business I was really hesitant to tell me my mom. I didn’t do anything I was ashamed of and I still don’t so I told her I was just doing straight-forward sex scenes, nothing outrageous like bukakke or gang bangs. So she was ok with it, as long as I was happy. Mom and my Step Dad have supported me through considering this as a career. She knows I am open book and I want my parents to know what I am doing because I don’t want to hide it because I would be lying to myself and the ones I love.

Now you have a contract with Vivid-Ed thanks in part to Tristan Taormino. How did you two hook up?

Well Taryn Thomas is a really good friend of mine and she did one of Tristan’s Chemistry movies and suggested me to her. Tristan brought me in for Chemistry 4 and she liked how I was doing my work. She wanted me to start doing a line about pleasuring people in different fashions. She wants me to put the power in the women’s hands in the scenes, not the man’s.

At this point I sat down with Tristan Taormino to get her insight on the fabulous Penny Flame.

Did you and Penny work together before Chemistry 4?

No, I always wanted to work with her, and I got the chance to in both Chemistry 4 and The Expert Guide to the G-spot.

What made you refer Penny to Vivid Ed to direct her own series?

After Vivid-Ed launched, I had my eye out for a performer who could do her own line. It was a matter of working with a bunch of people, getting to know them, and looking for a good fit. Penny is just so wonderful, we really clicked and I knew I wanted to work with her.

What do you think Penny will bring to Vivid-Ed with her Guide to Series?

Penny’s movies for Vivid-Ed will be different from mine, which I think is important – to give viewers a diverse approach to sex education. Penny brings her larger-than-life personality, her sense of humor, and her unique level of sexual experience as a porn performer to her sex ed movies. Plus, she is a great role model for women: she’s sassy, she’s in control of her sexuality, and she has an unlimited curiosity and drive to learn new things. What more could I ask for?

For this writer, you couldn’t ask for too much more. The pairing of Tristan Taormino and Penny Flame as directors at Vivid-Ed. Now, back to Penny…

You mentioned Stormy Daniels before. Do you have any aspirations of going mainstream like she has?

That’s another one of those escape things for me. It is so cliché to be a porn star then they want to be a director and then go Hollywood. Everyone wants that. I would love to someday, but honestly I want to focus on what I am doing right now and I am good at it. I know I can be a good director or a good porn star.

Let’s go back to where it all started. You are a very sexual girl. Where is the strangest place you have ever had sex?

Oh that would be in an airport bathroom in Oakland with a guy I dated for a while. It was my senior year in high school­ - I picked him up wearing a trench coat and wearing nothing else.

You are also into rough sex, how rough?

I love to be thrown into walls, thrown anywhere, actually. I like when it gets on the edge of out of control. I also like choking, spitting, slapping. I like brute force, but it really takes a special man who knows how to do it and knows my signals to accomplish this.

What is a fantasy you haven't done yet?

I am a little fortunate because I work in the porn industry and get to fulfill any fantasy that I want. Also I am really impatient, so if I want something I want it now. I have very little patience for things I want to do so it limits fantasies.

How old were you when you first saw a porn movie?

I was 17. I never really “watched” them I am more about being “in” them.

What is one thing people would be surprised to know about you?

I am pretty shy believe it or not. I can’t talk to guys very well.

What is your biggest guilty pleasure?

That would be ice cream, pretty much anything Ben & Jerry’s and Cold Stone Creamery.

What did you want to be when you were a kid?

A dentist then I went to the dentist and I said fuck that. Then I wanted to be a doctor but I realized how much school they have to go to.

Why do you have a fear of microwaves?

They are the devil. Nothing should be cooked that fast.

I disagree with the principle. If it’s worth making its worth taking the time to cook it.