The heretofore M.I.A. Best New Starlet winner of 2007, Naomi, finally surfaced Thursday for an in-depth interview with AVN.com.
Saying she learned of her win through a girlfriend who called to congratulate her, Naomi said that she was "quite shocked" about it, but grateful and flattered.
Without any further ado, then, we transcribe for you below the remainder of our conversation with Naomi:
AVN: If you had been at the Awards Show and been able to make an acceptance speech, what would you have said?
Naomi: Probably just "thank you." I don't know anything else I would have said. I can't really sit there and name every producer that I've worked with, or every talent or anything like that; I'd probably just say "thank you," or maybe make a special thank you to Derek [Hay], just because he's my agent and he got me work. That's probably it. I'm a pretty simple person.
AVN: You've said that you're very shy — did the prospect of having to go up on stage and accept an award terrify you?
Naomi: I wouldn't say it terrified me … I just have my times. If I've got things going on in my life, it makes me really focused on that, and because of that, I become more reserved, and when I become more reserved, I get more shy than normal. If I have a lot of stuff stable and secure in my personal life, I have more energy and ability to put towards going out and giving energy to other people. It just really drains me when I go in public and I'm around a lot of people, so because I know that, when I have other things I need to focus on, I reserve myself, and consequently I become quite shy. So it's just a balancing for me, it's a balancing to preserve my energy. I'm very susceptible to getting depressed around other sad people, and I want to help them so badly, so when I have things that I'm working on in myself, I get very uncomfortable being around a lot of people, because I know I'm quite powerless over trying to help other people, so I just have to pull myself away from that situation altogether, and make myself less susceptible.
AVN: How do you explain being able to do what you do for a living if you're such a shy person?
Naomi: Well I'm not always shy; it's only when I have other things that I have to deal with in my life. For lack of better words, I maliciously reserve myself, because otherwise, I get too overwhelmed, and I can't handle it. Basically, when I work, I force myself to overcome it. But working, of course, it's a lot of energy and chemistry that you put into it, so it's draining. You have to prepare yourself. I just basically prepare myself for work, and then I'm OK.
AVN: Have you been getting phone calls congratulating you on the Award since you got back into town?
Naomi: Well, I really only have one person that even has my phone number, 'cause I'm a very private, to-myself-type person naturally, so just that one person called me [laughs].
AVN: What do you think it means to win Best New Starlet?
Naomi: I guess exactly what it means — out of the new people that came in, I guess they chose me because they liked [me]. I'm not really reading too much into it. I don't want to say this, because it's probably going to be interpreted the wrong way, but I really just don't see what the big deal is. I'm doing porn. I divorced my ex-husband, I quit my job, said I'm going to do this; I didn't expect to win any awards or be famous or even be known as much as I am. I'm grateful for the opportunities and everything … beyond that, I really don't see what the big deal is. That sounds really bad, I know.
AVN: Do you want to comment at all on having not been at the Awards Show?
Naomi: Like I said, I didn't see what the big deal is, I wanted to go home, I had things to do at home, and I kind of just said to myself, "You know what? What are you sitting around here for, then? Just go!" I don't know, I just see so many bigger fish to fry than spending money on a dress and going out and doing this whole spiel. So I just didn't, because I guess I kind of feel like the greatest good for me and for the people that I take care of was not to sit around and spend all of this time and energy doing this, versus going home and getting things together back at home.
AVN: What are your hopes for your career at this point?
Naomi: I kind of feel like I'm a little bit powerless over that situation, because it's really not up to me where my career goes. It's really who wants to hire me, and who wants me [over] who's new and what they have to offer. All I can do is be myself like I have been, and perform genuinely like I have been, and just ride the train until it goes off into the sunset. I kind of feel like it's not 100 percent within my jurisdiction to control. I mean, I see a lot of wonderful performers and beautiful girls not working and vice versa. It's what people want, not necessarily what I have to offer.
AVN: But you do have every intention to keep doing this?
Naomi: Yeah, I would love to keep doing it. Unless I don't have an option to, and then of course I'll have to go and do other things.
AVN: Do you have a bunch of stuff lined up to do now that you're back in town?
Naomi: No, not really. I mean, that's I guess why I really don't see what the big deal is that I won an award. Nothing's really changed [laughs]. I guess I've got some other things lined up outside of porn, just as backup plans.
AVN: What was your job before you got into porn?
Naomi: I was a legal litigator. Not anything big time, I just basically was an analyst, and a lot of the attorneys liked my summaries, so they would ask me to do rebuttals so they could go and litigate.
AVN: Is that something you would ever see yourself going back to?
Naomi: I definitely want to finish my law degree, 'cause it's only like a year left. And I guess I kind of sometimes for more mental stimulation — just because I don't really get a lot of it in the business — I read a lot. But when I get my law degree, I don't think that I would go back to litigating, because in order to litigate the cases that you want to or to choose the cases that you want to, you really have to be a partner or part of your own firm, and I don't think that my soul can handle defending bad people anymore. So I would probably just do something more along the lines of being a debater or a public defender … more just sticking up for people's rights, like an activist type thing. 'Cause I really do love helping people and defending people.
AVN: You've probably gotten asked this a million times, but what was it that made you decide to jump into porn from doing that?
Naomi: Quite a plethora of reasons, but I guess some of the pivotal reasons that kind of broke the camel's back was just I had to get away from my ex — even though I loved him, I knew he was a bad person, and he was in cahoots with one of my bosses, and I felt really uncomfortable, like I would be quite a hypocrite if I left my ex and didn't quit my job — and I kind of was sickened by the whole legal profession at the time; and in combination [with] that, I had only been with one guy my whole life. I was a very sexual person, but I don't really have the principality to just go and meet people and sleep around, so I wouldn't, and I didn't really have the guts to even accept someone else's phone number. And then I suppose in addition to that, my whole life, I've always been more sexually explicit than others, and I've always been put down or discriminated because of my freedom with my human body, and I really got tired of people putting me down and offending me because I wanted to be sexually free, and I kind of felt like in a weird way, if I went and did porn, it would almost liberate me from all the negative connotation that sex has, and people see it as. And if I was one person in a million walking out there and saying, "It's the human body, it's the essence of humanity, take a chill pill," then I would love to be a part of that.
AVN: Do you think having done porn will have any negative ramifications for you if you decide to go back to pursuing law as a career?
Naomi: Of course, yeah. No doubt about it. It's human nature — no matter how much you want to believe [otherwise], it's inevitable.
AVN: How would you combat that?
Naomi: Well, like I said, I won't be fighting in a courtroom anymore, I'll be an activist, and I would be standing up for things. In [such] a career, you really utilize all of your past experiences as your character, to develop or to strengthen whatever you're defending. So I think it would be advantageous to me.
AVN: You said you were a sexually free person before getting into porn, but you'd only been with one partner — how did that manifest itself then?
Naomi: I was always wanting to have sex, I was very orgasmic. I would walk down the street, and people would just constantly tell me, just straight-up bluntly, "I always think of [sex] when I see you." I'm just very free and open with my body, and I kind of had sexuality oozing out of me. I'm very comfortable with it, I'm very comfortable with enjoying and pleasuring, and allowing people to enjoy that. I don't think it was necessarily [that] I did this crazy thing, I was just very mature with my sexuality, and I really wanted to please the partner I was with, I wanted them to enjoy themselves, I wanted to enjoy myself, and just have really great, intense, steamy sex.
AVN: Since you've gotten into the industry, what have you experienced that has enhanced that, or that you hadn't dreamt of before?
Naomi: I never even really knew that there was such a thing as anal sex. I didn't know that people even did that, like I couldn't fathom even the thought of doing that. So I guess that was something new.
AVN: Is that something that you now enjoy?
Naomi: Yeah, I really do enjoy anal sex. I like it a lot.
AVN: What about working with girls — had you ever been with a woman before you got into porn?
Naomi: No, I hadn't, and I really, really enjoy having sex with women, I do. I think that it's a different type of sex than you have with men, but I do enjoy it. I haven't really done a whole lot of girl stuff; I guess people don't hire you to do girl stuff if you do something more. That's what my agent told me. I've asked him a couple of times in the past, like, "Derek, how come I don't really do a lot of girl/girl things? I mean, I really do enjoy it." And basically, they just say to me, "Well you don't really work a girl/girl scene if you'll do a d.p."
AVN: Have you been approached by anybody about signing a contract, and what are your thoughts on the matter?
Naomi: I was approached in the past, like in the very beginning of my career, and that was a thing I wasn't interested in, because I was doing so well, and I really didn't see the benefit of it at all. Especially because the major benefit of having a contract is to get known and to have stability, and I had a lot of stability, and I didn't really care if I was known or not, I wasn't in it to get famous. So I wasn't really looking towards it. But I think now that I've kind of been in for a while, I would definitely welcome a contract, just to have that security.
AVN: Lastly, is there anything that you just want to put out there to the masses?
Naomi: You know, before I got into the business, my whole life I have been very, very lean, and right before I got into the business, I was sick and so I gained weight, and so when I got in the business, I was overweight. And now I've gone back to my weight, and I get a lot, a lot of people telling me, "What happened to you?" and, "Why are you so skinny?" and, "Gain weight," and I personally take it as very offensive, because I would never wish anybody to be unhealthy or uncomfortable in their own skin for my own benefit. And I think it's rude and offensive to ask somebody to gain weight, have high blood pressure, potentially put you at risk for having diabetes, and be less mobile so that I can look at you a little chunkier. I think people should be able to accept me for who I am, and it hurts my feelings when people ask me, "What happened to you?" like something bad happened to me. This is who I am, and I'm so happy, and I feel so good, and I'm athletic — I can run 10 miles without getting out of breath — and I love being this person. It's one thing if you're overweight, but I just truly don't think it's nice to tell somebody you don't like the way they look if there's nothing wrong with them. So I definitely want to send that to the masses, because it really, really hurts my feelings. It does. And I don't think it's fair that I should have to fight myself in accepting myself when I know there's nothing wrong with me.
