CHATSWORTH, Calif.—A Mason-directed star showcase is an event that almost always proves a critical/awards darling, as evidenced by her 2014 AVN Awards-heaped Anikka and much-exalted Asa Akira Is Insatiable trilogy.
So for Mason to call a new such offering one of her favorite movies she's ever made, you know it must truly be something to write home about, so to speak. And that's exactly what the reclusive director has to say about Allie, her latest from Hard X/O.L. Entertainment, in which showcased star Allie Haze not only performs anal for the first time, but performs it in every scene.
So impassioned is Mason about Allie, which streets Wednesday, that she's embarked upon an ultra-rare, albeit also ultra-restricted, promotional campaign for the movie, speaking about it on a podcast with her star for the Hard X blog and with AVN.
"Everybody knows what my favorite movies are, and this is right up there with those," Mason asserted. "I'm not one to hype the things that I do, but this is a very special movie. I just cannot stop thinking about how much [Haze] brought to this and how proud I am to even at this point promote this movie."
As illustration of just how much Haze did bring to the project, Mason divulged, "There were some 16-, 17-, 18-hour days, there were 3 a.m. call times. I know the last day, we both had probably two hours sleep and I believe her call time was 4 a.m. She was going to Australia the next day. There were just a lot of days where we didn't sleep and just did what we had to do."
But beyond the grueling hours, there's one more bit of information Mason revealed that paints Haze's total commitment to the endeavor in a whole other light: "Originally this movie was planned as only one anal, and then I got a call from [O.L. Entertainment] saying she wanted to do every scene anal. And I was like, 'Oh, ok ... this kind of changes everything.' It was totally her call and totally in alignment with her competitive, generous spirit."
To find out what led her to such an audacious decision, AVN turned to Haze herself, who explained, "You know, it's very common for girls when they do a showcase where they're starting something for the first time, they only do one scene, and I always feel like, I'm always paying attention to the fans, and they get really frustrated. They're like, 'Only one scene? Are you kidding me? We've been waiting this long and you're only gonna give us one scene and then we have to wait six months to see another one?' So I figured, I made everybody wait five years, so it seemed silly not to just go balls-to-the-wall and give them everything I had."
On top of that, however, Haze noted, "I wanted to do it for myself, to challenge myself, because I was so excited that my body was finally ready to do it ... I know for a lot of people it's a business move and things like this, but I was literally not physically capable of doing it, no matter how hard I tried. So to finally be able to conquer that for myself was a really cool thing for me, and I was like, 'I want to do this all.'"
Asked how she did manage to leap that hurdle, Haze mused, "Basically, not only in the business but in my personal life, I think I went from being a girl to a woman. And I always was sitting around waiting for the opportunity, like, 'OK, when it's time to grow up, people will start shooting me for it and I'll grow up.' And I turned 27, and I was like, 'It's time to grab the bull by the horn. I want to do this, and I'm going to do this, and I'm going to speak up and do this.' It really has a lot to do with the fact that I'm ready to grow up in this business. I can do more than what everybody thinks I can do. And I kind of wanted to show everybody that."
Mason expounded on that sentiment, offering, "I believe, as most people go through, [Haze] is going through another sexual evolution; this is the next step in that evolution. For me, there's a magic ingredient for a great movie and it's a performer who gives it her all sexually, a performer who will let you see her emotionally, wrapped around strong visuals. And when Allie showed up, she gave everything to all those elements. We take a journey with her that transcends the physical requirements of doing anal. I'm proud of her, I want her to get her recognition, I want her to be celebrated, and she's deserving of the celebration."
Another magic ingredient, of course, is choosing the right co-stars, and Haze reports that every one of hers in Allie holds very personal significance: "James Deen—that's the first time I've ever worked with him one-on-one. Ramon [Nomar] is my first guy that I did boy/girl with. Mick [Blue] was the first scene that Mason ever watched with me. Manuel [Ferrara] is one of the people that I trust the most, and he brings out sides of me that I didn't even know existed every time I work with him. And I thought nobody better than our current dirty girl, Adriana Chechik—new kid on the block, showing us all how it's done, taking it upside-down and sideways with grace and beauty, I was like, 'This is my girl.' And then Lexington Steele, I mean, he was my Darth Vader, so ...
"Each person had a piece of me, and I think that really comes across in the chemistry in the movie, because everybody knew that they were chosen for a reason."
Hammering home the overriding conviction, Haze attested, "Mason and I were really wanting to come out with a punch with this. There's not a lot of companies around still that would shoot a movie like this, so I'm very grateful for the fact that [Hard X] saw something in it and wanted to give me this opportunity."
Giggling, she added, "I feel like a little Disney princess that always wanted to dress up, and I finally got to do it."
