This feature appears in the August issue of AVN magazine. Click here for the digital edition.
LOS ANGELES — Briana Banderas worked as an elite personal trainer for VIP clients in Moscow, Russia prior to starting her porn career.
“I liked it a lot,” she says. “I still workout, it’s part of my life.”
Banderas keeps her body in top shape in part so she can do acrobatic positions in sex scenes—a talent that has become her calling card.
With curves for days and an appetite for hardcore, the Russian star has been a hot commodity in Europe in the past six years. But now she is ready to take her emerging brand to new heights, telling AVN in July that she wants to penetrate the U.S. market.
“I want to work in America because I want to make my name bigger and work for big companies and become famous worldwide,” Banderas says.
It wouldn’t be wise to bet against her.
Briana has racked up 100-plus credits in Europe—60 for Legal Porno—in addition to several no-holes-barred scenes for Reality Kings, Evil Angel, Private, Cum Louder, PornBox, Harmony Films and MetArt.
The 25-year-old performer visited America for the first time earlier this summer, spending time in Miami and L.A., where she expanded her network of contacts, took some meetings and attended a few high-profile industry events.
Banderas, who is fluent in Spanish from watching telenovelas, launched her career in March 2016 in Mexico, but it was three months later in June that her life changed in a profound way.
She wanted to come to America that summer but did not get approved for a visa. So she made her second shooting trip to Prague, Czech Republic, staying at Legal Porno’s model house with a large group of other performers. One of those performers was Marco Banderas, the Uruguayan “Porn Superman” who has logged thousands of scenes since 2003.
Marco had recently moved to Europe from L.A.
“I was bored [in L.A.],” Marco tells AVN. “Every day was the same and I decide to go to Europe to do something different.”
Call it fate.
He recalls how he was in the kitchen and first saw Briana walk from her room to the bathroom. When he saw her ass, he said to himself, “She’s Colombian? Brazilian?”
They shared some small talk—in English—and the next day Marco took part in Briana’s five-guy gangbang. After the shoot finished, they headed to the bar, where at one point Marco reached for Briana to hold her hand. The rest is history.
“Five months later, we were married,” Marco says.
“It was perfect connection,” Briana adds.
Now the couple lives in Alicante, Spain, moving there two years ago from Barcelona, where they starred together in live sex shows at the notorious Bagdad Theatre.
Marco was no stranger to performing hardcore in front of an audience, having done so for three years in the early 2000s before he came to L.A. to go full force into professional porn.
Briana says she is shy and reserved off the set, but when the lights come on and it’s time for action, “I change to a totally different person.”
She knows her ability to do crazy positions is not common and is always working on becoming even more limber with stretching exercises and gym workouts. When she’s at home in Spain, she also practices pole dancing.
“If I can improve it, it would be great,” she says. “I want to do it professional. I like to dance. I enjoy it.”
A dedicated vegan, Briana doesn’t drink, smoke, watch TV or spend money on frivolous items. Instead, she likes learning how to invest, reading business and self-improvements books in Spanish or Russian.
“I don’t pay my Netflix subscription anymore,” Briana says. “I prefer to read or watch something educational…”
Briana overcame eating disorders when she was 16-17, suffering from anorexia, bulimia and binge-eating. It took her more than three years to full resolve her issues and get back to a healthy lifestyle.
“I did a lot of terrible things to myself,” she says. “I would cut myself. ... I didn’t like my body.
“When I met [Marco] I still had these problems. ... He would say, ‘Why you do this to yourself?’ But he support me and he taught me a lot and he accepted me like this and I think his love and support helped me.”
She adds, “When I met him I was the same weight but less muscles and more fat and in the first six months after I met him I gained more weight because we were eating in the restaurants and drinking wine.”
Briana says conquering that difficult time in her life built her character.
“I think I became a very strong person and I learned a lot of things about myself,” she says. “And now my life is better.”
