LOS ANGELES—Giselle Palmer admits that going hardcore has been on her mind for years.
“I watched the industry for a long time,” Palmer says. “I was like I’m not going to do that yet, not until I finish my undergraduate [degree]—to make sure that it’s really something I want to do.”
The self-described “big porn fan” graduated last summer with a degree in Mathematics, but rather than seek out a 9-to-5 in the corporate world, she began thinking about how she could go pro in Porn Valley.
“I was like yeah, this itch is not going away. I really want to do it,” Palmer recalls.
“So I started web-camming to raise money to go to the AVNs in January just to meet producers, directors, agents.”
The ambitious 22-year-old native of Houston arrived at the AVN Adult Entertainment Expo in Las Vegas armed with a grasp of who’s who in the porn biz and a go-for-it attitude. She left Sin City with her first sex scene already complete—a session with Ryan Driller for Naughty America on the day after the AVN Awards Show—and a plan to follow-up with one of the industry’s leading talent agents, Mark Spiegler, whom she met on the AEE show floor at Hard Rock Hotel & Casino.
“I just noticed him. I walked up to him and was like, ‘Hey, you don’t know me, but I really want to do porn.’ He was like, ‘Email me.’ Which is a lot from Spiegler for just some random girl walking up to him. But I didn’t really understand that yet,” Palmer says.
“I’ve been a porn fan for a long time and I love Sasha Grey and Lorelei Lee and Asa Akira. I knew what he looked like. He’s easy to spot, too—he’s Mark Spiegler. So I just walked up to him. I was really nervous. We took a picture together and he was like, ‘Email me the picture and I’ll remember you.’
“I got back to him a couple months later after I tried self-booking some stuff. But I found most everyone just wanted me to come for go-sees in LA and I was living in Texas.”
She met Spiegler for dinner on April 21 in LA.
“She seemed pretty bright and willing to listen and willing to try pretty much everything,” Spiegler tells AVN. “She’s kind of like a secret pervert. I said fine, I’ll give her a shot.”
Palmer was thrilled.
“The day he took me on I just couldn’t really wrap my head around it,” she says. “I always saw Spiegler Girls and I looked up to them and I thought their performances were amazing.”
She adds, “He does a lot of intensive screening. He kind of asked me a little about my lifestyle, what I like to do. Why I wanted to do this. He says he always tries to talk girls out of it in the beginning unless they’ve done it before. But I was dead-set on it.”
Now Palmer’s dance card is full—she is booked through August 7th—with upcoming scenes scheduled with Mick Blue, Jonni Darkko, Zero Tolerance, BlacksonBlondes and Kink, not to mention repeat bookings with New Sensations, Brazzers, James Deen and Mike Adriano.
“I’ve been shooting with so many people that I have wanted to shoot with for so long. Just a lot of really great experiences,” Palmer says. “It’s been really surreal because I’m like living my dream and it’s all happening so fast.”
It helps that the blonde-haired, blue-eyed star-in-the-making so far has been receiving high marks from producers and directors, according to Spiegler.
“Everybody says she’s really good,” he says. “Also she’s really cute, reliable and smart. People like her.”
Just two months into doing porn full-time, Palmer will be featured in dozens of sex scenes dropping in the next couple months, including new content from Girlfriends Films, Blacked, Tushy, Vixen, Reality Kings, Digital Playground, Mofos, Wicked Pictures, BurningAngel, Dark X, Girlsway, Swallow Salon, Elegant Angel and Teen Fidelity, among others.
Even though at the time of this interview she only had one anal scene on her resume—with Mike Adriano—there are more on the way.
“I always loved anal in my personal life,” Palmer confesses. “I had a little bit of experience, not a whole lot. Enough to be comfortable to at least try to do it. I was really nervous because he’s pretty big.”
She continues, “I always liked more intense porn. I watched rougher porn, and more fetishy stuff, gonzo—just like real sex. And Evil Angel, they specialize in that sort of thing. I was also attracted to [Adriano’s] set and the way he designs it all. It’s very colorful and young and poppy. I like his aesthetic and the kinky sex.”
Palmer graduated from high school in three years at the head of her class, earning a full academic scholarship to a university. A member of the Math Honors Society, she would go to Math competitions on the weekends.
“I had always loved math,” she says. “That was always one of the things I excelled in.”
Her curriculum in college included courses such as “Algebraic Structures I & II, Real Analysis, Differential Equations, all the Calculus Sequences, Numerical Analysis I & II, Software Design, Number Theory, Cryptography."
“There’s probably a couple more in there,” Palmer says matter-of-factly. “Just like the upper division Math, nothing too crazy.”
She also took a lot of Computer Science courses as she zeroed in on a career in programming.
“That’s always an option. That’s something I have for myself. It’s something I’m glad I did,” Palmer says. “But I wanted to explore myself and my sexuality and do something I always wanted to do before I could never do it again.
“I could always be a computer programmer but I can’t always be a porn actress so… I would’ve felt like I never really used my life to its full potential if I had never at least tried it.”
Now that she has a taste of it Palmer also has come to the realization she prefers to be her own boss.
“I have a really entrepreneurial spirit so I like not really having a boss,” Palmer says.
“We don’t work for our agents, our agents work for us, technically. I know a lot of people think they work for their agent but I keep having to tell them that they don’t.
“As someone running their own business I don’t think I could ever go back to working for someone else. I have a lot of different ideas about how to use my technical skills either in the adult industry or something similar that I could cross over to. I’m interested in the tax industry.
“I might just become a CPA or something and do taxes for the adult industry. That’s just an idea.”
Palmer chose her stage name Giselle because that was her name in French class; her last name is an homage to the central character in the classic early ’90s TV series, Twin Peaks—Laura Palmer.
In Twin Peaks, which was recently rebooted by Showtime, Palmer is a high school student leading a double life whose death ignites the narrative of the series.
“A new episode just came back last Sunday, it’s perfect exposure for me,” Giselle says. “Before it was a 26-year-old TV show, a cult classic. I feel like now that it comes back that people will know who I’m talking about.”
Palmer may just be getting started, but she’s already thinking ahead. She intends to use her education and technical skills for a good cause someday.
“I’m very much a long-term planner, always have been,” she says. “That’s just how my mind works. I’m very analytical and always thinking of the next step and the potential effects of that and then how to handle any situation.”
If all goes according to plan—and it usually does with Palmer—she’d like to use her future platform to give back to the adult industry.
“I’ve had a few ideas about helping people in the industry with my skills afterwards. Like I said doing taxes for them because I know there’s so many people that can’t find adult friendly tax preparers or CPAs. But I also had a few ideas about a privacy and security consulting business because I’ve seen so many people get their hard-earned social media and personal accounts—their cell phones taken over by people because they know they’re a vulnerable target,” Palmer says.
“I would love to do that at some point as well. That requires someone to know you and trust you.”
Meanwhile, there are several different performers who have piqued her curiosity.
“I want to work with Manuel [Ferrara] a lot... Ramon [Nomar]. I’ve seen his scenes and they’re amazing. Markus Dupree is always a great performer. I’m excited to work with him. There’s a lot of girls that I want to work with,” Palmer says.
“There’s a lot of girls on the Spiegler Girls roster that I’m waiting to get my hands on. I really want to work with Karlee Grey and Maddy O’Reilly because she’s like really dirty and submissive like me. So I feel like we can do some really crazy stuff together. ... Angela White. I’m obsessed with Angela White. She’s so beautiful, so smart, so business-minded. She’s like a true role model for me. She’s like what I want to be eventually in the industry.
“I would also love to direct one day but I don’t necessarily have my eye on it. But if it came around. If some kind of opportunity came up one day it would be fantastic.”
Palmer adds, “I’m just now starting to realize that I am a creative person, way more than I thought. And I feel like school kind of suppressed that for me. Because I’ve been in school since I was 5 with like no break—kindergarten to college. So that’s all I know.
“So I feel like that creativity and that kind of desire to perform and put something new out there and something that’s pushing my boundaries and the boundaries of the adult industry is just…it’s really finally having a chance to come out.”
For now, one thing is sure. “I would like to keep performing for as long as I can get hired," Palmer says.
“I really want to continue to grow with my performances and build a brand and a following and a name for myself that has some sort of weight."
Photo by Jeff Koga
