The May issue of AVN magazine turns the spotlight on 10 bold, confident and assertive female performers who talk about why life gets better after 35. Interviewed here is Julia Ann, a repeat winner of MILF Performer of the Year honors at the AVN Awards. Click here to see a copy of the digital edition. Julia Ann is pictured above in MILF Dreams, a 2016 release directed by Holly Randall for AE Films and distributed by Pure Play Media.
AVN: How did you decide to go into porn?
Julia Ann: It all started when I was on the road dancing with Janine as "Blondage," and we were trying to figure out how to make more money, and [Janine] said, "Ohmigod, there's this director who said that he wanted to shoot me, so I want you to meet him too, and then we'll do our first movie together," and that was Hidden Obsessions, [directed by] Andrew Blake.
What are your favorite types of movies? Least favorite?
I'm not much into the costumes, but I do like dialog, so if it's a very funny scenario, I really enjoy that. When I get to play somebody with a billy club and I get to abuse my authority, I like that. I've done BDSM, worked for Kink, but I wasn't on the dominant side, I was on the submissive side, but in the everyday films, I'm usually the aggressor, so yeah, I like it when I get to abuse my power a little bit.
Did you ever think you would be in the business long enough to make the transition from starlet to MILF?
There's actually videotape of me saying—because this is how stupid you are in your 20s—that "If I'm in the business when I'm 30, I'm a fuckin' loser." When I said it, I believe I was in a dressing room with Janine, and somebody came in and did the interview while we were dancing at a club, and sure enough, that came right out of my mouth, and I was probably 24, so, you know, "Out of the mouths of babes," I'm just sayin'. Like, you say things, and then later, you're like, "Really?"
Do you have tips on how enjoy longevity in the biz?
Longevity in porn takes just a little bit of sheer luck, I think. I never really strived; I was never, "I'm gonna be the biggest thing out there." I just thought, "Okay, this is my job and I'm making a living; I have to pay the bills." ... The other thought I have is, I think the biggest thing in the world is ... if you're a dick, nobody's going to help you. If you're having a slow month and you call someone and you're like, "Dude, man, I'm cool but there's this extra thing I'd really like to do; can you work me in the schedule?" if you're cool, they're like, "Yeah, of course!" Now, if you're a dick, they're gonna be like, "Yeah, sorry." So there's a thing to knowing that your job is just as important as the director, the PA, the makeup artist, the lighting guy, the cameraman, the grip, whatever; we're all in the same boat, and so if you're really awesome and you realize this, and everybody's treated with respect, then at the end of the day, if stuff goes wrong or things are slowing down—no matter what it is, you're first on their mind because you've been a good person. ... I do think there's something to that; I really do. If you act like a dick—and honestly, that's boys and girls—you act like a dick, there's no loyalty in that. You know, [former talent agent] Lucky Smith, back in the day, of Risque Business, said, "Better be nice to everybody on the way up because they're the same people you're gonna see on the way down."
What came first, MILF porn or pop culture references to MILFs?
The title might not have been there, but there's always been a fascination with older women. My godmother actually is a mainstream actress, Gigi Perreau, and to me, she was one of the original MILFs because in The Brady Bunch, I think it was Peter who had a crush on his teacher, and she was the teacher, and she was with a famous baseball player in it or something like that, so she was one of the first older women to be seen as sexually attractive. And then you had Class Act with Jacqueline Bisset, with Rob Lowe and stuff like that, and Andrew McCarthy was having sex with Rob Lowe's mother. So this has existed. I think what had to happen was timing. I think you had, first, the [mainstream] contract actresses that had to happen first, that brought a certain amount of mainstream activity to adult, and then the girls had to age into it. You had to have a combination of porn acceptance, adult content acceptance in the mainstream; you had to have more women who were interested in getting into it, and that comes with it being more mainstream—your average person just walking in and going, "I'm going to be a porn actress," There's a certain amount of legitimacy that had to happen in order for the people to show up, in order for the women to age into the role, because we didn't have the women aged into the role. And now we have a plethora.
In addition to her career in front of the camera, Julia Ann has been a makeup artist at times over the years but doesn't do that much now, unless she's shooting something for her websites and wants a certain look. She has two websites: JuliaAnnLive.com, which is part of the VNA network, and a new site, WomenByJuliaAnn.com, that is softer than the one targeted at men, which is more hardcore.
