A version of this interview, conducted on the set of Karma Rx's star showcase, Bad Karma (Evil Angel), ran in the November 2019 issue of AVN magazine. See the digital edition here.
"I don't think I've had a day off in, like, a year," Karma Rx says with a rueful laugh before adding, "I'm taking four days off after today. I'm excited about it."
We're sitting by a poolside waterfall at a shoot house as she carefully smokes a cigarette, trying not to damage her makeup.
"My life has changed ... I want to say 'not much,' but I bought a house. Now my dogs have a yard to shit in, that's good. I love porn, but it wasn't a huge stretch for me. Nothing really changed that much in my life. I get to do what I love and get paid for it, which is cool."
When asked what she's done that she's proud of, Rx doesn't hesitate: "Double anal. I'm never doing it again. I told Stagliano, 'You can quote me on that. You got my only one.' The only double anal the world will ever see from Karma Rx. But I'm proud that I did it. I didn't even think I would even do anal. One thing that I found out about myself: I love d.p.s."
The production shooting today is a star showcase, titled Bad Karma. "I did my first d.p., my first interracial d.p., my first double anal, my first trans scene, and today we're doing a girl/girl strap-on anal. Which technically is my first of those, too. It's a bunch of firsts. It's been awesome. [Director] Chris [Streams] is amazing. I can tell that he put so much more into this than he needed to. He really cares about what he does. Just the amount of money that he spent on our fucking bathing suits today," she says, laughing.
Streams "clearly wants to make something awesome, and I appreciate that," Rx says. "Of course it benefits him, but it benefits me, too. I appreciate anybody going out of their way to make something that’s truly awesome, and I feel like this movie is going to be truly awesome. Not just because of the double anal—all of it. We've been at some super-cool locations, like a ranch with horses in the background. I got to dress up like a cowgirl—I make a great cowgirl, who would have known?—and we were at the coolest fuckin' nightclub that I've ever seen in my life. I was on top of two barstools, doing some crazy thing, trying to look like it was comfortable ... but the shot looked great, and that's what counts.
"The IR d.p. was a night scene. I was a flasher with really gorgeous lingerie under a trenchcoat. We did a lot of shots of me walking around downtown L.A. at night, flashing. The scene was shot in a super-cool loft with windows. Everything has been super-pretty. Sex is sex, and porn is porn, but there's a difference between fucking somebody on a couch with a white wall and the aesthetics of what we've done for this movie ... plus the double anals and d.p.s and trans scenes."
She says, using a posh accent, "I only do d.p.s in fancy places."
You had never done a d.p. How was it doing something new on camera? "Everybody told me I was going to love d.p.s., but I'm still wrapping my mind around anal. I like it sometimes, sometimes I'm not sure. I thought d.p.s would be harder. Not the case, it turns out. As soon as the other one went in, I was like 'Oh ... I don't think I'm going to have a rate for this. I'll do this for free, every day.' Don’t ask me how long the scenes were, because it felt great and I wasn't paying attention. I had no idea I was shooting porn at that point. It was amazing. D.p. over anal, every time. If the companies really love me, they'll hire me for d.p.s."
Was it different shooting the scene with a trans performer? "I've always been interested in trans girls. They're kind of perfect to me. The industry has weird stigmas about stuff, so I'm glad that for whatever reason I can work with trans people and not get shit for it. It was different from what I thought it would be. I didn’t know what to expect as far as the dynamic, and it was like working with a woman—but she had a dick. I felt like I should be fucking her, which I did. It was with Natalie Mars, and she's pretty submissive. I'm not very submissive. That was a human chemistry thing with her. I like to go with the chemistry that develops."
Natalie Mars and Karma Rx in Bad Karma (Chris Streams/Evil Angel)
"I want to try everything, but I don’t want to do things that I'm not into. Some things I've done once, and it's not really for me. Some of the incest stuff doesn’t work for me. It just doesn't fit. I can't play a child. If you put me in pigtails, I look like a 40-year-old whore in pigtails. I don’t play a daughter well. I can't play a victim, I can't do 'Oh no, what are you doing? This is so uncomfortable and wrong.' If you need me to look like I'm having a terrible time having sex—hire somebody else. We're actors, and I'd like to be able to do all of it, but some of it just doesn’t mesh with me. I don't do it well and I don’t want to create products that are mediocre. I'd rather do the things that I'm good at and that I enjoy."
"I've always had good boundaries, and I think porn made my boundaries way better. Of course everybody wants you to shoot everything, and they're going to keep asking. If you can’t say no, you're going to wind up doing a whole bunch of things you don’t want to do. That could wear on you. It would wear on me. Some people are made for porn, and some aren’t—and I feel like I was made for porn. If anything, it's had a positive effect on me. I care more about people. I care more about world events. It seems weird that porn would do that to me, but it has. I've never really been a part of society, I don’t feel, because of other choices I've made in my life, but porn is really a small community, and you kind of stay within that community. And the more successful you are in porn, it seems like, the less you can assimilate with the rest of society. I never really wanted to be a part of it anyway. I like our little porn community."
Katrina Jade and Karma Rx in Bad Karma (Chris Streams/Evil Angel)
"I'm proud of most of the movies that I've done. I give 100 percent in every scene that I do. I'm proud of all of my work. I don't know if that sounds conceited but I try really hard. I'm not saying it's better than somebody else's but I gave my all, in all of it.
“I just did a big feature and I don't think I can act, but they gave me a part that was really easy for me to assimilate. It was one of those four-day, 16-hour day shoots and I couldn’t have been happier to be there for 16 hours. The storyline was so awesome and the characters were so awesome. I'm very much looking forward to seeing it. It was Lena Paul's first directing feature, for Digital Playground. She's great. She's close enough to performing that she definitely remembers. She asked me if I needed a cigarette in the middle of our dialogue. 'I do. How did you know? Good for you.'
I'd never been involved in acting before. I'm genuine. I don’t act when I'm fucking. I can keep up a character if I need to but it’s still genuine. I'm incorporating a character into what's already there. The emotions are genuine and the pleasure is genuine. I don't fake orgasms. I refuse to, because I don’t like to reinforce shitty behavior. If you suck at sex you should get better at it. I want to see genuine female orgasms. I watch myself and I know it's not bullshit."
What are you looking forward to? "Besides more d.p.s? I feel like the last six months or so I've branched out a lot more. I was just doing boy/girl and girl/girl, and now I'm doing anal, d.p., trans scenes. I want all of it. I want more of the same, I want new stuff, I like exploring the things that I'm into, or not into. Like the d.p.s. Who knew? I would like to do a lot of those before I quit porn, because I don’t think I'm going to have that many opportunities for a good d.p. in real life. You've got to wrangle together three people, and the dicks need to work right next to each other, and nobody can get jealous. That sounds like a mess in real life. I don’t know where people go after porn. I have the best sex of my life, every day. I mean, I can find a job, but is sex just gonna suck? I'm planning to stick around as long as they'll have me. I'll do GILF porn."
