Sarah Miller
LOS ANGELES (TNA) – Even though porn star Jenna Jameson is going legit, she's still naughty.
Her first mainstream Hollywood movie, “Zombie Strippers,” casts Jameson as, naturally, an undead pole dancer. She believes the horror flick is the perfect transition from porn because she has always been turned on by gore.
"Horror movies always kind of made me have that weird, yummy, sexual feeling," she said. "I used to sneak out of my bedroom at night and go turn on HBO. My favorite movie was John Carpenter's ‘The Thing' because I loved the fact that it made it so I couldn't sleep. It freaked me out so bad that I couldn't sleep. I loved that adrenaline rush. Obviously, I'm a porn star, so I have a thing with adrenaline."
Jameson also knew that her porn fans would accept her in a movie like "Zombie Strippers."
"Of course everybody's going to love this movie, especially if you're male," she said. "Once I started reading the script, I was like, 'Wow, this is so telltale of what my life has been, fighting against the establishment, being a rebel, never letting anybody tell me who I should and shouldn't be.'"
With a craving for human flesh, the zombie stripper eats her customers in the private lap dance booths. It was a change for Jameson – who in her previous films was usually the one being eaten - but she relished the opportunity to sink her teeth into something new.
"I always wanted to eat a man," she said. "I got to be a powerful girl in a horror movie. It wasn't just like this little girl getting her head ripped off or throat ripped out."
Her character also quotes the work of German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, which allowed her a tad more depth than her previous films.
"I kind of fancy myself a smart chick, so I went into it thinking I'm well versed, I know what I'm talking about. Then [director Jay Lee says], 'Yeah, you're going to be reading Nietzsche in the opening scene' and I'm like, 'Who?' So I tried to do a little bit of studying when it came to getting ready for my character."
There is no explicit penetration in "Zombie Strippers," but there is still plenty of skin. Nudity will always be a part of Jameson's career.
"For me, nudity is incredibly expected," she said. "People know more about my body than I know. If nudity comes along with it and it's called for, then word. It's very easy for me. God knows, I think you work this hard on your body and you should show it off."
Playing a stripper on film was easy because Jameson began her career as a pole dancer and continued to dance while acting in porn.
"In the stripper world, if you can climb the pole to the top, you're a stud," she said. "I'm like a monkey."
Set in a future where George W. Bush is serving a fourth term and has outlawed stripping, the film injects political and philosophical digs in between tits and gore.
"It was really important because my whole entire career has been based upon kind of taking cover from the establishment," Jameson said. "When Bush came into office, I had just started Club Jenna. All of a sudden, I had this glaring spotlight on me from the right wing psychos saying, 'You're going to go to jail. This is obscenity.' I really spent a good portion of my career worried about whether or not I was going to go to jail."
To prevent strip clubs from being forced underground as in "Zombie Strippers," Jameson encourages her fans to be politically active.
"Support your local stripper," she said. "I think that really it's about living free. Whenever there's something that bothers you, when it comes to what's going on in your community or what's going on in your government, you need to do something about it. Don’t just sit there and frickin' complain about it. Go out and do something about it because it makes a difference."
Jameson did just that when politicians in Scottsdale, Ariz., threatened her own strip club, Babe's Cabaret, in 2005.
Mary Manross, who was mayor at the time, banned lap dances, which would have crippled business for Babe's. So Jameson helped rally 52 percent of voters to overturn the ordinance.
"She thought that I was going to be bringing drugs and prostitution," she said. "This is what people think of my industry, people that aren't in the know. It's kind of embarrassing that people can have such lack of knowledge. So I went and I fought city council and I won and she ended up stepping down.
“She's no longer mayor, which is amazing. It just goes to show that one person can make a difference when it comes to those kinds of things. So vote."
"Zombie Strippers" will also be the final exhibition of Jameson's old body. Retiring from porn meant retiring her porn-sized breasts, too.
"I had my breast implants removed last year," she said. "That was partially because I didn't feel comfortable with them, but also it was kind of a rite of passage for me. Retiring, I felt like it was something that kind of held me back as a woman. I didn't feel as real as I do now."
In this new phase of her career, Hollywood movies have given Jameson a greater thrill than porn.
"I think that after 13-14 years in the adult industry, I was becoming somewhat jaded a little bit, bored," she said. "So I was excited to do something that I was super passionate about. I really, really loved the idea of being a scream queen. This was the ultimate."
"Zombie Strippers" opens Friday, April 18 in select cities.