LOS ANGELES — “The Canyons” has come and (mostly) gone from theatres, but its leading onscreen psychopath James Deen remains in the limelight: Only yesterday, the porn superstar was featured in a several-thousand-word BuzzFeed article lauding him for his stanch devotion to porn.
“Contrary to what you might have heard, James Deen is not an actor,” BuzzFeed reporter Louis Peitzman begins the article.
But wait — wasn’t he in that big, mainstream Hollywood thing, “The Canyons,” acting? Peitzman, using the words of Deen and others, including “Canyons” director Paul Schrader, illustrates that while Deen sometimes puts on an actor hat, he isn’t going to sell his soul just to be part of the mainstream entertainment machine.
And, beyond the comprehension of many mainstream and porn actors alike, Deen claims that for him, porn is a “career and a job," which he believes is more taxing than "regular" acting."
“I do adult films,” he said. “This is what I want to do. This is what I’ve wanted to do my entire life. I have no desire to leave. If more mainstream things come up and they’re good, I will happily be involved with them. I don’t think I’m going to get a lot of offers. I don’t think people are going to beat down my door to be the next Hollywood leading man.”
People might not be literally beating down his door, but Deen continues to receive offers from non-adult avenues — despite, or maybe because of, intermittently maligning Hollywood.
Deen says in the profile that he has turned down several reality TV deals, much to the shock and dismay of those who support his unadulterated expansion into the mainstream. “Everyone is telling me I should,” he said, regarding reality TV. “The idea is just so foreign to them that like, How could somebody in the world not want to be on TV? That’s insane.”
Still, Deen says he gets stressed out about what he should act in outside of porn, admitting that there are benefits to the greater public exposure of mainstream work. Insisting that he won’t compromise his values and desires, he reserves the right to do only things he wants to do and uses gay porn as an allegory — another thing he won’t do despite the lure of a fatter paycheck.
Should the right offer come along, one that doesn’t impinge on his value system, Deen says he will return to the silver screen.
