Asia's films and filmography are available right here

 
images courtesy Asia Carrera

OK, you all know I'm geeked here. I'm like Asia's biggest fan. Like another porn star, the lovely Sinnamon, I find Asia to be wickedly intelligent, funny and witty. She's proof that the ditzy bimbo reputation or stereotype needn't always be applied to porn stars. 

Before we get to the Q&A, a little background. Asia was born in New York City Aug. 6, 1973 and was raised in New Jersey. The oldest of four siblings, Asia was always an intelligent young woman. 

She scored 1,440 on her Scholastic Aptitude Test and played the piano twice at Carnegie Hall by age 14.

By 16,  she taught Colloquial English at Tsuruga College in Japan. Asia went on to double major in business and Japanese at Rutgers University and later joined Mensa, a society of other individuals with high intellect.

Lucky for us, intellectuals like sex, too.

Asia measures 36C-26-36 and is 5-81/2. She's one of the few stars (porn or mainstream) who will admit to having plastic surgery, unlike the recently altered Britney Spears and Mariah Carey, who swear their newly ample cleavage popped up out of nowhere.

Asia's had two nose jobs, liposuction on her cheeks and abs and inner thighs, plus one of the best boob jobs in porndom (she'll talk about it during our interview).

Asia is currently semi-retired from making movies, but any porn star who claims to have Warren Buffet as an idol (Buffet is a stock picker), well, they get points in our book.

So, by now, you may wonder, what's a girl like that doing in porn. Well, her parents -- a German-born mother and a Japan-born father -- pressured her to succeed so much that Asia ran away from home at 17 and landed in a foster home. Short of cash and with no real place to go, Asia started college, not so much for the education as for the room and board.

She started bartending to make money but quickly found out that dancing makes you a lot more. The dancing led to some modeling gigs after Asia sent her picture in to some men's magazines. She asked about doing pornos while doing a shoot and was given the name of Bud Lee, now her husband.

"I know some of you still think I'm settling for less than I could achieve in life," Asia says, "but all I can say is this: I'm happier than I've ever been in my life, and I don't consider that settling at all!

"I have a fun job that provides me with the time and money to do all the things I love, like playing piano, drawing, writing, and working on my web site! I've slowly lost the hard edge and the 'fuck-the-world' attitude I had as a runaway, and gained a love for life that I never had before. I save and invest for the future, and I'm going to finish my degree at my leisure. After I'm done with adult, I'll be a mom, or a stock analyst, or knowing me, probably both. And when I die, I'm leaving behind a trust fund to provide help and shelter for abused and homeless children, so a little piece of me will live forever!"

Asia recently sat down with The House Of Truth for a featured Q&A.

Q. Glad to know you love your boob job. What size did you move to (i.e. 34A > to 36D)? What are they filled with?

Ii went from a 34B to a 36C, and they're saline. Half over and half under the muscle, so they hang more naturally. 

Q. Your boobs still look supple and real. Some girls go way overboard and get these boobs that are way out of proportion. What do you think drives them to do that?

Bigger boobs equals more money as a feature dancer. I'm not a dancer, so I was more interested in the aesthetics of the boob job than the financial returns they might provide.  I also want to be able to walk around in public on my own time without everyone stopping and staring at my chest.

Some girls don't mind that. They like the attention, and they like being a sex symbol 24/7. Hey, different strokes for different folks :)

Q. What made you decide to jump from a nice 36B anyway?

I held off on getting my boobs done for a long time, because I know a lot of you love natural boobs, but then I started working out and losing weight, which made my boobs get really small and droopy. Ew!

 I still held out, 'cause I was scared about the surgery stuff, but once I couldn't stand to look at myself in the mirror anymore, I screwed up my courage and did it. Now I'm kicking myself for not doing it ages ago! I LOVE my boobs! They are so awesome. I play with them all day long, just to make sure they're ok (laughs) and I walk around topless at home and on set because they like to get fresh air (laughs). I don't get paid any more for bigger boobs, and I don't dance on the road, so the only difference is that now I feel better about me.

Q. What advice would you give a young starlet about to get a boob job? There seem to be good ones (like yours) and some horrific jobs with scars everywhere, or girls with tits as hard as cement. Can you comment? 

Don't do it for anyone but yourself. Don't try to save money on something this important - it's not worth it! Go to a doctor who did a good job on other girls you've talked to, and make sure you ask the girls if they're really happy with everything. Remember, for every boob job you see that looks great, there's 10 others that didn't come out so hot - do you think you can beat the odds?  

And how are you going to feel if you don't beat the odds? Is it worth the risk? Keep in mind that just because a boob job LOOKS OK doesn't mean it IS. I know a lot of girls go to their plastic surgeon asking for "boobs like Asia Carrera's", but they don't realize that I've already had mine redone TWICE because of problems with scar tissue buildup.

And implants are not made to last for life, either. You may have to replace them every five years, or even more often. Make sure you know the risks before you take the plunge, because it's a big decision to make, and I personally would recommend padded push-up bras instead of surgery if you can get away with it. (Since i have to get naked for a living, that's not a viable option for me - doh!)

Q. What's your nationality?

Japanese and German. My father is Japanese, and my mother is German. My father was brought to the States by an American soldier shortly after the War, and my mother came to America to attend NYU.

Q. How did you pick your name?

I picked Asia because I'm Asian, and I think it's a pretty name, and Carrera from actress Tia Carrere, but I spelled it differently to prevent lawsuits. (even though she got the name from actress Barbara Carrere)

Q. What projects are you currently working on? What else is in your immediate future? 

Nothing too exciting. I do two to three movies a month, some photo shoots, occasionally I'll make public appearances, and of course, I put it the longest hours here at home on my computer. Right now I'm redoing my paysection, and I've been slaving away in photoshop designing new icons, logos and graphics to match the new color scheme I've decided on.

If I like the final result enough, I may carry the overhaul over to the free site as well, and that oughta keep me busy for at least a month. Argh! A webmaster's work is never done!

Q. I'm real curious about your web page. Most girls farm it out to their production companies. You really sit there and handle yours yourself. How did you learn HTML, what software do you use for your computer. What kind of computer do you have.

My Athlon 700mhz butt kicker with 384MB of RAM is my main computer. I also have an Intel PIII 500 and a Celeron 466, both with 256 RAM, and also my IBM Thinkpad laptop for when Ii go out of town.

All four are networked together here in my computer room, so it's kinda like having one big mega-computer with four keyboards, hehe! I learned HTML the old-fashioned way -- I bought a book on HTML and read it.  I was such a newbie back then that it was easier for me to learn straight HTML, than to figure out how to work one of those WYSIWYG proggies like Frontpage. 

 HTML may look cryptic to non-geeks, but it's really quite simple, as any webmaster can tell you but probably won't (laughs). You can only do so much with the limited commands that HTML allows, so the only way to make your site stand out is by being creative with your text and graphics, so that your site reflects you and your personality.

I think I've got that part covered pretty well, but I know I could never have made my site what it is if I let somebody else run it day to day for me.

Q. Tell me about starting out with the site. The pitfalls. The ups and downs.

The biggest headache was browser compatibility - I'd slave away on updates and new looks for my site, only to find out that half the people couldn't see the pages with their browser, or their monitor size would make my pages look all screwy.

The other problem is bandwidth - adult sites are bandwidth hogs, and bandwidth is expensive. I moved from server to server for a while, because I'd overload them and slow them to a crawl, or I'd get booted for hogging all their resources. Knock on wood, I found someone who has been hosting me for three years now at a very reasonable rate, but if he hadn't come along and rescued me, i could very well have lost my site. 

Q. I would imagine you get a ton of email all the time. I'm sure you get asked the same questions tons of times. How much of it can you answer and what do fans seem to want to know most? 

The percentage of emails I answer has steadily declined over the years, as my free time is limited, and I get asked so many of the same questions that I would go completely nuts from spewing out the same responses ad nauseum. I still read every email I get, but I only respond to about 25% of them, give or take, depending on how busy I am that day.

I get a lot of questions from newbie webmasters, amateur investors seeking stock tips, wanna-be pornstars, girls who want makeup tips, and all sorts of other topics. 

Q. Popular question, then, does Asia really get off on film?

I am incredibly lucky, because I happen to be one of the 20% of women that climaxes vaginally, instead of clitorally.

I come quickly, easily, and multiple times, so basically a guy has to be pretty darned lousy to not make me come. On the rare occasions where the guy was TOTALLY lame (maybe 5 times out of 300 total), I realized how crappy this job can be for other girls, because faking happy moans and groans for hours when you're miserable, uncomfortable, and under hot lights realllllly sucks! 

Guys in the industry like working with me, and I suspect it's because each guy thinks he's the only stud who makes me come so much - Shhhhh!) You can watch the goosebumps spread all over my body, my nipples get hard, all my muscles tense up, and my hands and toes start clenching and flexing. (another part of me flexes too, but you can't see it - you have to feel it). 

I've never met anyone as orgasmic as me, but I've always been an overachiever...  Actually, I wasn't able to come vaginally until I was about 19 or so, and I couldn't come clitorally until about 21 (and still only with my trusty little Pocket Rocket), so I guess this is my reward for malfunctioning for so long! I'm making up for lost time!

Q. Where do you think the industry is headed? Porn makes so much money now and it seems like all genres have been done. 

I don't know. It seems like they're pushing towards circus acts and extremes, but they can only do that for so long before we all get shut down and sent to jail, y'know? Guess we'll have to wait and see.

Q. Your thoughts on this bukkake porn and fisting and all of the other stuff in that direction. 

Yuk.

(I laugh).

What do you see in the future for women in the biz? Will they get behind the camera more, on the business side? 

Yes, many of the girls who started as talent years ago are now moving behind the camera as a graceful exit from their pornstar personas, without completely stepping away from the industry.

There are a lot of smart, creative women moving into the director's chair now, and that will pave the way for many starlets in the future, should they wish to go in that direction. Since the female talent is kinda considered to be washed-up at about 30 years old, it's always a good thing to have viable options like directing/producing available to us when we decide to hang up our g-strings for good. 

Why do you think there aren't more women behind the scenes? A lot of people believe that's where the real money is made. 

There are a lot of women behind the scenes, Toni English, Jill Kelly, Juli Ashton, Ona Zee, Christi Lake, Shane, Veronica Hart, Candida Royale, myself, and that's just off the top of my head. But as we were joking on set the other day - "if you wanna know who's making all the money in the adult industry, we'll give you a hint - they're not here on set!"  meaning, nobody on the cast or crew is making a killing off these movies - we get one paycheck for our day's work, and that's it.

It's the manufacturers, distributors, and executive producers who make all the money, because they can sell, and resell, and resell these movies in 142 different ways, in every conceivable media format, and shuffled around into endless compilation titles. 

But to become one of those moneymen who bankroll the movies, you have to have a bankroll to begin with, and when you're only getting a lousy day rate, it's hard to save up the kinda bucks you'd need to get a production company off the ground.

I read on your internet site that you don't do the dance circuit. Why not? 

I'm sure fans would love it. I'm too shy. I'm most comfortable at home in front of my computer. 

Just curious questions: fave TV show; fave musical group; if we got in your car right now, what CDs would you have? 

I don't get TV, I like metallica, and I don't listen to CDs. I still have all my tapes from the 80's, and yeah I feel old and dated, but what can you do?

Speaking of old and dated, tell me, what do porn stars do when they get too old to do it anymore? I would imagine you can't walk into the local Macy's and turn in a job  application (last job? Fucked for a living).

(Laughs). Beats me.  Where do retired pornstars go?  It's a mystery to most people, myself included. They just kinda tone down and rejoin the ranks of civilian labor, I suppose. I know a lot of girls get married, have kids, and move away to do the housewife/mommy thing.

Do you get sad, or does it send a message to you, when you see an old-school star come back and make a movie? It seems to smack of desperation for money, for adulation or something like the old fighter who wants to taste fame one more time.

Yes, I agree. I've told my hubby and boyfriend to 'please shoot me' if i ever try to do a comeback at 40, or god forbid, 50. And I don't mean with a camera.

What things in the biz disgust you and what do you like? If you could be, like, Porn President, what bylaws would you institute?

I don't like the scummy directors who pressure new girls in the business into doing things they're not comfortable with. Knock on wood, I was lucky, because I came out to LA and went straight to work for Bud lee and P.T. at Vivid, shooting quality film & video features for Playboy and Spice.

Bud took me under his wing from the start, and he warned me about who to watch out for, and what pitfalls to avoid.

But many girls aren't so lucky, and their first experiences can easily be their last, if they wind up working for certain disreputable people in the biz. It's a shame, because the few scumbags wind up giving everyone in the biz a bad name.

What do you think of Gene Ross and Luke Ford and their 'rivalry'?

Not much.

(I laugh again)

I'm sure you don't get a lot of time to surf the net, but when you do, what sites are you visiting?

I check my website stats, my finances, the lottery results (aughs), the sites of my pornstar pals, and most frequently, my chatroom.

Q. A lot of fans ask me this, so I'll ask you: do white starlets fear working with black male stars? Does this hurt their images/saleability? Is racism still somewhat alive in the biz? 

No, no, no, it all goes back to the Playboy channel issuing a quiet edict a couple years ago that they did not want any black male/white female scenes in their movies, because they were getting flak from the southern viewers about it.

So it was understood in the biz that a cable-quality video feature could not contain that combination of interracial couplings, and that's as far as it went.

I made a mistake early in my career by mentioning 'no interracial scenes' in an interview, and it was subsequently taken out of context and made to seem like that was my own personal rule.

I actually have no real preference either way, and I'm not aware of any stigma raised by a girl doing interracial scenes, but cable-friendly productions still do not shoot black male/white female scenes, and I have never been asked to do one yet.

Do you feel you opened the door for other actresses of Asian descent in this biz? Yours is probably one of the first names mentioned nowadays. 

I think I helped change the status of asians in adult from a "minority/fetish" category into being considered for more mainstream adult productions. I avoided being stuck in a geisha girl niche from day one, trying to stick with starring roles in quality video features.

There was a consensus when I started in adult that busty blondes were the guaranteed sellers on a boxcover, and I had to convince them that there was a market for exotic brunettes as well. I guess the numbers spoke for themselves, because I was the first Asian to go under contract to Vivid, and when I left, they signed another one (Kobe Tai) shortly after that.

I see you are married to Bud Lee. Seems that a lot of people in the biz date others. Is it hard to maintain a relationship with someone not in the biz? Why? 

It's hard for guys or girls outside the biz to understand that their boyfriend/girlfriend has sex with other people for a living. It's almost impossible to deal with unless you're involved in the day-to-day life on the sets yourself, and you know that it's just a job, and that's all. 

We have a different mindset about sex and love than most people do - we separate the two into mutually exclusive categories, and that's not easy for everyone to do. 

One thing fans definitely don't know about Asia?

I have no secrets. I live my entire life out in the open, because I don't want Luke Ford to be able to get any scoops on me (laughs).

Last question, would you leave Bud for a somewhat balding internet movie reviewer who adores your work?

(Laughing hard). Sure, if you don't mind the fact that I have a boyfriend! I've been with Clarke for three years, but he and Bud are great friends, and there's no animosity between them at all. Every time we all work on set together I count my lucky stars that we all get along so well.

I like it when everyone plays well together.

See some hot girls play for you. Free tour, too