Ron Jeremy Exposes Himself To Muse

Scott J. Gill’s entertaining documentary “Porn Star: The Legend of Ron Jeremy” opens this Friday at the Landmark Kendall Square theater. The film is a humorously fascinating look at the life of one of porn’s most recognizable actors, Ron Jeremy. Nicknamed “the Hedgehog” because of his overweight and hairy appearance, Jeremy has found unlikely success in the adult entertainment world. Jeremy will be in Boston on Saturday, January 26th, with an appearance at the Kendall followed by an after-party at Avalon from 10-2pm (21+). MUSE recently had a chance to talk with Jeremy about the new documentary and his careers in both the porn world and the mainstream.

MUSE: If you had to explain to someone on the street who didn’t know you who Ron Jeremy is, what would you say?

RJ: A performer.

MUSE: A performer?

RJ: You see, saying “actor” is funny because if you say “actor,” they think Shakespearean monologue. I try to hide the fact that I don’t do things like that. I have some good story lines, some good dialogue scenes, scenes where I have to laugh, cry, get mean, get not-so-mean, be funny, be dramatic, but nothing that serious in porn. I’ve done some mainstream movies, too, a bunch of them. So I can say I’m an actor for a living; it’s on my income tax payment. And plus, I’ve consulted a lot of mainstream films, so I guess I’d say I’m an actor slash consultant slash performer. In the world of porn, maybe a performer. [laughs] That’s how I look at it. A few might say that breathing heavily is not exactly a performance. Well yeah, but keep in mind you could have had a death in the family, bad news, whatever, and you’re still gonna be in front of the camera and look like you’ve had a good time sexually. For guys and for girls, it’s not that easy sometimes.

MUSE: You also don’t see many mainstream actors [who can do some of the stuff you do].

RJ: Exactly. You don’t see Sir John Gielgud playing Hamlet with an erection.

MUSE: So, do you think the documentary film could possibly get you more exposure to a crowd that isn’t as familiar with your pornography?

RJ: Yes. That certainly does happen, yes. Whether it’ll get me more work, as an actor, is doubtful. You don’t see people getting more work from being on “E! True Hollywood Story,” you know? The good thing it has done is that it’s showed that I can be somewhat bankable. They always say about using a porn actor in a movie, “Who’s gonna want to watch this?” But our documentary is doing very, very well. It’s gotten good reviews in many cities, it’s lasted longer than it was supposed to. It was number two for per screen box office for an art house in Los Angeles. We beat out Hilary Swank in “The Affair of the Necklace,” a very expensive movie, way more than mine. What they spent on lunch, we made a film. We didn’t beat “Amelie,” but that’ll probably get nominated for an Academy Award. But we were number two for an art house film, and that’s not bad. It really did show that there’s a certain interest and that having me in a film is not gonna cripple it.

MUSE: One of the reasons I enjoyed it so much was that it was entertaining–it didn’t chastise you or anything; you looked like you were having fun some of the time.

RJ: Yeah, one of the nicest comments I think I’ve ever seen was in “Film Threat” where the writer said that after seeing “Sex: The Annabel Chong Story” and “The Girl Next Door” about Stacy Valentine, he felt like he didn’t want to see another porno film ever again. After seeing mine he couldn’t wait to see porn. It’s more of an uplifting attitude. “Porn Star” has its similarities to “Boogie Nights,” which I consulted on by the way. Paul Thomas Anderson said to me that people who hate porn would continue to hate porn after “Boogie Nights” and those who like it will continue to like it. But it’ll show a certain reason why freedom of speech should exist. It shows that with a lot of the characters, the high moments in their life were doing porn. When Mark Wahlberg’s character quit, he got involved in much worse things. So in a way, my documentary is the same thing: it shows it’s a business, it’s an entertainment medium of some sort.

MUSE: You’re happy with the way it came out and the way it portrayed you?

RJ: Yes. I’m sad at some of the things that were cut out. I personally would rather have seen less fluff and more of the personal stuff, like facts about my mom that weren’t really put in until the very end credits. You probably didn’t even catch it, did you? At the very end credits they put in some facts. Ron is a hang glider pilot, plays piano very well, is a brown sash in kung fu, and his mom flew overseas as part of the OSS. The OSS became the CIA, so I had a mom who got to the rank of lieutenant and who fought in World War II along with my dad and a lot of other family members. I thought people would find that interesting but it’s left until the end credits.

MUSE: How were you originally approached about the documentary?

RJ: A guy who used to work for Ron Howard’s company named Dan Sullivan approached me and I said, “No way. No one’s going to follow me around for a couple of years. You must be crazy.” Then came the Jewish guilt. I was shopping a story line, a verbal pitch, a synopsis of a screenplay I’d written about a serial killer and a social worker having a twisted love affair. I had some major studios almost interested and then Ocean Park pictures took it. They bought it and gave me money for it. They’re the guys who did this Emilio Estevez and Charlie Sheen picture called “Rated X” so they had a pretty good track record, and they were nice guys. They gave me some money for it and said they may even be able to get Joseph Stefano to write it. He’s the guy that wrote “Psycho,” so I’m all excited. And then they come tell me like a month or so later that they want to do this documentary: “we think it will be great, and we did buy your pitch.” Plus they seemed like nice guys. I don’t have many skeletons in the closet as you noticed, other than that one big whopper of doing over a thousand adult movies. A woolly mammoth skeleton right there, I must say.

MUSE: And it’s not really in the closet either.

RJ: Yeah, good point. But there’s no alcohol, no drug abuse, no being in jail, not a lot I’d have to worry about revealing. They get a couple actresses saying, “Yeah, he’s kind of fat and hairy,” but what else is new?

MUSE: Have you ever for a second wished you’d stayed as a teacher?

RJ: The thing is, a big part of me still wants to have a family and a wife and the children. I enjoy the life I’ve had. I enjoy the choices I’ve made. I’ll be happy when it’s over, but it’s great, it’s fun. If I had been a teacher I would have had the picket fences and the babies, but another part of me would have wondered what would have happened in Hollywood. Could I have gotten some success or whatever? It would have bugged me for life.

MUSE: So how do you view sex now? After having been in thousands of porn films and sleeping with countless women, is sex still special for you?

RJ: I still love to have a lot of it, all the guys in porn do. The women get a little jaded after a while, but the men? Nah. Even when I have a busy schedule, at my busiest I have a couple of sex scenes a week. Now it’s more like a few a month. I have a contract with one company, Metro. It’s based in Rhode Island. Those are my guys, and they’re the only company I represent. So now I do about four or five a month. Often it’s the same girl. You know, a bartender, Chippendales dancer, movie star or a rock star probably has sex more than five times a month. It’s not as much as you think it is. As Howard Stern said when Barbara Walters asked me, “After so many women, can you still enjoy being with your girlfriend?” Howard goes, “What is she smoking? Is she so out of reality? Of course I still enjoy sex.” He said I should have pulled it out of my pants and bopped her on the head with it. That’s a direct quote from Howard Stern; I wouldn’t have said that, but he did.

MUSE: So, as far as mainstream, you were in “Orgazmo.” How did that come about?

RJ: Trey Parker and Matt Stone approached me. We did a short. They had done a well-known industrial Christmas card [“The Spirit of Christmas”] where Jesus Christ gets into a fight with Santa Claus. It’s a very funny piece, got them a lot of attention. It was the front-runner for “South Park.” They approached me to play the part of the porn director. When October Films took over and gave them like a million-dollar budget, they said, “You know, Ron should not play a director. To have a well-known porn actor/director play a director was too close to home.” So they made me a henchman since I knew martial arts. Those are actually my kicks; it wasn’t a stunt man. I’ve also done “Detroit Rock City,” the KISS film, and the music video for that and then also “Boondock Saints” with Willem Dafoe, which you can rent at Blockbuster. I’ve done “American Virgin” with Mena Suvari and Bob Hoskins, that was recently on HBO, a bunch of Troma films, TV shows like “Nash Bridges,” “Just Shoot Me,” “News Radio,” skits on “Conan O’Brian”…

MUSE: Do you see yourself as something of a liaison between Hollywood and porn films?

RJ: Sometimes yes, whenever they want a consultant for the world of adult they come to me. “9 1/2 Weeks” did it; I’m in the credits for that one. “Boogie Nights,” John Frankenheimer’s movie “52 Pick-Up,” there’s a credit that says “film clips courtesy of Ron Jeremy.” I shot footage for him. B-roll. So I’ve done a lot of mainstream stuff behind the scenes.

MUSE: Is anything happening with the synopsis you sold?

RJ: Nothing yet; these things take so much time.

MUSE: But you still hope to get it made?

RJ: I guarantee it will. It might take a while, but look at what these guys say when they win awards. “Oh, it took ten years in the making.” “Five years to make somebody want to do it finally.” Hollywood is very slow, sometimes they’re very dumb, so it takes a while to do anything there.

MUSE: What’s the difference between a successful porn film and a bad porn film?

RJ: Successful isn’t the word you want to use because sometimes the dumbest film can be successful and a real good cannot. I like to look at it as more than a money thing. When you have a budget and the film is shot on an exotic location like a pirate ship or on Catalina Island or Hawaii, or it has a good story line or a plot-if I did a lot of those, people would say I’m an idiot. They says, “Why would I want to see all that stuff? If I want to see plot or story line I’d watch HBO.” So for that audience, it’s a waste. But it’s hard to know, as with regular movies, what people really want to see. You have your “A” movies in porn and your “B” movies in porn. Just like you have your big movies in mainstream Hollywood and you have your Troma films or your HBO erotic thrillers. You have the same thing in porn. Some guys shot basically no plot other than, “Well, where you from? Well that’s nice…what are your hobbies? Wow, enough talk, eat this.” There’s your story line, people like that stuff, whereas I like a little basic story line with makeup and wardrobe.

MUSE: Do famous celebrities ever come up to you and say, “I loved your movies”?

RJ: Um, Billy Joel did it, Richard Pryor. Eddie Murphy sent his bodyguard to come and get me. Most recently, it made my day, at the VH1 awards Dave Matthews walked right across the street and introduced himself.

MUSE: Anything else you want to plug?

RJ: Well, you know, my great uncle owned a store in Cambridge in Harvard Square called Mandrake; it was a very well known bookstore. Did you know that? He was also one of the original founders of Brandeis University.