Porn Valley- The porn star’s transformation begins on Interstate 10, not far from Quartzsite, Ariz.
Lacie Heart is driving the car, but she’s fading. Her flirtatious grin subsides and she has wiped away her exaggerated makeup. Her tattoos hide beneath comfortable sweats. Her regular life begins.
“As soon as I cross the border, I’m not Lacie Heart anymore,” she said. “I really have to separate the two. If I were always Lacie Heart, I’d go insane. It’s too much chaos.”
At 20, with appearances in films like “American Sorority Sluts” and “Debbie Does Dallas … Again” on her credit list, she seems incredibly detached from the industry that made her a star. Her image has become a bumper sticker, her vagina has been replicated as a consumer product. Van Nuys-based Digital Playground signed her to a contract and calls her a spokesmodel.
When she’s on camera or appearing before her fans, she’s bubbly and vivacious, the very embodiment of the girl-next-door stereotype – if your neighbor was really, really into sex. In person, she’s pretty, reserved, professional and almost prim, though she can work together some pretty impressive chains of profanity.
When she goes out and she’s not in character, she’s never been recognized. Even when she’s standing next to Jesse Jane, a buxom blond actress who’s also a contract girl for Digital Playground, if she’s not in character, you’d never know.
She grew up in San Luis Obispo, studied ballet as a kid and lived a pretty normal life. On a whim, she tried stripping at a Canoga Park club’s amateur night at 19 and started hearing from fellow dancers that you could make some good money appearing in adult movies. It took some convincing and research, visiting shoots and talking to actors. She gave it a try – she doesn’t remember what the movie was called.
“I’d never seen a porn (film) before I got into the industry,” she said. “I had a good upbringing, went to a good school.”
She studied French and art history, developed an affinity for Michelangelo, Monet and Leonardo da Vinci. She plans to work in the business while she finishes going to school, then leave Lacie Heart behind to become a museum curator.
“It will be easy for me to wash my hands of it,” she said.
She doesn’t harbor any romantic notions of the industry, though she doesn’t think it’s as bad as many would imagine. If consumers could watch what it’s really like on the set, she says, they’d lose the fantasy about the glamour, sex and debauchery.
And the industry as a whole has been kind to Lacie Heart. No casting couch, no sleazy trades of jobs for sex. The only time she was propositioned came when she tried out as an extra for a mainstream Hollywood movie.
One of the few common links between her life as a porn star and life as an art student is her boyfriend, Scott Nails. She had it written into her contract that she only performs with him. He also does films with other girls. They’ve been together more than a year, and it’s getting serious. She knows his scenes are just work, but still, she won’t watch them because it just feels too weird.
And aside from that, she describes their life as normal enough. He sells real estate, she stays home, cooks and takes care of her dogs.
“I’m like a normal, suburban housewife,” she said. “I have animals, I run errands, read a lot of books and watch a lot of movies. … I learned very quickly that I can’t be myself in this industry.”