Sasha Grey was born and raised in
North Highlands, California to a working class family. Her mother worked for the state of
California and her father is a Greek-American mechanic. Her parents divorced when she was 5 and subsequently she was raised by her mother, who remarried in 2000. Grey states that she felt miserable at home around her stepfather, and as a result at 16, informed her mother she was going to move out. It is unclear as to whether or not she in fact left the home. She's stated that while her parents don't like everything she does, they get along. Grey attended four high schools, among them Highlands High, before graduating, having been unhappy in each one, though it should be noted she graduated a year early, at 17. In autumn 2005, she attended
junior college and took classes in film, dance, and acting. She waited tables at a
steakhouse through March 2006 and saved $7,000 for a move to Los Angeles.
Career
Adult films
In May 2006 Grey moved to Los Angeles and started her career in adult films just after turning 18. Originally she toyed with the name
Anna Karina, taken after the
French New Wave actress, before deciding on her present name. The name "Sasha" was taken from
Sascha Konietzko of the band
KMFDM, and "Grey" represents
Oscar Wilde’s novel
The Picture of Dorian Gray and the
Kinsey scale of sexuality. Her first scene was an
orgy with
Rocco Siffredi for
The Fashionistas 2 by
John Stagliano. Nearly six months after entering the adult industry, Grey was featured in the November 2006 edition of
Los Angeles where she was flagged as a potential major star, perhaps the next
Jenna Jameson. Less than a year after entering the industry, in January 2007, Grey was the recipient of awards for "Best Three Way Sex Scene" and "Best Group Scene" at the
AVN Adult Movie Awards. She was also nominated as "Best New Starlet", but lost to
Naomi. Grey was named
Pet of The Month for July 2007 and was photographed by fashion photographer
Terry Richardson. In 2008, she became the youngest person to win the
AVN "Female Performer of the Year" award. as well as "Best Oral Sex Scene" for a scene. In December 2006, Grey was interviewed on the syndicated entertainment industry news show
The Insider. In February 2007, she appeared on
The Tyra Banks Show, discussing teenagers in the sex industry. There was speculation that the show was heavily manipulated through editing, and did not include her defense of pornography as a career choice. The show was also criticized for twisting Grey's depiction to increase its dramatic value. Grey was profiled in the
Rolling Stone "Hot Issue" for the December 2008 edition. Grey represents herself in the adult industry through her own agency, L.A. Factory Girls. Grey has indicated particular appreciation for the work of
Andrew Blake and
Kimberly Kane.
A. O. Scott of
The New York Times described her pornographic career as "distinguished both by the extremity of what she is willing to do and an unusual degree of intellectual seriousness about doing it."
Modeling
Grey was featured in the artwork for
The Smashing Pumpkins 2007 album
Zeitgeist, and appears in their music video for "
Superchrist". Grey was also featured in the music video for the song "Birthday Girl" by
The Roots. She has modeled for French fashion designer
Max Azria's ready to wear line Manoukian, Italian footwear brand Forfex for an international campaign, and
American Apparel. She's modeled for
Richard Kern as a part of
Vice magazine's anti-fashion layout, and appeared in a three-part VBS program, "Shot by Kern". She also appeared in
Taschen’s 25th anniversary reprint of
Terry Richardson’s
Terryworld. Among other collaborations with Richardson, she has also appeared in
Wives, Wheels, Weapons, a companion book to
James Frey's
Bright Shiny Morning. She has also modeled for artists
James Jean,
Frédéric Poincelet,
Zak Smith. and
David Choe. In January 2010, Grey appeared nude in an ad campaign for
PETA advocating
animal birth control.
Acting
Grey appeared in an episode of
James Gunn's PG Porn with
James Gunn, as well as a cameo role in
Dick Rude's independent film
Quit, and stars in the 2009 Canadian low-budget black comedy/horror film
Smash Cut from the Ottawa-based
Odessa/Zed Filmworks. She plays a TV news personality who goes undercover as an actress in a horror film production, only to discover her older sister's murderer. In March 2010, Grey was cast as an anti-sex Christian in the horror film
Hallows, directed by
Richard O'Sullivan. Grey was cast for the seventh season of the
HBO show
Entourage, where she played a fictionalized version of herself. Her character was
Vincent Chase's new girlfriend in a multi-episode arc.
The Girlfriend Experience Grey played the lead role, "Chelsea", in
Academy Award-winning director
Steven Soderbergh's film
The Girlfriend Experience. Soderbergh cast her after reading an article profiling her in
Los Angeles magazine, commenting that "She's kind of a new breed, I think. She doesn't really fit the typical mold of someone who goes into the adult film business. ... I'd never heard anybody talk about the business the way that she talked about it." Journalist Scott Macaulay indicates that her casting was probably also prompted by Grey's interest in a variety of
independent and
art film directors, particularly
Jean-Luc Godard, but also
Harmony Korine,
David Gordon Green,
Michelangelo Antonioni,
Agnès Varda, and
William Klein. In having Grey prepare for her role in
The Girlfriend Experience, Soderbergh asked her to watch Godard's
Vivre sa vie and
Pierrot le fou.
Vivre sa vie concerns prostitution, while the relationship portrayed in
Pierrot le fou was suggested as a model for the dynamic between Chelsea and her boyfriend and clients. Grey and Soderbergh also interviewed two escorts, and borrowed character traits and behavior from them. Grey indicated that she played the character partly as embodying the assumptions projected onto her; while Grey describes herself as very self-conscious and introspective regarding her sexual choices, Chelsea is controlled mainly by her own vanity. Critics had mixed assessments of Grey's performance.
J. Hoberman of
The Village Voice writes:
Are we watching an authentic scarred monster playing the part of a cute little chippie—or is it vice versa? (Imagine one performer embodying both the Marlon Brando and Maria Schneider roles in Last Tango in Paris.) Grey isn’t the first porn actress to go straight, but she may be the first to allegorize her own situation—projecting an on-screen self-confidence that’s indistinguishable from pathos
Roger Ebert of
Chicago Sun-Times commented on Grey's portrayal of Chelsea:
"Once she allows her mask to slip: a surprising moment when she reveals what she may feel. Grey perfectly conveys both her hope and her disappointment, keeping both within boundaries."
Conversely, Moira Macdonald of
The Seattle Times writes:
"How do you tell the difference between an unskilled actor's flat performance and a skilled actor's realistic performance of an utterly flat character? It can be tricky, but if the question gets raised, the acting's probably to blame."
David Denby of The New Yorker expressed a similarly dim view of Grey's acting abilities, calling The Girlfriend Experience "inert" because "Sasha Grey was so wrapped in egotism that she forgot to give a performance." In April 2009 while doing press for The Girlfriend Experience, she visited Brandeis University for an interview with Los Angeles Times blogger Scott Feinberg followed by a Q&A with 300 students.
I Melt With You Grey is starring in the horror film, I Melt With You. The film will be released in 2011.
Music In 2008, Grey began an industrial music collaboration, called aTelecine, with Pablo St. Francis. Their first EP, AVigillant Carpark, was released by New York label Pendu Sound in 7inch vinyl only. She also contributed vocals to the Current 93 album Aleph at Hallucinatory Mountain. Narnack Records lists her as a guest artist on Repentance, the 54th studio album by Grammy-winning reggae icon Lee "Scratch" Perry, though Perry himself has denied her involvement. She is also regularly performs as DJ in the USA and Canada.
Book
Grey's first novel, Neü Sex, is scheduled to be released in November 30, 2010.
Personal life
Since 2006, she has been developing an autobiographical documentary, illustrating her experiences from the age of 18 to 21. She was reported in a Rolling Stone interview in 2009 as being engaged to filmmaker Ian Cinnamon. In February 2010, Grey stated that she supported animal birth control in a PETA interview.
