Porn Star Alexis Crystal Opened Up About Everything You Would've Dreamed of Asking (Interview)

Three years ago we've met Alexis at a drum & bass festival in Prague. We came up to her, told her we admire her work and asked to take a pic with her. 

She was charismatic, kind and she's sent us an air kiss so the day really couldn't get any better. When we told her the story before this interview, she surprisingly remembered our encounter.

When you have an intense conversation with Alexis Crystal for two hours, you'll notice a few things. Right off the bat, you'll feel that you're in the presence of someone, who knows very well what they're doing. She talks about her work and life with ease, but she begins to smile during descriptions of certain funny scenes. This combination of maturity and awareness, combined with her playfulness, will completely disarm you when meeting her.  If there are any porn star stereotypes, Alexis shatters all of them.  

I'll start a little spontaneously. Your birthday is on January 1st. Doesn't it suck to celebrate birthday at New Years? 

It's true. The New Year starts and I begin screaming that it's my birthday. Of course, it's impossible to celebrate it that day, because everyone's home with a hangover. The beautiful thing though is that it is the day of the establishment of Czech Republic so I'm actually as old as the Republic anyway.  

I'll go ahead and ask the question that everyone's probably curious about. How does a "regular Czech girl" turn into a porn star? It all started with my awful relationship with my mom's boyfriend. To put it bluntly, we hated each other, and that affected the relationship between me and my mother. It wasn't perfect, because - let's be honest - I wasn't much of a good kid.

During High School I went to parties, staying out til' 4AM. I ditched school, smoked weed, got drunk at school, well, it was quite a heavy puberty. I took it so far that moms boyfriend said it's either me or him. So mom proceeded to tell me that I've used up a few of my last chances and I should pack up my things and leave. Over time, I feel this was the toughest period of my life. I had no place to live, no money, I had nothing. 

„My impatience for make up sessions has been real since childhood“

Where did you go to school?Grammar School. But I've dropped out of there after a mutual agreement. I had 10 unexcused absences, C for behavior, so I was told either to leave on my own, or be expelled. So I've transferred from there to High School of Public Administration.

And that's when you started to shoot porn?

Yes. I was looking for work, but I wasn't accustomed, nor ready, to go to work straight after school. I was quite lazy even though I've been working before. Like I worked at McDonalds for example. One day I came across an ad for a nudes photoshoot. I imagined black and white, artistic nudes, where you might see my breasts and nothing more. I ended up contacting them and got invited for an interview.  

So I came over and I remember the dude was quite weird. I received a questionnaire with standard stuff, like full name and age, but also questions like "What do you do?" that had multiple options. One of them was: sandwich. In the brackets it said "girl-boy-girl". 

In that moment, it was clear to me that I'm obviously at a porn audition. I ended up filling in the questionnaire, saying that I'll only do solo stuff and only pictures. I gave it to the dude and he said that they actually don't really do photographs. That I should also pick video, so I did. Then he proceeded to tell me that they don't really do solo stuff and that they have a guy there that I could shoot with. I told them to forget about it. I returned the questionnaire and said goodbye.  

Three-day-old backstage picture from a comedy shoot in Prague Centre

You've just left?Yup. I really didn't wanna get into it. For two weeks I didn't get a request for any solo stuff, so I kept looking around for work and stayed at a friends place. In two weeks they called me, saying that they've got a scene for me with a guy and how they'll pay me cash right after the shoot. They also told me that if I'm interested, I need to come get tested. They had to explain that to me, because at the time I had no idea that you need proper medical testing for porn.  

So I finally agreed. I was very desperate and needed the money badly. I got tested and came to the given location. I've shot my first scene ever and I have to say I don't remember it at all. All I know is that my reaction after the shoot was: "What did I just do?" Guilty conscience, I felt horrible. On the other hand I have to say that the money was quite enjoyable.

I've got to ask: How much money did you agree to do it for then?

8 thousand CZK (about 300 EUR). I was also naive and thought no one will see it. I absolutely didn't plan on making a career in this field. I wanted to finish school and this was only the means to help me pay for rent and survive until I find myself a real job.  And then I got an offer for the next scene, then another and I kept saying yes to all of them. I began to get used to the money. That was a big motivation for doing it.  

From a scene for Marc Dorcel, shot in Budapest

You were finally financially secure.Exactly. I paid for my rent with one scene. Besides, I've always really enjoyed sex and I was quite enchanted at the beginning. I remember my favorite actor, who has unfortunately passed away, but he was huge and shredded. He had a beautiful smile and when I saw him for the first time, I was extremely nervous to shoot with him. I liked him a lot. I started to really enjoy the sex after a while. I was young, unexperienced and who knows, maybe I was actually born to do this.  

So you became enthusiastic and you started enjoying it?Yes. The sex was great and I also began to get used to the industry over time. I gained access to bigger productions, various films and met a lot of different people, some of whom I kept going back to often. During the first two or three years I've realized that I actually love this job. I've realized that it's not only about sex, but about the people that make up the industry. I still really like the structure and diversity of characters that work in porn. 

„I was 19 here. Year 2012, one of the most genuine moments ever“

You work both home and abroad. One could say that you live a very international life. Do you notice any major differences in people?

I do travel a lot, true. See, most of my fans are in the U.S., which is logical considering the fact that the market is huge. But I think people look at it differently than in Europe for example. Czechs can be really mean sometimes.

Conservative? 

They are, but they aren't. More hypocritical, I'd say. Czechs are very open in many ways, but when it comes to porn, they're dishonest with their own selves. They judge a lot and of course, those who watch the most, judge the most. I think some Czechs perceive female porn stars as dirt, cheap girls, but it really depends on each person. 

Have you ever encountered this specific reaction?

I have to say, not personally. I have less haters than some bloggers or influencers. Realistically, I have barely any online haters. And in real life? Not at all, that never happens to me. I didn't even get a lot of messages with insults from people. Maybe up to 20 messages in all those years. On the other hand, I never received constructive criticism either. You know, explicitly written. 

You could've made a different facial expression in this scene, your leg is in a weird angle here.

Yup (laughs). They'll just say that I'm a whore and that's it. This industry also teaches you not to listen to other people's opinions. When you do something this controversial, you have to be immune to beliefs that don't interest you. I care about opinions of my surroundings, my friends that mean something to me.

After the scene with Rocco Siffredi

What about Pornhub comments? Do you ever read them?

Yes, I do read those! I always get a good laugh, but I don't remember anyone ever writing something real negative there.

Do you feel like a celebrity? Considering followers, you've got quite high numbers.I am well known in this field, in which it is a bit different to be famous. I don't want to insult anyone, but I don't slap facial cremes on, I don't wear branded clothes, or some other nonsense. I've been doing this for a while and I enjoy it, which is evident. I think people see that I'm into it and that's why I'm successful. I am a positive person who doesn't complain about life. I feel joy when it's sunny outside. 

I also think it's visible in your videos.People sometimes contact me, saying they like me as a person. Which is quite funny, because I don't really show a lot of my personality.

Visiting a 5-story erotic shop in Tokyo

On the other hand, the first impression works just like anywhere else. After seeing a bigger amount of your scenes, people can get a sense.

For sure. I am very much myself in the scenes. My fans like the fact that I laugh during sex. Like, how many actresses do you see laughing in action? Usually it's one of those porn poses and "aah", "my god" and "fuck me". 

I think productions like to work with me, 'cause I wouldn't be shooting scenes anymore if they wouldn't. Average career lifetime of a porn star is two to three years. Almost none of the girls that started with me are still shooting, only a few. Over time the popular ones get selected and I believe that if you like your work, you have to be good at it. 

You are the 10th most popular Czech porn star on XVIDEOS. Your worldwide Pornhub rank is 197.

Pornhub also includes a bunch of girls that aren't professional porn stars, but amateurs with their own channels. These girls get a real good ranking. Pornhub visitors love that amateur style. The more natural and real, the more successful. 

That's visible on some of the most favorite videos that often completely lack penetration. There's girls that do it alone at home, there's some intimate, amateur oral. 

You take a camera, sit somewhere outside behind a tree and capture yourself. People love that. They enjoy that even more than me uploading professionally made videos from an apartment to my channel. They'll prefer if I go to a fitting room. That's what they want.

Going back to Pornhub, I am historically the second most successful Czech girl with the highest number of views, which I'm very grateful for.

XBIZ EUROPA AWARDS ceremony

Do you want to be the best?

I definitely want that. The fact that I'm not good at finishing things is not helping though. I'm involved in a lot of productions at once, so I don't have much time left to make my own content. This April I had 26 days of work and 4 days off, which was extreme.   

If you had time, what kind of content would you like to make? What is an ideal video for Alexis Crystal?

I'd like to go wild. I've got completely unbelievable stuff in my head. First of all I want to finish my own page. Then I want to focus on my own Pornhub channel with 60 000 followers, which is a good base. I want to do the fitting cabin stuff with a small camera, like I've found a country salon where I'd like to shoot a western. I'm quite out there when it comes to styling scenes. I'd like to make a Scary Movie Scream parody. I love horrors, that's my favorite film genre. But the problem is that everything has kind of been done already. 

They say that when a new bizarre sexual practice is invented, it's surely been filmed somewhere already.

Internet's porn database is so enormous that it's nearly impossible to come up with something new. Like the best fetish I've ever filmed and was a lot of fun, was a balloon fetish. With regular balloons. The people watching it get aroused by balloons, the material and the compressed air. The scene was shot by a German production company that has a whole website for balloon fetish. They gave me a huge 2-meter long balloon, I took it to bed, carefully laid down on it so it doesn't pop and I continued to just swing on it. And it was a lot of fun! 

„Balloon massacre during the balloon fetish shoot. We're even wearing protection glasses! “

Looking at your videos, it's apparent that you shoot many different kinds. Are they all fun to you?

As I have said. Sexually it doesn't always arouse me, but it might be fun for me to do. 

Do you think a porn star has to do everything to attract various target groups?

An actress surely has more fans when she's doing everything. For me it was like that with anal. I've started doing that in porn after 4 years. My first anal scene was also my first anal sex ever. I was nervous for a week before the scene and I still don't know how I've made it through. Surprisingly, I kind of liked it. Of course it hurts and it's not very pleasant at first, when you've never done it before, but over time I've learned to enjoy it. But the cleansing before the act is a real shitshow. Literally (laughs).

Until now I've never thought about any career development, what I do or how I do it. Today I think it's one of the most important things for a good porn actress. For me, anal was a next step, something new, some progress. A lot of fans have been begging me to do it. Thanks to this hype, I've received a lot of money for the first scene, because I was an anal virgin. 

What is porn to you anyway?To me it's a lifestyle. It's a major part of my life and it intertwines my whole lifetime, whether it's private life or not. When it comes to relationships and sex, it's a whole another story. I always say that sex at work is the sex that I have to have and sex in my private life is the sex I want to have. There's still a lot of people that can't understand that it's possible to make a difference.  

Do you have higher standards due to porn? On men, sex and in general?

I guess so. I've tried so many, so much good stuff that I will not settle with just anything. You also wouldn't want to vacation in Croatia after visiting Thailand or drink box-wine after frequenting fine wineries. I have high standards when it comes to sex. 

Marc Dorcel  shoot at a French castle

Talking about relationships, do you have a problem to get into them? Are men afraid of you? 

I don't think so. I'm so approachable and friendly that even boys that might not know me from the internet approach me and ask for my number or invite me for a drink. 

Do you have friends in porn?My best friend is from the industry. I think I can trust her 100%. When it comes to work, we don't stand in each other's way. On the contrary, we help each other out, so when some production contacts us and one of us can't, we recommend each other. At the same time, I can talk to her about anything. 

Talking about competition, are porn stars competitive?

I think it's like with every other job. There's a lot of people that talk behind your back, act different than they speak and just make your life difficult, that's normal. It's very similar to the modeling world in this way. The girls take pictures together, pose together, but it's not always a walk in the park. Probably like in any other job. 

Two actresses got into a fight in a Czech club recently. What's your opinion on that? 

Honestly, I'm not happy about the fact that girls that act like this are considered my colleagues. I don't like that someone might compare us based on this incident, thinking we're on the same wavelength. We really aren't. This is completely unnecessary to me and this type of behavior demonstrates that something ain't right. These scandals are ridiculous.  

Don't you think it spoils the reputation of porn stars in general? That it somehow reinforces the image of those crazy, bluntly said, primitive women? 

As I've already said: today, anyone can make porn. There is no standard in porn, any girl with IQ 50 can make porn these days and sometimes they put you in the same box with these girls. I just don't like that. And I like the self-proclaimed "porn stars" even less. The fact that someone makes porn doesn't automatically make them a porn star. You need to deserve this title with years of hard work that brings experience. The experience can then be transformed into success. If you don't have that, you're just a girl that makes porn, nothing more. Building fame on the hate of people would make me sad, personally. 

I've seen a lot of girls that were apparently not so bright, form the very first impression. And everyone else can see that. These girls last the shortest time in the industry. On the other hand, a lot of my colleagues have a University degree. I've got this one foreign colleague that is 32, films with amazing productions and she is evidently aware. She knows why she does certain things. 

She told me for instance that she started filming herself because she liked sex and she was curious to try. I still think 80% of the girls do it for the money, don't enjoy the work and show up as blindly as they would in any other job. Turn up, do the work and go home. 

Behind the scenes shoot for GWC

What do you think about some women in the industry transferring to escort during or after?

The work has a similar foundation, but for me there's one fundamental difference. I do this work as a performer, there's an acting performance in it for me and some sort of an illusion. Being an escort, I would be fully selling myself. You know, being there to pleasure someone else. As a porn actress, I'm not there to please someone. I'm there to film some material and later someone might pleasure themselves over that. A lot of people think it's the same thing: they have sex for money. For me it's an important difference, psychologically. 

A lot of girls do escort. American and British girls, some of them with big names do it, because once you have a name, you can make incredible money with it. They can basically ask for anything. Even I get completely insane offers, like 10 000 EUR per night. People tell me that the biggest wish in their life is to see me in person. Like platonic love. 

Recently a HIV case of Nacho Vidal shook the porn industry. How did you experience that and did it affect your professional life in any way? 

It was shocking, because no one has experienced that in Europe. In the States they have a vivid memory of something like that, but not here. The first thing that was done was spider. The infected person gives you a list of people they've had sex with and they gradually go into quarantine until it's clear who's affected. 

Agencies, productions, everything is connected, so it goes relatively quick. One month and three weeks there were no shoots in Europe. Those that were in quarantine the whole time got tested afterwards and it turned out that nobody was HIV positive. 

What about other STDs?

That's unfortunately a risk that is a real part of my work. On another hand, people in porn get tested more than anyone else. If I ask anyone outside of porn if they ever got tested, they say they didn't. And a lot of those people get busy in the clubs, at the toilets, where you can easily catch something and I'd say that barely 50% of those people use a condom. These things are not hard to catch. We get tested every 2 weeks to decrease the incubation time of potential risk, which is a direct result of the Nacho situation. 

Additionally, those tests cost something, which can be a problem for some girls. I've heard some girls complain that they ain't got money for that. They don't understand that you've got to invest into yourself a bit in porn. One should get tested for their own benefit, but also for others, because we do that for each other after all. The system is based on trust and if someone breaks it, everyone's in danger. 

If someone shows up on set with one-month-old tests, I just wouldn't work with him. Fortunately, productions keep an eye out for that, which is great. Today it's even part of the contract. You see, I'm talking about it and I've just remembered that I need to get tested tomorrow. 

„Backstage pic from a shoot for Private. I was the referee. “

Today you're successful, secure and according to what you're saying, loving your job. Getting back to where we started - is it better at home now?

Sorry, but the only thing I don't talk about openly is family, for practical reasons. Ever since I've had an unpleasant stalker, I am very careful about my privacy. 

You've had a stalker?

I've met him at a fair in Berlin, the biggest erotic fair in Europe and it's quite insane. These big dudes in latex outfits and holes for their asses walk around there. This 50-year-old man was out there in a tiger costume. I had a stall and I was signing autographs. Until this day I remember the moment when he approached me. He was weird right off the bat, but people that attend this type of events tend to look slightly weird sometimes. He came and started talking to me and he just wanted to talk and talk. There was a line forming behind him, waiting for an autograph or a picture. 

So I've told him that I'm sorry, but there's other people waiting and maybe he can stop by at a different time. That day he came up to me about six times and he constantly stood there telling me something. In the evening he came to me asking if I'd be interested in a massage, that he's a masseur. I've thanked him and told him politely that I'm not interested. Then I did the biggest mistake I could have done. See, he was taking pictures of me on his phone and he asked for my e-mail address to send them over. Not only did I give him my address, it also included my real name. I was simply naive. 

Fan tattoo art

I guess one doesn't think about that until it happens to them personally.

Precisely. So he found my Instagram and started texting me. After some time he came with an idea that he'd like to film and maybe I could help him with that. I wasn't even replying to him at this point. He still kept writing me systematically. He asked me how I'm doing, that he really wants to shoot some films badly, later claiming that I'm the only one who can help him with that.  

Next thing I've noticed was that someone started a fake Alexis Crystal page on Facebook, reposting photos I've uploaded to Twitter. One of the pictures had a caption "I'm completely stupid and I know it". 

So I've contacted him saying that I do not want him to run that page and if he is my fan, I kindly ask him to delete it. He replied saying that he's not my fan and that he hates me. That surprised me. I told him I have no idea who he is and that I don't understand why he hates me. He replied: "You know what you did." 

Jesus.

I didn't understand at all. Then I thought maybe it could be this crazy fan. So I went on my Instagram and blocked the account he used to stalk me. All of a sudden I got a message from the Facebook page, asking me if I've cancelled my Instagram. Now I was sure it was him. I openly asked. He said yes and that's when it started getting ugly. We started cursing each other out, I've called him all things imaginable. 

Then he started writing to my private mail, work mail, sending 20 messages daily and also on WhatsApp. He managed to dig up my old Skype account somewhere and I had my number there so he started calling and texting. I blocked him of course, but then he'd call from hidden numbers, that can't be blocked. All of this went on for about 6 months. He also said that he's never gonna stop until he gets the job.

Atomic Babe (Atomic Blond) XXX parody on Fake Hub

So how did it end up?He wanted to harm me in any way possible, so he thought to make screenshots of my outdoor scenes and send them to the Czech police. He also forwarded them the mail. I never expected someone to get into that case. Two weeks later I get another call from a hidden number, so I've ignored that after the experience with this guy. But then my mom called me, saying the cops are looking for me. So I've answered the call once and it was police indeed, trying to interrogate me. 

So I went there and they've showed me the screenshots, asking for my explanation. Typically, there was a good cop and a bad cop. So I've honestly told them that those are scenes from an adult film that were made outside. I've written a long report with them, explaining the entire stalker situation. In the end they tried to help me, but they also said that my behavior could be classified as misdemeanor and that I could go to jail for up to 3 years. I was terrified. They told me that considering the circumstances it's possible to close the case with a fine.

They also told me to put everything concerning the stalker on a flash drive, which I did, because I had a huge file at home with all of the screenshots of what he was sending me. I forwarded it to them and then it all calmed down. He still wrote to me, but less frequently and it faded out eventually. He still does run the Facebook page until this day. Asshole.