More known for her string of adult movies, 22-year-old Sasha Grey is getting a taste of arthouse in her new film The Girlfriend Experience.
Grey stars as a high-end Manhattan call girl who's trying to balance the pressures of her job with those from her boyfriend.
The drama is set in the days leading up to the 2008 Presidential election and is directed by Stephen Soderburgh.
It's a far cry from her back catalogue of films that include the likes of Seinfeld: A XXX Parody and This Ain't Star Trek XXX.
And Grey admits her first few days on a non adult movie set were highly challenging.
"I was really stressed out, intense, the first few days because it was all improvised so I basically had an outline to deal with and that was it and I would learn what each scene was on the day, and I would just ask Stephen (Soderbergh) a million questions and try and do my best so the first few days and finding a rhythm and finding what that dynamic is, it takes a while to build that up and then it was good and it kept me on the top of my toes so that was great," she says.
Grey has continued to star in adult movies since shooting The Girlfriend Experience. She says unlike many actors that fall into the industry, she always wanted to get involved with adult themed material.
"I was in college and I was working full time and I did a bunch of research on the industry because I was interested in getting into it because I saw an opportunity for myself to really encourage men and women to not be ashamed of their sexuality because I know growing up I was and I felt incredibly guilty about my fantasies and not only that I saw an opportunity to get in the industry and make a difference and make it a bit more creative because although I enjoyed it physically I thought there was another component missing," she says.
In The Girlfriend Experience Grey charts her experiences of her working days diary style. At one point she becomes jealous of another call girl which her research into the film proved is a common issue. But she says in her real life she shuns competition.
"I generally find that the idea of competition is generally perpetuated by the idea of fans and that's how I think people become insecure and that's why I don't read reviews or petty gossip because that's how those ideas, that's where the genesis of those ideas or those fears comes from. So no you know I think I'm young and I make enough mistakes as it is by being young and learning and growing and I would rather just be competitive with myself than somebody else."
And it certainly won't be the last the arthouse world sees of Grey, who says she's been bitten by the indie bug.
"I am most definitely a fan of art house and European cinema, and film in general so it was, you know, a film like this which is unconventional, especially in America right now, it's great to be a part of something like that, and I'm actually going to Paris in December to shoot an independent film called Life, and then in March I'll be shooting another film in the desert in California but it's actually by a London based company which is great so that's called Killer Crow."
The Girlfriend Experience was released in the UK on December 4th.
APTN