On the Set: Getting the Shot in ‘Paparazzi’

LOS ANGELES—Last year, the seemingly unstoppable force of X-rated stardom that is Abella Danger revealed a previously unharnessed prowess for thespianism in a role that went on to earn her a 2018 AVN Best Actress nomination—namely, the chilling, quietly deranged antagonist of Jacky St. James' Best Drama-nominated feature The Obsession from Sweet Sinner/Mile High Media. Now, St. James has recruited Danger once more as the lead of a new intrigue-laden yarn for the same studio, this one titled Paparazzi, and watching the acclaimed directress sculpt the performances of Danger and her co-stars during one of the movie's several days of production makes it clear how she manages so routinely to elicit such believable delivery from her stable of sexual entertainers. In fact, her signature motto of approval upon seeing a segment enacted to her satisfaction, it seems, is, “I believed it!”—often accompanied by an outthrust of her fists for emphasis. But before arriving to that point, St. James carefully workshops the scene with her players—sometimes line by line—to instill in them a fundamental understanding of the subtext and motivations behind the words. We observe as she does just that with Danger and supporting actress Mona Wales for a dialogue exchange that will ultimately lead into a sex scene involving Danger receiving a double vag pummeling from Ramon Nomar and a strap-on-equipped Wales. In the movie, Danger plays a young tabloid photojournalist clawing to land her magazine's next big cover story; when the lead she's given turns into a dead end, she schemes with the reality star behind the tip-off (Wales) to stage a compromising scenario in which they'll be able to snag the all-important money shot of pro baseball player Nomar. Before Nomar comes into the scene, though, Danger and Wales have a moment sitting side-by-side on the bed where the sex will later commence. Danger is clicking through the pictures on her camera, and as St. James explains, realizing for the first time the weight of what she does for a living. "You have to play it like this is a big shift, because this is a big shift for you," the director says. "You're realizing that you're part of the culture that killed Princess Diana." At the same time, she explains that Wales is taken aback by how she sees herself in one of the pictures Danger snapped of her, and Danger in turn sees a human side to Wales that she didn't expect. The line upon which this moment of truth rests, as Danger is charged with imparting: "Who would've thought the realest person in L.A. would turn out to be a reality TV star?" This, of course, impels the two to begin kissing, which will eventually evolve into the aforementioned d.p.ing of Danger after Nomar shows up and joins in. We won't spoil the fun of exactly how that turn of events goes down, except to say that St. James instructs Danger before it does that she's to refrain from any sort of giggly comportment, since for her character, who has a boyfriend, "this is, like, big-time cheating now, because there's a penis involved. It's not cheating unless there's a penis." Paparazzi debuted this week from Sweet Sinner/Mile High Media. Below, Mona Wales and Abella Danger