A 'Harder' Ariana Marie Has Her Biggest Year Yet

Ariana Mrie is featured in the January 2019 issue of AVN magazine. Click here to see the digital edition. Ariana Marie’s career took “A Little Bit Harder” turn in 2018, resulting in her finest season to date. The 25-year-old native of Tampa, who still gets cast in teen movies, raised her profile in more ways than one during a world-class year in which she earned a whopping seven sex scene nominations for the 2019 AVN Awards—not to mention another nod for AVN Female Performer of the Year. Humble and soft-spoken, the gorgeous brunette admits that patience has played a key role in her choices. “Just thinking back on it, everything I did was something I had been wanting to do for a really long time,” Ariana Marie tells AVN. “I didn’t want to push myself into doing it so quickly, so this year felt like a good year to do everything I did.” That includes performing in every scene in Evil Angel Films’ Ariana Marie: A Little Bit Harder, which has received three nominations for the 2019 AVN Awards, including Best Star Showcase. Veteran sharpshooter Chris Streams, meanwhile, received his own nomination for Best Director-Non Feature for calling the action. “I was able to explore more of my sexuality and what I actually enjoy doing in those scenes, particularly my D.P.,” Ariana Marie says. “That was something I had been wanting to do for really long time.” Her first D.P.—with Markus Dupree and Steve Holmes—has been nominated for Best Double Penetration Sex Scene, while her tryst with Jill Kassidy is in the running for Best Girl/Girl Sex Scene at the 2019 ceremony on January 26 at Hard Rock Hotel in Las Vegas. “What was interesting was they asked me to list the guys and I love working with Markus. He was definitely on my list. Originally, it was supposed to be Mick Blue with him and then I got to set and Chris was like they’re switching one of the guys and here comes sSteve walking through the door. I asked him, ‘So are you my male talent today?’ He said, ‘Yeah, I am.’ I was happy about that because I love Steve. “I love Mick, too, but if Mick couldn’t do it I would’ve wanted Steve to do it. Him and Markus both know me. They know how to make you feel good and also make it look good. I was so happy to see Steve, so it worked out really well and we had a really good scene.” It would’ve been nice to have had all three of them. I would totally do like an air-tight.” Ariana said the DP was her first time doing something that extreme on or off camera. “The guys told me, ‘It’s all good, we got you. We will put you in all the positions. Enjoy yourself.’ It was one of the best scenes I experienced as far as going to another level of intensity. I was so happy about it.” Ariana says she was in talks with a few different producers about shooting her showcase before deciding on Evil Angel. “Each scene was very special. The one with Jill I feel like we both just kind of let go. I feel like with some girl/girl scenes that I’ve done in the past there’s always a script. There’s always just something to follow. It was never like that with her. It was like, ‘What are we wearing?’ OK, cool. And we just went for it,” she recalls. “I’m glad it got recognized for a nomination. We were exchanging a lot of spit together. It was really fun. “I feel like every scene was very intense. There was chemistry with each person. I couldn’t have asked for a better showcase. I’m so happy that everybody that I really wanted to work was able to work with me those days.” Her showcase was not her only first of 2018. She teamed with Joanna Angel for the first time in the movie I Know Who You Fucked Last Halloween, resulting in a nomination for Best Three-Way Sex Scene - Boy/Boy/Girl. Ariana Marie took on Tommy Pistol and Bill Bailey in the Burning Angel title. “That was one was really cool because it was my first time working for Joanna. I was a little nervous but I was excited to be on the set with her,” she says. “It was something different for me. We had a really great time. I couldn’t stop laughing that day because Tommy is just so funny. I told him, ‘You gotta stop making me laugh because we have to shoot this scene.’ Both Bill and Tommy were amazing as usual.” She also earned a nomination for Best All-Girl Group Sex Scene, fucking Joanna Angel, Katrina Jade and Ivy Lebelle in the same movie. “Everything just flowed so naturally and we all just like did what we wanted to do,” Ariana says. “It felt real and it was real. We just had fun with it.” The former waitress at Buffalo Wild Wings, who will celebrate six years in adult in March, says “it goes by so quick when you’re having fun.” “I’ve learned a lot and experienced a lot,” Ariana Marie says. “I love being part of this industry and everything it has offered me. I feel like this industry is what I know and I love it so much and want to stay a part of it somewhere even when I’m not performing down the road. It’s given me so much.” She says the industry has “made me a better person as well.” “I’ve learned that if something doesn’t go the right way females can be a little emotional about things. I’m able to handle those things in a better way now. I don’t just react right away. I think about it and process everything and make the call—the same thing with negotiations with my showcase and everything. I just didn’t jump on the first thing that was thrown at me.” She adds, “I can’t take all the credit for it. My husband [Jack Spade] is very much involved making sure I’m 100% good in everything. My assistants are always helping me and things like that. I have a good team behind me. I try to stay humble.” Marie in 2019 will debut her first signature toy line, closing a deal with Doc Johnson for a collection called The Main Squeeze. “They molded my mouth, my vagina and my butt,” Ariana Marie says. “I didn’t know what to expect and all that and the lady that molded me that day told me, ‘You really have nice boobs. Do you mind if I do a mold of them?’ That’s not part of the toy. That was just something she wanted. I was like, ‘Yeah you can have my boobs, that’s fine.’” Ariana Marie says Doc Johnson contacted her and asked her if she wanted to do a line. “I thought that was pretty cool. I had been wanting to do a toy line for a really long time,” she adds. Marie, who cams occasionally on MyFreeCams, will also be appearing in the upcoming documentary A Cam Life. The producers followed her before the 2018 AVN Show. “They came to my house and filmed a bunch of stuff. I had a cam house with a bunch of voyeur cams in my house and they were filming all that stuff.” This past August she won Exotic Dancer’s Adult Feature Entertainer of the Year award for her electric feature dancing performances. “That was really exciting,” she says. “I was working really hard to get recognized for that award and when that happened I was like, oh my god, it’s real.” She points to Jack Spade as helping her improve her shows and props and costumes. “If I’m not sure about wearing something he’ll say, ‘Trust me, people will go crazy for it.’ He kind of talks me into it and then when I do wear it, everybody loves it. If I didn’t have him in my corner as my support system I wouldn’t be where I am.” Ariana and Jack, who are proud swingers, are the stars of TheCoupleNextDoor.com. “All of that is real because we have had an open relationship from the very beginning,” she says. “We were going out and going to a lot of swingers parties and we said why don’t we just start recording this kind of stuff. Not a lot of people in the industry are doing that.” “We’ve been playing with it here and there. A lot of the fans have graduated to going there now. They wanna see all this hot-wife, intense stuff. We have a CoupleNextDoor OnlyFans [account] and that actually makes way more money than something by myself—it’s really weird.” In September she moved back to Tampa, Fla., the same area where she was raised, after living in Vegas for about two-and-a-half years. “I’m very family oriented. I love being around my family and parents. I wanted to just be closer to them.” Before porn, she worked as a waitress in a dining room at a retirement home all throughout high school. After she graduated, she was a cashier/hostess/waitress at B-Dubs. “I never bounced around from jobs. When I had a job I kept a job. Then I got into camming a year after working at Buffalo Wild Wings. When I first started camming I was on Streamate,” sh recalls. “I got introduced to camming by a couple—Janessa Brazil [and Jimmy Nobody]. She kind of trained me in the beginning how to cam.”