Grappling With the A-Team in Sweetheart's ‘Girls of Wrestling'

This article originally ran in the July issue of AVN magazine. Click here to see the digital edition. Above, Ariel X and Sinn Sage. Photos courtesy Sweetheart Video. The "Boxing Gym" located half-a-block from a busy Los Angeles thoroughfare is easy to find, with block walls neatly painted flat black in contrast to the surrounding well-worn neighborhood, but gaining entrance is tougher. A roll-down steel door blockades the front entrance, and the back is no more inviting, with another impenetrable steel door guarding the rear. The entry point is in a corrugated steel storage shed, hidden behind dusty discarded equipment. The gym looks like every gym in every boxing movie, ever. A full-size ring stands next to a large steel framework hung with punching bags. More-modern weight machines are scattered around, much like an afterthought. A giant skylight fills the room with light, filtered through the trusswork holding up the roof. In a classic only-in-L.A. touch, every recognizable brand name on every piece of gear has been concealed with black gaffer's tape, neatly cut to fit the offending brand name but leaving the rest of the logo intact. This is where Ricky Greenwood is shooting his new feature, Girls of Wrestling. "It's kind of an homage to my favorite wrestling characters of my childhood," Greenwood says. "The premise is that Layla, played by Ariel X, is a pro wrestler who got kicked out for a DUI. Her old coach, Nina Hartley, invites her to do her community service at the gym, teaching the new wrestlers. For her, it's kind of a demotion to be there, but she falls for another young wrestler, Sophie, played by Sinn Sage. The end is like a classic sports film. Layla will leave the team — struggling with a drug issue, painkillers — but she comes back and fights against Sophie. Today we're shooting dialogue and training sequences, and tonight we do the wrestling matches.” After the first take of a scene with newscaster Charlotte Stokely interviewing two wrestlers, Greenwood calls cut, pulls out his phone and plays back a wrestler interview for the performers. "Angrier. Like that," he tells them. On the next take, Whitney Wright bears down on the anger, changing it up but keeping the pressure on. When the next two wrestlers, Ana Foxxx and Aiden Ashley, come in, Greenwood briefs them on plot points before the first take, and they nail it. "You aren't going to get better than that," cinematographer James Avalon says. With the interview scenes done, the next shots are quick training scenes with Ariel X to be cut together for a montage. The performers, in sweats, mount the machinery as X goads them under Avalon's hand-held camera. Out of the action and still in her reporter costume, Stokely slips off her blazer and does a few reps on an arm machine. Above, Cadence Lux and Kenna James Greenwood moves on to the ring, working out wrestling moves with Kenna James and Cadence Lux. They go through the moves slowly, to begin with. "It'll speed up later," Greenwood tells them. "It's okay if I accidentally get hit," James says, and Lux concurs: "I signed a consent form.” "It's not!" Greenwood blurts out. Greenwood gathers the performers in the ring to set up a climactic dialogue scene. The performers line up in a half-circle around him as he outlines the action, blocking the moves the actors will make as the techs watch and plan shots. The scene involves Nina Hartley explaining that Layla isn’t working there any more and then taking over as wrestling coach, pep-talking them ("We can do this!") and then setting up two wrestlers to spar while the others watch. "Twelve girls quiet and listening. I'm impressed," Stokely whispers to me as we observe. Greenwood calls "Action!" Hartley gives her explanation, then sets up the sparring, clearing the ring. The script calls for Sage's character Sophie to get injured during the sparring as everybody's anger comes out. Between the performers lining the ring and the camera crew shooting hand-held inside the ring it's tough to observe without getting caught on camera, but the groans and the squeals—and the thump of bodies colliding—make the point: This is a serious fight. I catch a glimpse of Sage falling to the canvas with an earsplitting "FUCK!!" and the wrestlers jump into the ring and gather around her. Somebody snaps "Call 911!" and Wright sprints to the ropes, drops to the floor and rolls out of the ring toward her phone like she's been doing it all her life. Greenwood calls "Cut" as the other performers surround Sage, checking if she's all right. "Yeah, no. I'm fine," she responds with a smile. "Was my acting that good?" Girls of Wrestling is set for an August release from Mile High Media. Below, Whitney Wright and Brandi Mae. For more photos, click here.