Main Attraction: Vanna Bardot Talks 'Influence', Career Firsts

This is the cover story of the November issue of AVN magazine. Click here for the digital edition. LOS ANGELES—The star of Influence came to work today at an estate situated high above Beverly Hills with views that extend to the Santa Monica Bay. Wearing a pink bikini and shades, she’s sipping a cocktail poolside at the six-bedroom, 10,000 square-foot, $19.9 million hideaway that Vixen Media Group secured for her promotional shoot. Vanna Bardot didn’t think she would be here—as the centerpiece of VMG’s biggest movie of the year. “I didn’t think I would be anywhere near here,” she admits. On this sun-kissed, 80-degree Tuesday in October, Bardot and her Influence co-stars Vicki Chase, Little Dragon and Queenie Sateen got together to relive some of the most memorable moments from their experience. “I think it was really nice to be with all the girls going over everything,” Bardot tells me. “I haven’t seen everyone since we wrapped the movie.” The former hair salon assistant from Miami made her porn debut five-and-a-half years ago, working hard for opportunities that did not come quick. But despite her underrated start, Bardot stayed focused. Now the 24-year-old performer enters November 2023 with five AVN Awards on her resumé, an exclusive contract with VMG’s all-girl studio, Slayed, a glittering new showcase filled with career firsts and her most recent accolade—the coveted title of Vixen Angel. “I had a really slow come-up when I first started,” Bardot recalls. “I didn’t really have quite the same splash as a lot of the other girls who started in the same year as I did. “And I really didn’t know if I was going to make it…It wasn’t because I didn’t want it. It was just that sometimes things don’t work out for everyone in the way that they want them to. “And this industry is very competitive with girls.” On the heels of her five-part crossover showcase, Influence: Vanna Bardot, which rolled out in September, Vanna accepted her Vixen Angel crown on October 17 with a glass of champagne on a yacht in Miami along with fellow VMG stars Violet Myers, Gianna Dior and Jason Luv. And as part of her prize package, she received a custom Tiffany gold-and-diamond ‘V’ necklace, a collection of Vixen swimwear and lingerie sets. “I remember getting Penthouse Pet [in January 2021]—and that was really crazy—but I never would’ve thought I would get Vixen Angel, especially with how much more exclusive it is now,” Vanna says. But so much has happened for Bardot since she made her VMG debut in 2019 for Kayden Kross’s Deeper imprint. Her spectacular seduction in “Woman” that was part of the 2020 DVD release Dance for Me led to her first AVN Award—for Best Solo/Tease Performance at the all-digital 38th annual ceremony on January 23, 2021. It turns out that triumph was a sign of things to come—all five of Bardot’s AVN trophies so far were from performances for VMG. She won Best Three-Way Sex Scene in 2022 for “Another Person,” a Deeper encounter that also featured Oliver Flynn and Avery Cristy; and that same year took home AVN gold for Best Girl/Girl Sex Scene for an electric tryst with Emily Willis titled “Light Me Up.” This past January at the 2023 AVN Awards in Las Vegas Bardot made it two in a row for Best Girl/Girl Scene and Slayed, winning with Gianna Dior for “Heatwave”; and she also claimed a trophy for Best Foursome/Orgy Scene for “High Gear,” an 18-person orgy for Blacked Raw. Now with almost 30 scenes for the company’s studio brands, Bardot has become one of VMG’s most prolific and versatile performers. “As long as they’ll have me I’ll keep shooting for them,” Vanna says. “This is my favorite company. I’m more than happy to state that for the record. “There’s a lot of other companies I love, but I’ve just always identified so much with Vixen. I definitely idolized them so much coming into the industry just because I felt like they reflected so much of my personal brand and style.” She signed her exclusive pact with Slayed in September 2022, which is also when the first discussions about a potential star showcase began. “When I was going to sign my contract I got an offer from another company to do a really big all-girl movie that I would’ve been the lead actress in,” Bardot reveals. “I was like, OK, guys, I’m getting this offer at the same time.” But she couldn’t do both projects, so she chose Slayed. Knowing that she sacrificed another major opportunity, Bardot and VMG began to explore the idea of doing something together she could call her own. “And naturally when I first signed my contract they talked to me about anal and at the time I told them I was not ready yet but I was definitely interested in doing it maybe a year from when I first signed,” she says. “By the end of the year, like halfway through my contract, I was practicing a lot and I was starting to feel really ready and I was like, OK, this is the moment.” That’s when Bardot dialed up Vixen Media Group co-owner and executive producer, Mike Miller. “And that’s when we decided to do a showcase that would incorporate my first anal and my first DP,” Vanna explains. “And since I’ve been in the industry already for five years we felt like if we were going to do a showcase we need to do it big and we decided to just make it all-anal.” By the time it was over, Bardot had delivered her first anal with Maximo Garcia and her first DP with Alex Jones and Dante Colle—both for Tushy; an anal threeway with Jax Slayher and Little Dragon for Blacked; an anal threeway with Vicki Chase and April Olsen for Slayed; and another rear-end collision with Jason Luv for Blacked. AVN Hall of Fame director Derek Dozer called the shots for the production that unfolded during a 10-day stretch over the summer. Dozer tells AVN he considers Bardot “a great friend and just an all-around awesome person.” “We were able to bring the best out of each other for this movie for sure,” Dozer says. “She’s by far one of the top, if not the top performer out there right now in all aspects of what it means to be a performer in the biz today. “I’ve been doing this over a span of four decades and to see someone who’s doing a lot of first-time scenes in one movie do it like she’s been doing it for 10 years was pretty damn impressive. “Every scene was just amazing and I had no doubt they would be. Sex is one thing but she also blew me away with her acting chops as well. It’s so much easier to direct when you have a legit movie star which I told her she is!” Bardot loves working with Dozer, who also directed her first scenes for Blacked in 2020. “When I found out he was going to be coming on board and directing everything it was definitely really special because I do feel like I have a really good bond with him and it made me feel safe,” she says. “Because I’m a perfectionist and I definitely am always stressing about everything being perfect. So it was nice to know I was going to have somebody directing that I knew was going to be very much on my side. “He checked in with me so much during the movie. He pulled me aside and was like, ‘Vanna, do you like everything? Is there anything you feel we can change?’ I very much appreciated that because he knew how much this movie meant to me. And I wanted it to be a reflection of who I am and who I am as a performer.” Fueled by a clever screenplay by fellow AVN Hall of Famer Kayden Kross, the narrative of Influence: Vanna Bardot revolves around the shady underworld of organized crime and crypto-scammers. “I knew from the beginning that if I was going to get an opportunity to do a movie like this and a showcase for a company that I wanted to be really involved in it with the story and the casting and just everything. I wanted everything to be perfect,” Bardot says. “Kayden Kross is the one who wrote the movie, so I met with her and we sat down for a while at her home and she asked me all about my life and my story and that’s how we kind of put together the script for the movie. “Obviously, a lot of the movie is not based on my real life, I didn’t pull off this high-speed chase and heist. But other parts are very much inspired by my life.” Bardot’s agent, Mark Schechter of ATMLA, tells AVN that Bardot “hit a grand slam this year.” “My team and I at ATMLA are so very proud and honored to be behind her and beside her on this incredible journey,” says Schechter, who has represented Bardot since 2019. “The past two years for Vanna has been a perfectly orchestrated plan. She laid out a two-year path to accomplish all of her aspiration goals in terms of scene performances, industry accolades and studio recognition milestones.  “The most exciting aspect that I can think of now is… This is Vanna Bardot’s year! And she has only just begun.” Veteran performer Codey Steele—Bardot’s boyfriend and strongest supporter for the past four years—agrees. “When she went over to ATMLA I think that was the turning point for her,” Steele tells AVN. “Once she was there over the course of two to three weeks, ATMLA had her booked out for the next two to three months. All the companies she wanted to work with were right there and all she had to do was put in the hard work and show everyone what she could do.” Not only was Influence a career-changer for Bardot, it also changed her life off the set. For starters, she prepared for it like a professional athlete. “When we first started talking about the movie I was dealing with a lot of health problems,” Vanna reveals. “I had been diagnosed with PCOS—polycystic ovary syndrome. Basically a hormone problem and my body changed a lot. “And my body changed a lot in a pretty quick period of time. I had always been really thin my whole life. I never had to worry about it and within a year I just started looking at myself and was like, I don’t like how I look on camera. Even though everybody else was like, ‘You look great.’ “I just wasn’t feeling good internally or externally and when we started discussing this movie and once it was confirmed I was like, OK, this is really an opportunity for me to take the time to prepare.” She not only prepared herself from a sexual standpoint, she also fine-tuned the rest of her body and mind. “I was like this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity and I want to feel so confident when I get on set to film this movie. I don’t want to have to feel anxious or self conscious that I don’t look good in photos,” Vanna says.  She went into beast mode from January until principal photography began in June, hiring a personal trainer with whom she worked out three times a week at 7 a.m., while also sticking to a strict diet. “I figured out what I needed to do to balance my body and it was the best thing I ever did,” Vanna continues. “I don’t know if I really would’ve ever gotten to that point without having something as big as a movie like this to give me the motivation to fix that." Bardot would go to bed at 9:30 p.m. so she could wake up as early as 5 a.m. to head to the gym. “We did weight training for an hour three times a week and then I would do 15,000 steps a day,” she says. “And then I was on a specific meal plan, like specific macros. “It wasn’t that complicated but it definitely was not super easy at first." Steele saw Bardot’s commitment to excellence first hand. “She really worked her ass her off for that and she deserves all the credit,” Codey adds. “She put in so much time and effort.” Vanna tells AVN she's still working with the same trainer with a focus on maintenance and how she can add more muscle. Speaking of muscle, Bardot chose Spanish stud Maximo Garcia for her first anal scene in Influence. Garcia played an influencer/boxer named Precious, with whom Vanna wants to collab in an effort to get him to promote her fledgling sex club. “I was definitely very nervous,” Vanna confesses. “Anal has never been easy to me. For some girls it comes really naturally but for me I definitely had to put a lot of work into preparing and making sure that was something I could do. “Because it’s one thing to be at home with your boyfriend with a little wine and you relax. But it’s another thing when you’re on set and it’s all of this kind of pressure to make sure it goes well.” Bardot continues, “Maximo was great. I had a good little talk with him beforehand. I was like I know you’re very like…He’s a very intense performer, but I was like, ‘I need you to ease me in and start slowly.’ And that’s exactly what he did. We started nice and slow until we built up the passion and it was a breeze. It felt great and it set the tone for the rest of the movie.” Garcia, a 10-year industry veteran who is authoring perhaps the best year of his career, tells AVN he had been waiting months for his chance with Bardot. “She did perform an amazing scene,” Maximo says. “She’s a great actress with great character. And she took it very well. It was her first time on camera, but she was ready for it. “I wanted to work with her since some time ago… I did like it. Everything was as expected. She’s an incredible woman.” Meanwhile, Bardot says her DP scene turned into everything she hoped it would be and more. She purposely waited to do her first DP—on or off camera—for the movie. “The DP was something I had never done in my personal life and I’ve done a lot of things in my personal life,” Vanna says. “But once we decided that this was going to be a part of the movie even like my boyfriend was like, ‘Hey, do you want to practice a DP with another performer off camera to see if that’s something you like?’ “I told him I feel like this is something I’m already going to want to do. Even when I started talking about the movie with [Mike Miller], I had joked I think I’m going to like the DP more than just anal. And he was like, ‘Well why don’t we throw a DP in there?’ “I was like, ‘You know what, you’re right. We might as well just go all out with this.’ So it started as a joke but it ended up being my favorite scene in the movie. “I wanted to see my genuine reaction to being DP’ed for the first time and it was great. It was my favorite sexual experience ever. I’m really looking forward to the next time I get to shoot another one or do another one if I can in my personal life.” Vanna Bardot began working as a hair salon assistant at 15, becoming so good at shampooing clients that she sometimes got $40 tips. But when she turned 18 it was time for a change. “I decided this just isn’t making me happy,” Vanna recalls. “I don’t see myself staying in this profession and feeling fulfilled. So I said fuck it… I had a friend of mine who was two years older than me and she had already been doing camming and stripping, so I kind of started with her and she showed me all the ropes.” Bardot tells me she was always fascinated with sex work. So not long after her 18th birthday in 2017, she stripped for the first time at PT’s Centerfold Gentlemen’s Club during an Exxxotica Expo in Denver. “My friend [Rosie Jones] was living in Denver at the time, so we went to Exxxotica together and we feature danced at the club that was like the Exxxotica host party,” Bardot explains. “That was a crazy experience. … It was exhilarating but I was so nervous and such a baby. “I had danced before—like for ballet—but dancing sexy and naked on a pole was definitely a new one for me. I loved it.” After that outing, Bardot returned to her hometown of Miami where she danced at Scarlett’s Cabaret. Prior to that she also tried MyFreeCams for a stint but admits it wasn’t her strength. A few months later, she took a long break to visit her dad in Scotland to figure out her next step in life. She returned to the States about nine months later, at 19, staying in Denver again with Jones. “I think I stayed with her for two months,” Vanna says of the spring of 2018. “We were dancing and camming together but I knew I wanted to do porn. “I knew that’s where my end game was at.” Bardot credits Steele for always being there for her—he even helped out with her AVN cover photoshoot with Siren Obscura in downtown LA, running errands and doing whatever he could to make the day go smooth. “I met him pretty early on in my career, maybe six months in and I was already familiar with who he was and the first time I got to perform with him I was really excited and it was such a funny scene,” Vanna says. “It was a boy/girl/girl/girl, plus two female extras. And it was a hilarious day. We had this like instant connection and we started dating pretty quickly. “And I just feel really lucky. There’s a lot of male talent in this industry but I feel like there’s very few who have such good morals and ethics. And I feel very lucky to have such a great guy by my side.” Bardot continues, “In some other relationships people get very jealous of each other. They ask each other to stop doing certain scenes with certain people because of their own ego or insecurity. And I think ultimately they’re holding their partner back from being successful as they can be, which is a shame. And for us it’s never been that case. We’ve always been always been excited to hear about if we have a good day at work and we're always cheering each other on.” Steele, a native of Arizona who is in his ninth year in the industry, tells AVN Bardot’s success has been a long time coming. “I think she sometimes underestimates herself a little bit,” says Steele, who worked in the pharmaceutical business before breaking into adult with Nubiles in Arizona. “She doesn’t always notice how well she’s done because she’s always looking for more.” That being said, Bardot already has begun to strategize for 2024. “I’m kind of getting a gameplan going of what I want for this next year—if I want to do some other big firsts,” she says. “I won’t reveal too much yet but I’m already trying to figure it out.” Photography by Siren Obscura