Throwin' It Back: Angela White Goes Retro in New Star Showcase

This is the cover story of the October issue of AVN magazine. Click here for the digital edition. LOS ANGELES—Call it an expression of love. Love for the era of porn that inspires her. And love for the directors whose visions defined it. Fuck Angela turned into more than a star showcase for Angela White, who produced the title through her own studio, AGW Entertainment. It became a six-scene love letter to what is widely regarded as the greatest era of gonzo filmmaking. The Australian superstar lined up a parade of distinguished shooters to direct her in Fuck Angela, creating a one-of-a-kind throwback to the early 2000s—complete with the look, style and feel of the free-wheeling sex scenes that influenced her career. John Stagliano, Jules Jordan, Jonni Darkko, Chris Streams, Mike John and Aiden Riley each accepted White’s invitation to pick up the Sony VX2000 camera once again for Fuck Angela. The movie is available now through Girlfriends Films on both DVD—and in a nod to the period—a limited run of VHS tapes. “It was a big deal to get all these directors together, a really big deal,” White admits. “I wanted to make a movie that represented everything that I love about porn and everything that made me inspired to get into the industry in the first place and these are the directors that I grew up watching. “So to be able to bring them all together for this movie was an incredible feat and such an honor. It makes the movie incredibly special to me personally.” Without question, the three-time AVN Female Performer of the Year from Sydney went big, hiring a heavyweight cast to bring the project to life. She took on Zac Wild in an anal scene under the direction of Jules Jordan; she squared off with Lexington Steele for Mike John; went toe-to-toe with Vince Karter and Angel Youngs for Chris Streams; played with Anna Claire Clouds for John Stagliano; did a solo performance for Aiden Riley; and threw down with Hollywood Cash, Dwayne Foxxx, Chocolate God, Eddie Jaye, Scotty P, Slim Poke and Tee Reel in a blowbang lensed by Jonni Darkko. “I pride myself on my casting,” White says. “A project like Fuck Angela is a big investment and I want to get the best scenes possible; for that, only the right people will do.” And White’s fans around the world have responded. At press time Fuck Angela ranked No. 1 on Adult Empire’s top-selling DVD chart—two days after debuting at No. 3 on the online retail giant. The movie arrived on Tuesday, Sept. 24 as a two-disc set, featuring a 20-page booklet with behind-the-scenes photography and an extended message from White on the making of the movie. Each DVD also includes one of six illustrated stickers of Angela that were inspired by Hook-Ups Skateboards and drawn by Italian cartoonist Marco “MG Curves” Guaglione. The first 100 DVDs ordered during the pre-sale received a double VHS of the movie, making Fuck Angela the first new adult release to debut on VHS in over 20 years. Girlfriends Films owner Moose tells AVN he isn’t surprised by the warm welcome for Fuck Angela, which sold out of its first DVD run—a rare occurrence in 2024. “She’s such a total badass with everything she does,” Moose says. “She’s got so much drive, creativity and passion. We’ve been working together for 10 years and I’m proud to distribute her movies.” White tells AVN her first priority when deciding to make Fuck Angela was “to have fun.” “And the second priority was really creating something nostalgic,” she says. “I wanted this to be a memento for me. I wanted it to represent my favorite era and genre of porn, which is early 2000s gonzo. “So shooting on the VX2000 was really important to me to bring those visuals to life. “To not use a filter, to not try and deliver a 4K product but make it look old. But to actually shoot on 24-year-old cameras and to have that grit and have that 4:3 aspect ratio that is part of the visual experience of watching any early 2000s gonzo porn.” She adds, “I feel like that 4:3 aspect ratio is really important to the final product because it forces you right up into the action.” Evil Angel founder John Stagliano and longtime White collaborator agrees. The gonzo porn pioneer quipped, “I wanted to shoot this because people stand vertically, so 16 by 9 can be problematic.” Indeed, White’s move to employ the 4:3 framing for Fuck Angela was also a way for her to break from the current trend of less immersive shooting. Released in the year 2000, the Sony VX2000 is a standard definition video camera that was the successor to the cult camera, the Sony VX1000, which was released in 1995. And it was the predecessor to the Sony VX2100, which hit the market in 2003. For the first half of the 2000s, these three cameras dominated gonzo porn production in America and Europe. White, who won AVN Female Performer of the Year an unprecedented three consecutive times from 2018-20 and has collected a record 69 AVN Awards in her career, set out to demonstrate that good porn doesn’t need to be 16:9—or shot in 4K, 6K or 8K. She also wanted to underscore that newer doesn’t always equal better. “I wanted to make a gonzo movie that went back to basics,” Angela explains. “I wanted to return to those core ingredients of fun, perversion and energy—doing away with any pretension.” Once the technical elements came into focus, the rest of the production began to take shape. She based her scene selection on allowing the directors to create the types of scenes “that they both enjoy shooting and are known for shooting.” “The one thing I wanted to really achieve was to keep the scenes shorter, punchier, more killer, less filler,” Angela says. “I didn’t want to capture long scenes for the sake of long scenes. I wanted to throw back to the early 2000s when scenes were shorter and deliver high-energy, to-the-point performances. Scenes don’t need to be so long.” AGW Entertainment production manager Shawn tells AVN there wasn’t a single origin to the movie. “It was kind of like every door that we opened unlocked another door that we might be able to explore,” Shawn says. “When we saw that we could get the camera to work in a way that we needed to for a modern professional product, we were like OK, can we dial it a little bit further with location and wardrobe and makeup and hair and not become a period piece, but how far can we throw it back?” In keeping with the early 2000s aesthetic, they decided to use the most frequented location in porn—a 6500 square foot house in the San Fernando Valley—for the majority of the scenes. “That house was the first house I ever shot at in Los Angeles,” White says. “And then when I came back and started shooting for AngelaWhite.com it was the first house that I shot at. So not only is it the most shot-at house in porn but there’s history in that house for me personally. “So it was always going to feature heavily in Fuck Angela. The movie wouldn’t have looked right without it.” White chose to shoot her girl/girl scene with Clouds at John Stagliano’s home near the beach and the anal scene with Zac Wild at Jules Jordan’s luxury pad deep in Porn Valley. “Shooting at John’s house and Jules’ house were musts for this movie,” Angela continues. “The first movie I ever saw directed by John was Bend Over Babes IV. Half of the movie was shot in Europe and half was shot in L.A. at John’s house in Malibu—if I remember correctly, one scene was a Rocco [Siffredi] threesome by John’s pool and the other was an orgy in John’s living room with Rocco, Joey Silvera and John. “From that moment on, I’ve always associated John’s content with that room. The same goes for shooting at Jules’ house. When I think of Jules Jordan scenes, I invariably think of his place. The fact that both locations were used in the early 2000s was perfect.” White even adjusted her makeup and nails to align with that era. “Those squared-off, French tip nails, that’s the same style of nail I had in my very first shoot,” Angela says. “Having my nails done in that way took me back to my very beginnings in the porn industry. And my makeup, the smokey eye with the silver shadow—which is not what’s in at all today—but just having my makeup done in that way was also a playful way to feel like, oh I’m back there in the early 2000s.” In addition, White’s attention to detail extended to the wardrobe elements such as the black velvet collar with oversized rhinestones that she wore in her Lexington Steele scene. That style of collar that was a staple in early 2000s gonzo. Not everything White wore matched—and that was by design. “Twenty years ago girls would just rock up to set and directors would just grab whatever was out and so not everything always matched,” Shawn says. “So you had to have that little hint of imperfection in the outfit to make it feel a little bit more believable.” AGW also focused on utilizing only natural light and allowing for more movement by the performers in the scenes—both were key elements in Fuck Angela. “Nowadays we set up our set. We set up the lighting and we stay put,” White says. “If we’re having sex on the couch, we stay on the couch. We stay in a certain area so that the lighting is perfect. And in the early 2000s they would move from room to room about the house. “And that movement I feel like is so dynamic in a scene and it’s exciting because you don’t know what’s going to happen next or where the performers are going to end up fucking.” To say White gave careful consideration to the cast of the movie would be an understatement. For starters, three-time AVN Male Performer of the Year Lexington Steele is a performer who is synonymous with early 2000s gonzo. “What can I say about Lex? He’s one of the greatest of all time,” Angela says. “He’s a very special performer. Every time you’re on set with Lex it’s an event and this time was no different. “I’ve had the privilege of working with Lex many times during my career and to work with him again for Fuck Angela was awesome. If you’re going to do a throwback movie to the early 2000s you have to have Lex in it!” Mike John tells AVN shooting Steele is “like a band that has played together for 30 years.” “I know his next move and what’s coming and he knows I know what’s coming,” Mike, who has been directing Steele in The Connoisseur series for JJV, tells AVN. “We can just look at each other and know what we’re going to do. So it was just the perfect scenario, a dream shoot. I was so stoked on it.” White calls John "a pornographer’s pornographer." "His camera work and perverted eye are fantastic," she adds. "And the speed with which we got into sync with each other was phenomenal.” Mike John, meanwhile, says he loved the idea of a throwback product from the moment he heard about it. “I think it’s one of the better concepts that anybody has ever tried to realize and I don’t think anyone else could’ve pulled it off,” John tells AVN. White left nothing to chance with the opening scene, setting the tone with Zac Wild, whom she lauded for his high energy, physicality and positivity on the set. “The fact that he shares my passion for gonzo and all-sex content was also why I wanted him in the movie,” she continues. “The opening scene to a movie needs to be impactful. When Zac delivered such incredible energy for this anal scene, I knew it was how I wanted to start the movie—the scene chose itself.” Jules Jordan, who directed the 2020 AVN Award-winning showcase Angela White Dark Side, welcomed the early summer call from White, telling AVN, “It’s always incredible to be able to collaborate with anything Angela! Especially when she’s doing a project that takes me back to my golden era of technology." “We filmed a classic scenario from the early 2000s with all the old-school Jules Jordan elements, including unpredictable, unscripted acts," Jordan continues. "Zac Wild is also a modern performer who emulates the male performers of that time as well, so it really reflects that era. Angela is the performer of the century, there should be an award for that!” White, whose career began soaring after she relocated to L.A. in August 2016 and signed with the Spiegler Girls agency, considers Jordan one of the best to ever do it.  “It was an absolute privilege to have Jules direct a scene for this movie," Angela says. "You just know that when Jules has a camera in his hands you’re going to get something special—he is an absolute master at what he does. He is a close friend, and like with Jonni and Chris, I’ve done some big scenes and movies with Jules, none more so than Angela White: Darkside in 2019. As always, with my anal scene with Zac for this movie, Jules did what Jules does and hit it out of the park: his directing and camera work was sharp, tight and perverted! I couldn’t have asked for more.” Vince Karter, the reigning International Male Performer of the Year who has since moved to L.A., “has that old school gonzo feel about him, the way he fucks,” White tells AVN. He drilled Youngs and White like it was his privilege while Chris Streams recorded. “Vince was essential when casting this movie,” White explains. “He’s one of the top gonzo/all-sex male performers right now. He brought the perfect balance of personality and professionalism to set. Angel and I are both high-energy performers and Vince matched us.” Meanwhile, Streams likened picking up the Sony VX2000 again to “putting on an old pair of shoes.” “I love it, it was amazing when they told me they were gonna do it,” Chris tells AVN. “I personally think that was the greatest camera ever in the video world.” Streams has been the man behind the camera for some of the most memorable scenes of White’s career, including her first AVN Awards for Angela Vol. 2 that Streams shot in summer of 2015; and her most award-winning movie ever, Angela Vol. 3, which Streams captured in 2017. He says Vince, Angel, and Angela did not hold back when he called "action." “They were all going crazy, squirting and everything and it was no breaks,” Streams says. “It was like let’s just put this fucking car in sixth gear and pedal to the metal right out of the gate. And how do you not though? You’re a guy and somebody says here’s Angela and Angel Youngs, and they’re both saying you can do whatever you want to us. It’s just like the greatest day ever. “I was so thankful they included me in this project and they consider me on the level with the best gonzo shooters out there. It was an honor.” Angela says her movie also would not have been possible without the services of glam-filth master Jonni Darkko. White considers Darkko “the king of blowbangs” and took his advice on which guys should be in this one. She reveals that “one of the highlights of the day was definitely Jonni teaching me how to properly drink cum out of a dog bowl so as to not block the light or camera, and the speed and technique necessary to ensure the maximum amount of cum ends up in your mouth.” “I love Angela White’s performances,” says Darkko, who directed the sensational Angela By Darkko showcase in 2018. “I really zone in on those days when I’m working with Angela and this one took me back using a Sony VX2000. We were laughing our asses off the whole day. It was so crazy to have this camera in my hands again. It all came pouring back to me. “I really can’t wait for people to see this project.” Darkko gave White access to his catalog of electronic beats for Fuck Angela, which used music to enhance the early 2000s vibes of the tease sequences. Indeed, each of the directors approached their scene with the kind of personal investment that White believes brings out the best in performers. “For me part of the appeal of gonzo porn is that the director is somehow involved, even if it’s not directly sexual or physical—that you can see their perversion and their likes by the way they’re shooting the scene,” Angela explains. “They’re an avatar for the audience. They’re really part of it. I feel like that’s what gives gonzo its appeal.” The AGW production manager Shawn adds, “I love the quality you get from a director who’s shooting exactly what he wants to shoot and seeing what he wants to see. It gives you something that you can’t replicate any other way. “It’s a dance not just with the performers but the way those performers dance with the director.” Speaking of being in harmony, White felt right at home performing with Clouds in front of the legendary Stagliano, who hasn't shot for another other studio in 40-plus years.  “Every time you’re on set with John you know it’s a day you’re never going to forget," Angela says. "There’s no one like John. It’s really difficult to put into words. He’s just the perfect amount of chaos. He’s ‘perfect chaos.’ You don’t always know what he’s going to do and you never know what’s going to say or ask next. It’s awesome. "The scene John captured of me and Anna was over an hour of unscripted interaction between the three of us. And sometimes, you wonder, 'Where is all of this going?   What the hell did we just shoot?’ And then you look at the footage and it’s pure magic. To have that scene and those BTS moments captured forever is really important to me.” In fact, White decided to share almost 90 minutes of behind-the-scenes footage of the making of Fuck Angela—all captured by Aiden Riley, whom White calls “a BTS master.” Remarkably, the two had never collaborated before Fuck Angela—something that wasn't lost on Riley. “I haven’t worked on a proper porn project since around 2020, so not only did Angela’s project pull me out of retirement and breathe new life into my desire to make porn great again, it also brought so much nostalgia that some days I had to remember we weren’t really back in the early 2000s,” Riley, whose career started in 1999 with Evil Angel, tells AVN. “The BTS was the bread and butter of my work on this project, but getting to shoot with Angela one-on-one was honestly a dream come true for me.” Angela tells AVN she always wanted to work with Aiden, pointing to his "perverted, curious, non-judgemental and playful" persona. "He really is a wonderful avatar for the audience," White says. "And more than that, he’s a super fun, warm person. When developing this project, I knew I wanted to capture a lot of BTS, and the only person I wanted was Aiden. "But what he captured during this project was beyond anything I expected. We built up such a fun, free-wheeling chemistry almost immediately, that looking back, I can’t imagine how this project would have looked without Aiden’s involvement. I need to shoot with Aiden more.” White suggests the most difficult part of producing Fuck Angela may have been condensing the BTS to only 10 minutes for each scene due to the time restrictions for VHS and DVD releases. “So we couldn’t release all of the behind the scenes,” Angela admits. “So many funny things happened and I had to pick the best of the best to go on the DVD and the VHS. I will be releasing extended behind the scenes for OnlyFans.” If the branding looks much different from AGW's past offerings, White says that also was on purpose and in keeping with the rebellious spirit of the movie's theme.   White reveals that the title treatment—Angela White Video: A Cocksucking Pornography Company—was an homage to the classic skateboarding video Welcome to Hell, which was shot on the VX1000. “There’s also a lot of similarities between the way porn is shot and the way skate vids are shot,” Angela says. “It’s all about the angles and being close and it’s guerilla.” She adds, “The Sony VX1000 and VX2000 were not only revolutionary cameras for gonzo porn, they also revolutionized skateboarding videos. This shouldn’t be surprising as a quick look at many skate videos and gonzo porn scenes shows marked similarities in approach when it comes to capturing action. “I grew up at a time and in an area where skate videos were always playing in the background when we were hanging out. Even though I never skated, what always stood out to me was their energy, none more so than in Toy Machine’s 1996 classic Welcome to Hell. Given the shared VX history and as a nod to my love of some of those movies the branding for this movie was directly influenced by Welcome to Hell. I wanted people who know Welcome to Hell to see the cover, see the ‘devil’ animation at the start of the trailer, and immediately get the reference." Angela says the same goes for the movie’s trailer—the first hardcore section was influenced by the opening sequence in Welcome to Hell. "I wanted to capture and portray that intense energy," White continues. "The second, behind-the-scenes section of the trailer (and the credit roll in the movie proper) was heavily influenced by Toy Machine’s 1995 video: Heavy Metal. Once I was on this theme, it only felt logical to me to give a nod to another one of my favorite skate brands from that time: Hook-Ups—which guided the design of the stickers.” Photography by Jonni Darkko & Chris Streams