The Girlfriend Experience

The Girlfriend Experience

Cast: Sasha Grey, Chris Santos, Mark Jacobson, Glenn Kenny
Director: Steven Soderbergh
Run time: 77 minutes
Release date: September 3, 2009

Chelsea is an upscale Manhattan call girl who provides more than just a sexual encounter; for a price, she'll simulate a complete romantic relationship-a girlfriend "experience." Despite a wide variety of happy customers, Chelsea wants to expand her business. Her real boyfriend Chris, a personal trainer at a downtown gym, has come to terms with his girlfriend's level of experience, not to mention the posh apartment they share as a result of her success.

But it's October of 2008 and the faltering U.S. economy is on everyone's lips. One of Chelsea's clients, a Hassidic jeweler, advises her against keeping her savings in diamonds-"Diamonds have no value. Keep it in gold." Meanwhile, she solicits advice from businesspeople (some of whom are clients) on how to achieve growth in a down market. Chelsea goes so far as to visit a sex connoisseur who runs an influential website and who promises Chelsea a favorable review in exchange for a free sample. Meanwhile, Chris finds himself at an impasse in his own career: training wealthy hedge fund managers, he's generating plenty of business for the gym, but little of that lucre is coming back to him. Worse, his relationship with Chelsea has cooled--hardly a girlfriend experience at all.

On the heels of a nasty web review from the sex connoisseur, Chelsea meets Philip, a new client from out of town who listens to her as she unloads her career anxieties to him. In Philip, Chelsea finally sees the promise of a real relationship-a real girlfriend experience-not just another transaction.

From Academy Award-winning director Steven Soderbergh comes THE GIRLFRIEND EXPERIENCE, a drama about the fraught relationship between our professional lives and our personal lives in the age of post-crisis capitalism. THE GIRLFRIEND EXPERIENCE stars Sasha Grey, the legendary 21-year-old adult film star making her feature film debut. The film was written by Brian Koppelman & David Levien (The Illusionist, Rounders, Ocean's 13), produced by Gregory Jacobs (Che, Ocean's 13), and executive-produced by Todd Wagner and Mark Cuban (Good Night and Good Luck; We Own the Night).

About the Cast

SASHA GREY - Chelsea / Christine

Sasha Grey, born March 14, 1988, in Sacramento, California is an American actor, writer, photographer, porn star, transgressive artist and experimental musician. She has a strong interest in the films of the French New Wave and before deciding on her present stage name, she toyed with the name of Jean-Luc Godard's ex-wife Anna Karina. In interviews she has stated that the name Grey represents two things: Oscar Wilde's Dorian Grey and the Kinsey scale of sexuality (homosexual to heterosexual, a grey scale in-between).

Sasha began college in August of 2005, balancing school and work seven days a week, and soon after moved to LA to pursue a career as a porn star. Around this time she started thinking about pornography as a career opportunity. Sasha has a huge appetite for sex and self-exploration.

Sasha is a genuinely smart, funny, ambitious, and daring person. She does the work she does because she wants to - because she not only enjoys the sex in all its myriad forms but also because she likes doing, as she calls it, performance art.

Accolades: Star of more than 80 porn films, Grey was featured in the November 2006 edition of Los Angeles Magazine, which flagged her as a potential major star, the next Jenna Jameson. Grey was chosen as Penthouse Pet of The Month for July 2007; the spread is considered to be a radical change for the magazine as it was photographed by the fashion photographer Terry Richardson. In 2008, she won Female Performer of the Year at the 25th Annual AVN awards. She is also featured as part of the art work for The Smashing Pumpkins 2007 album Zeitgeist, has modelled for American Apparel and Richard Kern for Vice Magazine, and made the 2009 Rolling Stone Magazine Hot List. Sasha starred in Lee Demarbre's horror film, SMASH CUT, which will be out Spring of 2009, and she recently wrapped filming the lead role in Steven Soderbergh's THE GIRLFRIEND EXPERIENCE.


CHRIS SANTOS - Chris

Chris Santos is making his feature film debut in Steven Soderbergh's THE GIRLFRIEND EXPERIENCE opening May 22, 2009. He calls on his athletic experience as a trainer and triathlete for the lead role of 'Chris,' a trainer whose high-end escort girlfriend provides the titular experience for her clients.

Santos was born on May 21, 1978 in Long Island, NY, and moved to Los Angeles in 2007.


MARK JACOBSON - Interviewer

Mark Jacobson has been a journalist for over thirty-five years. He has written for New York Magazine, National Geographic, Rolling Stone, the Village Voice, esquire, the New York Times Magazine and many others. Jacobson's articles have been adapted into the classic TV series, "Taxi" and the feature film AMERICAN GANGSTER. He authored the screenplay for the upcoming film LOVE RANCH, starring Helen Mirren and Joe Pesci, directed by Taylor Hackford. Jacobson is also the author of a number of novels including the cult favorite, Gorjiro.


GLENN KENNY - The Erotic Connoisseur

Glenn Kenny was the senior editor and chief film critic for Premiere magazine from 1996 to 2007. His writing has appeared in The Village Voice, The New York Times, The New York Daily News, Film Comment, the DGA Quarterly, Rolling Stone and other publications. In 2002 he edited and wrote the introduction to "A Galaxy Not So Far Away: Writers and Artists on 25 Years of Star Wars" (Owl Books). He is married, lives in Brooklyn, and showers regularly.