Jess lanai

Directly after I quit porn I’m not really sure what happened.

It’s pretty blurry.

I know I was having a bit of fun.

I went on vacation to London with a friend.

And while I was there I texted Abdellatif to say hi.

Since the initial interview Abdellatif reached out to me now and then. He had several assistants that kept getting fired.

They’d email me and sort of keep me in waiting. Then they’d disappear and a new assistant would pop up and introduce themselves.

I was under the impression that Abdellatif Kechiche was still doing the nun film.

I had no idea Abdellatif was actually in the process of starting shooting a completely different film (La Blessure, later renamed ‘Mektoub’) that I had nothing to do with.

I had no idea that I actually wasn’t remotely involved with his newest project and he never planned me to be involved.

The nun film was a just one of many projects he hoped to do someday.

It was pure luck. I happened to text him right as someone else wasn’t working out.

I now wonder how many actors Abdellatif Kechiche kept in waiting. He loves to promise actors a career and keep them orbiting him.

And he’s not lying. He’s serious. Not only that, he’s dedicated. Abdellatif’s gives as much to his actors as he demands of them.

Look at Adele Exarchopoulos. Look at Hafsia Herzi. Those names might not mean much to Americans.

But they are actors that got their start with Abdellatif Kechiche and now have full blown careers.

Sometimes critics will complain that an Abdellatif scene is too long or unnecessary. Every time that happens I know it’s because Abdellatif was trying to give an actor more screen time even at the expense of his film.

It’s people over project for Abdellatif Kechiche. He fits the project to the people. I do very much admire him for that.

I’m explaining Abdellatif Kechiche psychology to show how it clashed with my own psychology.

Because when I texted Abdellatif Kechiche while out having a blast in London, my mindset had shifted.

Timing has been extraordinary kind to me. When I first met Abdellatif Kechiche I was quite a bit more vulnerable. If things had worked out then and I’d done that Marilyn chambers film, well, I can’t know what would have happened. But I would not be the same person.

Back then my mind was still saturated in porn psychology and I was using it to think. Still trying to survive in porn hoping something would save me and I could forever avoid looking for a real job.

There’s a shackling pride that comes with thinking that way. A worry over how easily you can be summed up by another person.

I think it’s why people like the idea of success.

Because of the one line description.

‘Jessica did porn.’ Versus ‘Jessica was the star of a critically acclaimed film’

In that first headline most people’s brains have gone dark. They’ve already made their mind up about me and will read no further.

But the second headline triggers a bit more curiosity in a broader audience. People open up and investigate. They become more malleable to me. I get more consideration. Possibly more sympathy, more chances and more opportunity.

A good headline can be worth a lot.

But getting a good headline isn’t as alluring when we just know what we want very specifically.

We don’t need such a broad headline that reads success by anyone when we know more precisely who it is we care about impressing.

Who we care about impressing depends on what we want.

When I texted Abdellatif Kechiche while I was in London it’d been a year, maybe two years since I’d first interviewed for him. I wasn’t in porn psychology anymore, I was in my psychology. What I wanted.

And what I wanted was Europe. I wanted wild bunch.

I wanted Cannes.

I wanted to meet a real life boyfriend. Maybe a European one.

I wanted to keep having fun, feeling free and exploring Europe.

I wanted my adventure. I was not worrying about my future.

When I texted him I think he responded almost instantly or his assistant did, (at the time it was the legendary Maria Cavallo. The woman I am indebted to because without her my Mektoub might really have never been released.)

Abdellatif pretty much, or not even pretty much, he fully demanded that I come to Paris that instant.

I don’t think I was given a choice. I know I tried to say I couldn’t because I was with my friend and she had already bought us tickets to see a play.

If I remember correctly they’d already bought me a plane ticket before I’d even finished explaining why I couldn’t go to Paris.

So I apologized to my poor friend and went to the airport.

But I went to the wrong airport in London and missed the flight.

So I took the train which I remember cost me exactly 180 pounds.

And wow was that fun.

The train ride from London to Paris is one of my greatest memories.

I did a real life actually by all definitions, audition for Abdellatif Kechiche with other actors and everything.

No more being kept in waiting, I was back in France within that year.

There’s a lot to the story of Mektoub. It consumed my life for the next few years.

It was tremendous fun. But Mektoub did give me another way to avoid maturing.

I didn’t really have to do much.

I felt like I did back in my Tae Kwon do days. Where all I did was train for Tae Kwon do and obsess over the guy I liked.

I loved doing both those things. Love obsessing over men, it’s fantastic. Love training. Working for Abdellatif Kechiche is a sport. It’s very challenging but in that fun way where you’re fully dedicated and working towards something very specific. It’s also not serious. Not to me.

I’ve never taken sports very seriously. I don’t really care if I win or lose. I like the training part of it.

It was the same with the Abdellatif film. I had fun doing it but I didn’t care about the result of doing it.

It was all consuming. But all consuming things are easy. There’s not much stress or thinking.

I don’t have to worry about money or where I’m living or how to be more productive or what to do with my life. Nothing.

It’s all laid out for me and I just do it.

So easy.

But just like porn, I knew I had no future in acting.

No matter what people said to me.

And they said it constantly. ‘Jessica you’re doing amazing in an Abdellatif Kechiche film! You’re going to be a star!’

I knew they were wrong.

I just knew it.

I’ve always been smart in that particular way. Not influenced by what people say, I trust myself more.

I fully understood that Abdellatif Kechiche was special. That he was uniquely suited to work with me. And that even if there were other people like him in the industry they would be few.

That I would not be able to sustain myself as an actor.

So with that understanding I was still in a sense running for my life towards a dead end.

Yes I was having the time of my life. Yes it was worth it. But it was also, additionally, more time spent avoiding maturing in life.

Avoiding facing the hard things.

I let the fun I was having delay it.

Which I should have.

That was a once in a lifetime experience that should have been lived to the fullest and I’m glad I did.

But the wolves did come for me.

At the end of the first shooting for Mektoub, right after we finished the hospital scene, I was preparing to take a vacation with my family in Asia.

I had a good friend from Singapore that organized this huge itinerary for my mom, my dad and I around Thailand, Bali and Singapore.

I was floating around on cloud nine where I couldn’t imagine how life could get any better.

So instead life got far worse than I ever could’ve imagined.

That night right after filming the hospital scene for Mektoub, I entered a kind of hell it took me many years to escape.

When my mom found out I had done porn she was furious with me. She stopped speaking to me for at least a year but it might’ve been longer.

She had started speaking to me again when I went to Europe.

It was little by little.

When I told my dad to say hi to mom instead of being silent I’d hear her say hi to me in the background.

Then we started texting again and slowly started talking on the phone.

But she still never called me on her own yet. She just answered when I called.

So I kind of knew when she called that something was wrong.

My dad had been sick for months and he had a thing with hospitals. He wouldn’t go.

I know part of the reason my mom and I started to rebuild our relationship was over trying to get my dad to go to the hospital.

Well she finally got him to go.

The first result, his blood was poisoned.

I started to know then. Certain things are incredible to know.

Incredible is usually a positive word but I just mean it in the sense that it was impossible to believe and yet I was still starting to know it was true.

My dad was dying.