The XCritic Interview: Kendra James

What does it mean to “perform?” Is it something that a person discovers, or is it something that is within our very own genes? For many years, I have chased after this starlet in hopes of getting to sit her down and ask that very question in more than a few ways. Performing for this starlet has been something that has been a part of her life even before she became a porn star. Music, circus entertainment, acting, modeling, they are all things that Kendra James has listed on her massive lists of accomplishments made and jobs done. She is a throwback to ages past, in a time when performers were like utility knives in California, being masters of so many variations of the very things that make us smile, laugh, cry and become mesmerized. Then you add on top of all these accolades the fact that she is not just one of the most prolific Girl/Girl performers in the industry today, she is also a producer, a woman who has been building her brand and her own content and productions even before this modern wave of clip stores and OnlyFans took over the airwaves. She is a director whose acting skills have landed her numerous nominations and made her productions some of the most sought after performer content over the last decade. Oh, then you throw in her passion for fetish and domination. She is a woman who is one of the industry's true definitions of success, growth and empowerment. As I sat down to meet this beauty for the first time, I was anxious to meet a true innovator of film and find out just what performance meant to her.

 
Don Juan: OK, now to start off this thing with the question you have been asked a million times, how did you get into this industry?

 
Kendra James: Oh yes, ye olde origin story. I guess you can say that the first thing I ever did and I would not exactly say that this was my introduction into the business. The way that I first stuck my toe in was to answer an ad in the back of a newspaper and yes, it was a local paper because who even looks at a newspaper anymore. This ad was in the back of the East Bay Express, which in case you didn't know, is the newspaper for the Berkeley/Oakland bay area. I remember it was just this random ad that was looking for performers for a Boy/Girl scene. I was of course at the time your typical starving college student looking for extra money. So, I answered this ad, went to this interview at a little coffee shop in San Francisco to meet this guy. The conversation basically went like this, we need X, Y and Z performers to do this and the shoot will be in Santa Cruz, are you in? My reply, “...and this pays how much? All right, sure.” I was so nervous about it, I was eighteen or nineteen at the time. I was so nervous about this shoot I actually had my roommate go with me. Which seems like such a bizarre thing.

 
Don Juan: Well, maybe to civilians, I can only imagine. Jumping into the pool head first is way easier with someone by your side watching what happens good or bad.

 
Kendra James: Here is that conversation, “hey there roomie, would you like to go with me to go do a sex scene?” That is just how it came out, I don’t know, how else do you ask someone such a thing. I ended up spending the weekend at this beach house in Santa Cruz with a whole bunch of other performers and this will be very frowned upon by industry leaders but I was so nervous I ended up getting drunk the whole weekend. They had a full bar set-up and just because you are young and you do not know what to expect. It was not a scenario where anyone was forcing anything upon me, nobody was pushing anything at all but once again, I was so nervous about the situation that I really did end up drinking the whole weekend. It was not a bad experience by any means. It was actually here that I found out the boy/girl just was not my thing. So many people always ask me if I have “ever done boy-girl, why haven't you done boy-girl?” I have done boy-girl, once and it was twenty years ago. It is true that was my one experience. So fast forward a little bit after that. I came home, thought about the situation and everything I had experienced and that is when I decided it just was not for me.

 
Then a friend of mine and I would say that this is where it really began. A friend of mine was trying to move and needed to make some quick cash for this move and she was auditioning at strip clubs and I would routinely go with her to offer moral support. She would always call me up, “hey Kendra, there is the audition and I need you there.” So I said why not and went with her to offer that moral support. One day she called and told me that she had an interview with this dungeon to be a dominatrix. It was the same situation as before, so I said to myself I will be that good friend again and give some support. The place of this interview was a dungeon in San Francisco, they pitched her their entire spiel and she said that it was not for her but it certainly piqued my interest. I ended up thinking about doing it very hard, then becoming very interested in this dungeon in San Francisco. My friend, she ended up moving to Seattle and I became a dominatrix in that dungeon in San Francisco. That dungeon ended up closing and through them, I met another woman who was a pro-dom and she guided me in the direction of another dungeon which has now been there for about thirty-five years now. I ended up working at this dungeon in East Bay for about five years. I spent a lot of time learning from all the women there and in that time all the other people working in the dungeon were working, doing other things in the business and through them I was introduced to photographers. At this time websites were just beginning. So I ended up working with a lot of great people in the San Francisco area and that is how I just sort of came into everything that way. So, by fetish, my way of pro domination.

 
Don Juan: I am so jealous that you did everything in the San Francisco Bay area. That is one of my favorite cities in the world, especially since I discovered the wonders of fetish. Nina Hartley used to always tell me these amazing stories of what it used to be like back in the seventies and eighties. She would always say, “Oh honey, it was a hoot, if only you could have been there.”

 
Kendra James: Yes, I think so too. I grew up there and now it is so different than the way that it was when I was growing up. It is a very different place and there are certainly more opportunities in some fields. The adult industry in San Francisco used to be huge all the way up past the nineties to the early two thousands. There was so much going on, there were so many photographers and I am talking some of the most fantastic photographers the industry has ever seen. So many things were just starting to begin and virgining. Since then, I really feel that so much has dropped off.

 
Don Juan: I one hundred percent agree with you.

 
Kendra James: For the longest time, even after I would travel and I moved away from the bay area, I would always find my way back there regularly. When it was work, over time I just started to see that there were fewer and fewer people to work with. All those things I spoke about, the photographers, the performers were not there and it became a totally different place. It makes a person start conversations with, “back in my day.” (We share a massive laugh. The “grizzled” veterans of the adult film industry have this charming swagger. Kendra has the most wonderful personality and she always tells stories and comes off not as the person who is flaunting that she has been there, done that but sparks this nostalgia in you. That is the only way I can define this red-headed beauty.)

 
Don Juan: Ahhh I love it. It is amazing how you talked about it. You know, so many people think otherwise but what I really love about what you said and I still feel this way when it comes to being on set, even if it is me dropping off my girl or getting to be on set to kill two birds with one stone there is still that nervousness and I think that is always there. You kind of made me feel so much better with the words that you said about how you felt during your first shoot and more.

 
Kendra James: If I were to enter the adult industry now, it would be a very, very different thing. I may not have the same amount of nerves that I think I would have compared to when I did make my start in the business. I think at eighteen, nineteen years old it is a very different story.
 
Don Juan: Very, very true. I completely agree with you again. Times must and always do change. I think of the words of my old man. “Someday son, you are going to look back on everything and it will be so different. (We both share a big laugh.) Now, I get to start the philosophy. Oh, how I have been looking forward to this. I really have to tell you, what a joy it was to research you in-depth and see where you have been in your career and in your travels. I say this a lot to my fans on Twitter, “this is what living is all about.” What is it about performing that has you drawn to it and I am not just talking about your work in the adult world. I loved reading about the fact that you were in music, you were with the circus, what is it that sparked within you to chase such a thing?

 
Kendra James: I have no idea. I have been in entertainment since the age of thirteen. I was a model who did a lot of catalog work. I also did editorial and runway when I was a kid. I wanted to be a model when I was young, I wanted to be an actress. I took lots of acting classes as a teenager and again, growing up in San Francisco opened up a lot of opportunities. I feel like I have been in entertainment for most of my life. I stopped modeling because what I really wanted to be was a runway model. However, when you are only five foot seven, that does not really work out for that side of modeling. My agent, when I was seventeen I think it was, he dropped me because I had not gotten any taller and I went from ninety-eight pounds to about a hundred and ten pounds. My agent, he really told me that I was too fat, that is what it boiled down to. I think that kind of made me rebel against everything. I was doing things like dying my hair hot pink and that led me to changing my tactics and approach to everything and I just took a break from it all after that. I don’t know, I think that I have always sort of been a performer. (OK, I have to include this comment in this paragraph. What Kendra truly does here was what I was hoping for. A writer always wishes an answer to come out their way and Kendra did just what I had hoped, proved that performance is in her DNA as so many women do in this business. It is second nature to this amazing performer.) I have always wanted to be in the front of the camera. I don’t know exactly what sparked that. Perhaps it was that my parents really touched on it with me and I had a lot of encouragement. My parents always encouraged me to be active and free. Art was something also that was encouraged in my household growing up. School plays, whatever I could get myself into. Everything was encouraged. I guess that is what led me to follow it my entire life. The circus, that was something that I kind of fell into. My husband does the circus. He does the freak show. So, when we met, he had already been doing it. It was from that and him that I started learning tricks. He encouraged me to learn about the things I was curious about because he was going on tour, he was working with all these different bands. So, in order for me to be brought along, I had to contribute to the show in some way. That is how I learned to walk on broken glass, I also learned to do target bullwhips. It was so much fun to learn to do all that sort of stuff. So, maybe my spark there was that I wanted to go on tour and I wanted to be a part of experiencing different things, I wanted to be involved.

 
Don Juan: That is so awesome. Beyond fucking cool! (I am honestly laughing like a fucking school girl. High pitched, the whole nine yards.)My cousin used to open for Wes Borland’s band and also traveled with The Warped Tour. Coming from a family of musicians I love performance, I love everything that comes with it. You are telling me stories that are music to my ears and soul. I have all these visions in my head of what your act had to look like, oh my goodness. That had to have been so fun.

 
Kendra James: What is so funny, I have the worst stage fright. You put a camera in front of me, I am fine. Being live on stage, Oh my God. It has gotten worse and worse the older that I get as well. When I was twenty it was not this big deal, now I am like look out, there is no way! Part of the reason that I stopped doing the circus was that my stage fright was getting worse and worse. It was getting so horrible that I was literally getting a feeling that I wanted to vomit. That is when I said, “I can not do this anymore.” I just wanna shoot movies.

 
Don Juan: It is something so different compared to the live crowd that people do not always realize. I grew up in New York, I am a Bronx boy, the fans are probably so sick of hearing about it too but I have always had so much respect for the stage. I love seeing big acts or small acts of all kinds. There is this local pair of beauties called the scissor sweethearts they do the same things you did. Walk over glass, eat fire and climb a ladder made out of big scissors. So, needless to say, I was so giddy to get to ask you those questions.
 
Kendra James: That is cool.

 
Don Juan: You know, to talk about what you mentioned last, your movies. I simply must tell you, your clips and video store is one of the most impressive that I have ever seen. I mean that. There is everything and anything for fans. Now I would love to know, what gave you that itch to get behind the camera?

 
Kendra James: I feel like there comes a point of transition when you have been doing this for so long. I have been in front of the camera for a very long time. When you are performing, you do not always get to realize your vision. You are so focused on giving a good performance that you can give in front of the camera. I realized that I wanted to be involved in the stories. I wanted to write a story, I wanted to shoot a story, I wanted to show and create the angles that I thought were interesting. I want to get the light that I think will bring out something interesting as well no matter what it is that I am looking to do. Something creepy, making someone look beautiful, you can not do that when you are performing. So to have control of that I need to step away from being in front of the camera and begin to hire people, work from other areas to create a story that others can act out and others can perform. So, even when I am performing in front of the camera and I am trying to think of the story, my partner will be very angry with me. I sometimes will start to look at the angles we are doing, start saying, “I think we need to go this direction, or with this view. Make sure that you get this, make sure that you get that.” Then the director will say most of the time, “Will you please trust that I am getting all the angles that we need to get.” I really wanted to make that transition to directing, telling stories my way and having control over the flow of it all and how everything was going to look. The aesthetics of the story especially with all the superhero stuff that I do.

 
Don Juan: Darlin’ you do a wonderful job, I kid you not I was so mesmerized over these last five days getting to see everything that you have created over the years. There is so much heart and dedication in these productions. Everything that you do is beautiful and wonderful. To go right into the comic book stuff, which I am a huge comic book nerd getting into the CosPlay. I am dying to know which side of geekiness inspired you to get into the CosPlay aspect. Are you a big comic book nerd like I am? My guess would be that you are a literature person?

 
Kendra James: I like comics, growing up in the nineties there were so many cartoons. There was the Spiderman cartoon, there was the Poison Ivy cartoon and Batman. There were so many of these great cartoons. I think for any person that was watching the Saturday morning cartoons or the after school cartoons it inspired you to go out and find what else is out there when it comes to their comics. When I was a teenager I had a friend who worked in a comic book shop. That was the place I always was after school, hanging out. The name of the place was Comics and Comics in Berkley. That was my hangout and made me look at all the new things that were coming in. From there I would always be looking for what was new and talking to the owners, no wait, the name of the place was Comic Relief. It was right on top of Telegraph Avenue. See, now you have me taking my own little trip down memory lane. The owner of this store, his name was Rory, was so over the top eccentric. He was this iconic Berkley figure that seemed to be this parody of different cartoons of the time. They actually parodied him on The Simpsons or something. He was such a character. That was the place my friends always were and that is where we hung out all the time. We would always get different comics and graphic novels and that is where my interest in things just grew for superhero comics, you know. I remember books like Johnny the Homicidal Maniac…..

Don Juan: Oh yes, I sure do. Evil Ernie, Lady Death, Preacher.

 
Kendra James: Yeah, yeah.

 
Don Juan: I so pictured this about you. You have that flair that only true comic book fans have in the recreation and Cosplay creations to make. Oh, I was so dazzled by seeing the things you have created with your productions, I shit you not. We grew up in the same era and I can remember being you and middle school and high school days cutting people’s lawns and then going down to the comic book shops and getting my hands on anything that was new as my passion and love grew. I miss comic book shops, there are so few that are out there.

 
Kendra James: They are mostly gone, that is so true.

 
Don Juan: Oh, I know. I am lucky, there are about three in a massive square radius of Denver and this wonderful shop called Vision Comics and Oddities so I still get to reminisce here and there whenever I am not working. Everything is online now and I simply can not get used to the fact that kids read comic books online. That is where most go. I can never get used to that.

 
Kendra James: It just not is the same as being able to go to the store and looking through things, looking and actually seeing everything all at once. Then being able to have that wonderful dilemma of figuring out what do I want? What is that has something special enough for me to want to look through it? Then you have to sort of treat it like a library you know?
 
Don Juan: Oh yes, I sure do. I remember with the shop I went to as a kid, I was a part of the “comic book club” and a pile that was half an inch thick every weekend turned into a foot and a half every weekend by the time I was a freshman in high school. They simply decided to put aside an issue of everything because that is what I would do, wander around the store, debate at what I should look at, spend that time figuring which one to take to take home and then finally choose and pay and walk out of the store three hours later. I do like that today’s world has a lot more people who are into the things we were as kids because I know you can atone to this, in our day, no one admitted to being a comic book geek, or a Star Wars nerd. That meant social death back then.

 
Kendra James: Because it was nerdy.

 
Don Juan: YES!

 
Kendra James: Yes, you were not open about your geekiness. Are you kidding me, you wanted to be one of the cool kids and the cool kids, they do not read comic books. (We truly have one of those deep chuckles as funny as that may sound between a writer and a performer. I think only one of your own can let out that chuckle because it truly was a struggle. Our inner geeks had a laugh together.)

 
Don Juan: Now we are all finding out in our thirties that all the cool kids who picked on us liked all the same things we did back in the day.

 
Kendra James: Uh, huh.

 
Don Juan: Oh, how times a change. Here is the next question now that I have been dying to ask you. Especially with everything that I was reading about you going on tour. Being that you use to tour with all of those big bands, I would love to hear a story about being on the road. I would love to see things through the eyes of the performer. Me, I only ever got to be a low level “go-for” getting the band stuff when they were too drunk. The crazier the better I say.

 
Kendra James: Oh my God, one of my crazy stories……

 
With that, we must keep you in suspense Kendra and I, for what would we be able to say to make you tune in next week, “at the same bat time and the same bat channel?” Our conversation continues as she and I literally go from what was meant to be just thirty minutes telling some stories to truly getting to show who the legendary actress and performer known as Kendra James is. I think as we began to talk about the road, talk about the industry we just began to lose track of time and I think that is what is the most special thing about stars in the adult industry. I have interviewed people that she has toured with and what I can tell you about Kendra James, her tales are far more dashing, far more real. I think with performers in other industries it comes down to a comparison of how they live. Most musicians, athletes, writers, etc. They are people who come to a junction in life and they decide to begin telling stories. The performers of the adult world, their life began with a passion for who they are today and who they still will be twenty years down the road. Adventure is in their DNA and we are not talking about raising hell, having sex with drugs and rock and roll. Well, we are but the adult performer as Kendra shows in this interview and part two coming next week, they are people who live the same life they did when they were young. It is to be forever young. Call it whatever you will, good or bad, what it truly is, it is living and that is all we can simply hope to do and take with us in this life. 

Be sure to check out of Kendra's most amazing scenes of 2019 with Girlsway.com Lesbian Love Potion

Follow her on Social Media any chance you get & check out her one of a kind clips and video Store:

Twitter: @Kendrajames13

Instagram: thatredhead_kendra

Website: KendraJames.com

ClipStore: KendraClips.com

Special Thank to @TheRubPR and the wonderful folks on the Girlsway.com marketing team for the pretty pictures that accompany this wonderful interview.