Porn Valley- I had a recent chat with Dani Woodward on the set of Defiance Film’s Ass-ylum. Woodward, 21, has been in the business two years but equates that to dog years. “So I’m probably ten years into my career,” she says. “I definitely have seniority and I’ll be retired in a couple of years.”

When I suggest that two years gives her grand dame status, Woodward says more like she’s being grandfathered into being a crack whore.

“I can get away with being late on set,” she says. “After a couple of years, you’re like a lame duck almost in the industry. You have clout but it really doesn’t mean anything.” At the time I’m talking to Woodward she’s plowing through a book and says author David Sedaris is one of her favorites.

“he writes in the first person- he’s really sarcastic,” she says. “I like to read. I enjoy it. Nothing better than a good book. I love to read.” Woodward says she went to a really nice high school but has met people with degrees out the ying yang who have a total lack of common sense. Woodward also likes to plow through porno mags, especially Hustler. “They have great articles.”

Woodward is from Detroit, Michigan and got into the business on an amateur level, shooting for the Internet. “I had a photographer shoot me and said I should be in L.A.,” she recalls. “I flew out here. I was going to stay a week and ended up staying three. I loved it. I went home where I had an apartment and packed up everything. My dad and I drove cross country. I moved into an apartment here that I found when we were on the road. That was stressful. But I’ve never looked back. I love it.”

Woodward wouldn’t describe herself as an exhibitionist.

“I have to clear the room for my scenes,” she says. “People think I’m difficult some times because I literally mean everyone that doesn’t need to be there. Even porn people I’ve fucked before. I can’t have talent sitting there and watching, even cool people. I still can’t because I get out of body. I get very offensive. I’m very shy. I don’t wear risque clothes when I go out and I really don’t like attention.” Woodward also loves the apparent contradictions that she presents.

“I’m a conundrum,” she states. That being said, I get the impression that Woodward’s a Gemini. But, like myself, she’s a Pisces- March 7. “I’m Pisces to the death,” she says. “We are two-in-one; we’re extremes to the best part.”

“And alcoholics,” I venture to say.

“We’re escapists,” Woodward clarifies. “We drown ourselves in sorrow. We’re self-delusional. It’s the best. Would you want to be under any other sign? We represent everything that comes before. We have good and evil; we have a need to break things down into the basic elements to understand basic things- I love that. I love to break things down and break things apart until it’s simple. But it’s not; because we’re so complicated.” I tell Woodward in her very erudite way she has managed to avoid my initial question which is why she got into the adult business.

“Why did I wear pink today? Why are you wearing a hat?” she asks. “Why does anyone do anything? I didn’t sit down and make a pros and cons list. There wasn’t any direct reason. It just happened. Why did I move to Michigan? Why did I start taking classes that I did in high school? Why did I pick up this book. Why do I speed and have so many fucking speeding tickets; and I have so many points that my car insurance is so high? You think I would stop but I don’t. You think being shy I wouldn’t do porn, but I do.”

I tell Woodward she was probably sucked into the business.

“Based on what?” she questions. “You can’t say something without a valid opinion.” Okay, my opinion is that Woodward also came off a space ship.

“It’s a magnetic thing,” I tell her. “There’s something in your body that attracted you and pulled you right in. There’s no other explanation for it.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” said Woodward. Which made the feeling quite mutual at this point.

“There must be some driving force? You’re just wrong,” she laughs.

Woodward says she wasn’t this great sexual being growing up. She had a boyfriend in high school. “It was my puppy love- it was great. I dated him for two years. Then it ended like things do in high school. I keep telling him he should get into the business. If he ever comes out to visit me, I think I’ll get him some scenes. He would do so well. People would just love him. He’s very Scott Nails.”

I venture to say that Woodward is some object of gossip but she doesn’t think so. “I don’t think they know who I am,” she says. Nonetheless she’s flattered. I tell Woodward the major piece of gossip floating around is that she spells Dani with two “n’s”. And the purpose of the article was to set them straight.

Woodward’s fist scene in the business was in June, 2003. “How could I forget?” she asks. “The thing is I avoid doing interracial scenes and they were my first and second scene. My first scene ever was with Mr. Marcus for Simon Wolf Productions. It was great. It was the next day that was not so great. Because I was so sore from the day before. He’s too big for his own good.”

Based on her two years in the business, Woodward loves the industry.

“I would rather be here than most other places,” she says. “I love it- I’m glad I’m here. I can’t speak for everyone, obviously. However I think the age for porn should be higher. I think it should be more like 20. I think 18’s too young. But I’m having a ball. I much rather be doing this than working in a hospital or being in the corporate world. It opens broad opportunities. The money’s great. You learn more about yourself. You can lose yourself easily, too. But I think that can happen in any job that you have. College- that’s being sucked in.”

Which is just the point I was making earlier when Woodward took me to task.

Woodward’s one suggestion for porn performers is to save your money.

“And make the best of it,” she adds. “Give it time to put things in perspective. When you’re new, you’re scared, all you see is what people around you let you see, you don’t see things from the whole picture. But just know that there’s a bigger picture.”

In the bigger picture, Woodward doesn’t maintain a website.

“If I had a nickel for every person who’s tried to push a website on me,” she continues. “I know a thousand girls who have websites. I don’t know one that’s making money. The deals webmasters want to give you are like 50-50. My thing is I know that I’m great but other people don’t know I’m great so why are people so eager to do my site? Why are they so hungry? I get phone calls about this weekly to have one, but I don’t know one girl making money. And I don’t know enough about it to venture into it myself. It just seems fishy to me.”

Woodward’s repped by L.A. Direct. “So far so good,” she says about that. “I’m waiting for the other shoe to drop. I’m waiting for something to happen, but, honestly, it’s been good so far. And they seem very cautious with me as well.” Woodward agrees with the analogy of two people eyeballing one another across the poker table. I ask Woodward if the fact that she’s unspoken gets in her hot water.

“I rub people the wrong way,” she admits. “I’m not everyone’s cup of tea but I don’t blame them. I wouldn’t like me if I met me. I know that I annoy people. But the thing is you’re hiring me to do a good scene. As long as I can make the company money, it doesn’t matter how annoying I am or how whatever I am. It’s not about that.”

Sexually, Woodward’s turn on is a hot girl with a boyfriend.

“I like to date couples and have threeways in my personal life,” she states. “I like to date couples because you have a guy who’s in love with a girl. And you have a girl who’s really open to things. And the guy gets turned on when his girl is excited. If the girl wants to bang me, that excites him- there’s no threat of him leaving her for me. And there’s no misunderstanding about who’s with who. If you can find the right couple that’s not threatened by an outside person, it’s ideal. Then I can go home and not have to deal with the relationship aspect of it because they’re already together.

“Then we can hang out and be friends and having sex is the best thing. In my personal life all I have is threeways with people who are in love. There’s nothing hotter than a chick laying on you who’s getting fucked.”