Porn Valley- I caught up with Gia Darling Monday afternoon and we talked about the shoot she did over the weekend for Devil’s Film, www.devilsfilm.com. Darling, who’s the current TS female Performer of the Year, has her own production company, Gia Darling Entertainment, so it was one of the rare times that she worked for someone else.

“I liked the fact that I’ve never done anything like this,” she says. “It was fun plus Steve [Volponi] was on my ass for so long. I got to know him and I got to know his little puppies. He’s a really cool person and that’s when I became, okay, I’ll do it. Generally, I never work for any one.” And that includes Joey Silvera, states Darling.

“Never any company but my own and that’s what makes it kind of cool,” Darling continues. “And I like Steve. He’s good people; his wife’s cool and I love his dogs. I think it’s his dogs that sold me. I’m a big dog fanatic.” Darling’s hoping by this time next year she’ll be opening a dog spa.

“I’m hoping to have everything off the ground by next year, this time,” she says. I ask Darling if this concept includes doggie massages.

“It’s going to be everything,” she replies. “It’s going to be a full-on service/salon. The name of the place is going to be called Darling Paws.”

During her shoot for Devil’s, Darling worked with a performer named Jimbo.

“It’s funny,” she says. “Everybody thinks he’s my boyfriend because we’ve worked together so many times.” Darling explains part of that is due to the fact that she’s wacky about diseases and likes coming on set knowing who she’s working with.

“I’ve always wanted to have control over who I’ve worked with,” she says. “So I’ve been working with Jimbo for quite awhile now. So everybody thinks he’s my husband or my boyfriend. We just get along pretty well. He’s my boy-toy. Actually I met him on a set where I was shooting with this other girl. It was the second movie he had done and we kind of clicked. Then we just became friends from there. I had a photo shoot one time on my website and I called him up. He came over and we did the shoot. Ever since then we started working together. And this isn’t something he does full time. He’s a personal trainer so when anything comes up, he only works with me. So he’s kind of my porn boyfriend.”

As far as being named Performer of the Year, Darling laughs that it was about time she was selected.

“I was like the Susan Lucci of porn,” Darling chuckles. “I had so many nominations for best this or best that but never got any. And so it was kind of cool. I honestly didn’t think I was going to win but when I did, it was great. I was very happy. I had been in the business for so long and AVN’s such an important magazine and to receive recognition from the industry, I wanted that. I always said when I got my award I was going to retire, but I don’t think I’m going to retire yet.”

With her own company that she’s been running about five or six years, Darling keeps a bi-monthly release schedule, and her main series is called Gia Darling’s Transsexual Heartbreakers.

“I’ve always maintained myself exclusively for my own company,” she states.

Darling began working for Roy Alexander of Blue Coyote Pictures about ten years ago when she became his assistant.

“I was brought up in a very typical Latin-conservative family,” she notes. “So porn was the last thing from my mind when I was growing up.”

But when Alexander pretty much doubled the salary she had been getting, Darling tucked some of her own bias in her back pocket.

“He had shot some transsexual stuff and I guess one of the girls referred me to him- I originally changed my mind- but we wound up becoming friends,” recalls Darling. “It never led to photo shoots. But I think one time we talked I told him I was really unhappy where I was working and that’s when he offered me the job as an assistant to him.”

As Darling got more involved in the production end, she started doing photo shoots and slowly worked her way into doing videos with her then-boyfriend.

Darling seems to think that a lot of the original movies that were labeled as “TS” movies featured cross-dressers.

“Where they had the bra on and the panties and the wig and it would be called transsexual,” she says. Eventually Darling came under contract to Alexander and he started a company, Androgyny.

“I started doing movies which was the Beauty Queen series,” she says. “It was a lot of fun and a brand new experience for me. He let me pretty much have full control over the creative aspect of those films. It was something different for me because I had never actually been in front of a camera. I had the experience of putting it together but not this.”

Darling also remembers how shy she was at the time.

“It was new to me and being transsexual you can compare it to when a male who is not comfortable in front of a camera, can’t get hard or has issues,” she laughs.

“But the fact that I knew the crew and I knew him and was very comfortable with those around me made it easy for me to perform. And the fact that I worked with my boyfriend for my first movie ever, it was a pretty laid back environment.”

Darling believes that starting out as an assistant was one of the best things she could have done on the road to starting her own company and working for herself.

“In this industry we can be pretty cut throat and when you’re done you’re done- everybody’s shot her- I saw a lot of that; I saw the brand new faces and the girls who had been around for four years, and the girls who had been around for 20 years going around trying to work,” she continues. “I learned that the best way of maintaining your value is maintaining your exclusivity. After I worked with Roy, I kept all that exclusivity to myself. I became my own contract girl.”

Another thing Darling likes is the fact that after ten years of performing in the business she can still get what she commanded when she first started.

“That I do that, I’ve maintained my exclusivity- I’m not on every single boxcover at the video store and at the same time I realize what I’m selling is my image. I’m very selective with my work and if it’s a fun project I’ll do it. That’s why I think I’ve managed to stay around for so long.”

Darling is asked if there are as many feuds in her “genre” as the mainstream. She has a good laugh when she considers the “insecurities” transsexuals naturally have to begin with.

“Some people think I’m a bitch and that I’m anti-social,” she says. “I think one of the reasons is to keep myself out of the drama. I don’t do drugs. I don’t drink and I’m not part of the whole scene. I maintain myself in the business enough to be involved. But I don’t go clubbing every weekend with all these girls. When I book them for work, of course I’m nice and cool with everybody. But I don’t maintain a huge circle of friends. It’s like any business, you say something the wrong way and next thing you’ve got somebody mad at you for something they think you’ve said. And I’m an only child so I’ve always done my own thing.”

Darling would like to tell you she was raised a po’ black child in the hills of Memphis. But that’s no the way it went.

“I had a very average childhood,” she states. “Although my family was very poor- I had a very happy childhood. Of course, as I got older and went to high school, any time you’re different whether you have bad skin or are gay, or different in any way possible, of course you’re going to get more grief. Like that, I did have a really hard time in high school. I ended up transferring into home schooling for the last two years of high school because it got to the point where it was extremely bad. I was getting my ass kicked every single day- I was getting beaten up and bullied around. I used to get trash canned or have my head pushed into a toilet. It was horrible. Kids are evil.

“People talk about these crazy, drug-filled high school years or these amazingly fun high school years with going to parties and cheerleading and football and all of that stuff,” notes Darling. “That’s the one thing that I regret, that I don’t have a lot of that or a lot of great memories. Although I have a lot of other memories. I just wish I could have had a better school experience.”

At the age of 15, Darling went to school to become a cosmetologist.

“I’m a stylist by trade,” she laughs. “But I never liked doing hair. I was never into that whole hair and makeup on people. I prefer doing that to animals. So I’ve had a very average life. I never went without anything I needed although my family was very poor. My mother worked three jobs just to make ends meet. She’s a single mother.

“But when I was very young I knew I wanted a lot more than what I grew up with,” Darling goes on to say, noting that her mother would never put her ambitions down.

“I’d tell her one day I’m going to do this or do that and have all these pretty clothes; I’m going to have a nice car. She’d say work really hard and you will. You just have to be determined. And I think a lot of that has played off in the way I think. I guess I’m neurotic in a way. I’m always a planner. I always have to think and have to put the whole picture before I make a decision. I’m not one of these people who’ll run and do something. I look at everything and once someone’s done it, I try and see why it didn’t work for them. I learn from the experience other than getting myself into a situation that might not be that great.”

Darling made her sexual transformation about the time she was nearing 16.

“It wasn’t like I went home from school one day and the next day I came out looking like a girl with a bra and a skirt,” she says. “I was always androgynous. And there wasn’t a point in my life where I went from boy to girl and that’s it. I always wore girl colognes and when I started beauty school, I had my hair different colors, like the whole beauty school experience. One day I was a brunette, the next day a redhead. And I had acrylic nails so kids were always asking me, ‘Are you a boy or a girl?’ I was a girl most of the time.

“So when I started living as a girl it was more, like, okay, now she’s growing up and wearing a bra and makeup. It was never this huge transition.”

Darling says her body was always feminine which was enabled by plastic surgery.

“I love plastic surgery,.” she laughs. “I did have my butt and hips enhanced but, other than that, my shape has always been very feminine. It wasn’t like I was a big, burly man trying to turn into a woman. So I can always say I was meant to be a girl- with this itty, bitty little body, there was no way I was meant to be a boy or a dainty little man.”

Darling began taking hormones when she was nearly 17.

“And they were illegal hormones,” she notes. “In beauty school I met this gay boy and he had all these other transsexual friends. They’re the ones who showed me how to do the whole illegal hormones and everything, whether you get them from Germany or Mexico. The only bad thing about that is you don’t have a blood chart so you can never control the dosages.”

Darling didn’t encounter any problems with her hormone intake and considers herself fortunate in that regard.

“I never overdid it although there were times that I wanted to,” she says. “But I’ve always been a nerd where I’ve done a lot of reading and stuff. Because I hated being on the playground during lunches or recess, I spent all my time in the library- people must have thought I was a little pervert because I was always reading up on sexuality. So rather than experiment, I’d read up about myself. And if I had any questions about the way I thought, I would always be reading books about homosexuality.

“However I didn’t realize what a transsexual was until I got older,” Darling continues. “That’s how I knew I should be doing this on me but I was careful about it. So I never went to the point where I got crazy with the injections and didn’t weigh everything through.”

Darling’s first sexual experience came when she was about 17.

“It happened with another kid my age, nothing major,” she laughs. “It was a really good experience. It was this boy I knew and he knew I was transsexual; and I think at that time he was questioning his own sexuality. We just went to the movies and, afterwards, we hung out at his house. His mother knew me and I’m sure she knew he was up in the air about his sexuality. Although I wasn’t obvious about being a transsexual, everybody knew I was and what I had gone through. So his mother was very accepting of our friendship. After the movies we went to his house and started fooling around.”

Darling says she’s usually a bottom but it all depends, although she prefers being a bottom.

“When I’ve been in relationships, I’ve dated men that have never had an experience with a transsexual girl,” she says. “They get to know me as a person and like me.”

Darling says she never lets a situation go far enough where some guy is making this amazing discovery about her.

“That’s why a lot of girls end up being killed,” she says. “If a man feels pressured or his sexuality is threatened, that’s when he’ll go nuts. I don’t say my name is so and so and I’m a transsexual. But I do hang out in a social type of way that would be non-threatening. Like we’ll go to the movies. We’ll have dinner. We’ll have coffee. Then from there I’ll usually call on the phone or I’ll tell him afterwards. But I want them to get an impression of whom I am. Because I think it’s common for someone to be very ignorant to the whole transsexuality-thing. Because they’re not exposed to it, everybody has these pre-set notions that transsexuals are like Jerry Springer girls. The reality is transsexual girls are no different than any other girl. At least that’s how I feel.

“The whole porn-thing is no different than any other girl choosing to be in this type of business. I’m no different than any other type of girl. I use the business to make something of myself. It’s not my whole life. I have my own little thing. I have real estate. I work on other businesses. I get up in the morning like every other girl would. The only difference is that I have a penis between my legs. Other than that, in my day-to-day life, I know I’m no different than any other person or any other girl for that matter.”

Darling’s of the belief that people place too much emphasis on the penis issue. And she’s also of the belief that 95% of people wouldn’t mind experimenting being with a transsexual.

“Sometimes it’s annoying, though, and that’s why I rarely date,” she says. “It gets childish to the point where she’s got a dick, whoa, whoa, whoa. That’s stupid. Grew up. We’re not like six years old in a school yard.”

In her chill time, Darling’s been working on putting the spa deal together.

“And I have houses that I’ve bought and rent out,” she says. “I have a building in Austin, Texas- that’s the latest thing I got. So I’ve been working on that. But I live a very boring life. I don’t do anything exciting. I enjoy being home. I love cooking. I bought a town home and I’m remodeling that. I love my animals. I love being home. My idea of a wonderful Saturday is going to Starbucks, getting some magazines and coming home and getting into bed, watching TV with my dogs, drinking some coffee and reading some magazines.”

And if you haven’t figured it by now, Darling’s a plastic surgery junkie.

“When I was younger I couldn’t afford it but as I got older I was able to have some procedures done,” she says. Darling will tell you that she used to weigh 200 pounds, and when she broke up with an ex-boyfriend she began eating her troubles away.

“So I started losing the weight and that’s when I had liposuction,” she states. “I really liked my results and since then I’ve had 39 procedures and just booked three more when I get back from London. But I don’t see anything wrong with that with all the modern technology. It’s kind of like some people going to the grocery store. You can buy cheekbones if you want nowadays. That’s what I do.”

Darling, www.darlingmodels.com, acknowledges the fact that she’s also a media whore and that this is another way of her getting attention.

“I’ve pretty much been on every single daytime TV show,” she notes.