Ginger Lynn is a porn star – and now she plays one on TV.

Once one of the biggest names in the adult-film world, Ginger Lynn will use her real-life experiences to play an aging actress of XXX-rated movies and single mom on the new Fox drama “Skin.”

“There are many times where I sit and think, I’ve lived this,” says the actress, who, goes by Ginger Lynn Allen these days. “There are times when I leave and I feel very raw, like I’ve had a steamroller go back and forth over me.”

Like her character on the show, she is now 40 and the single mom of a 5-year-old son.

But, long before porn-girl-of-the-moment Jenna Jameson’s assets hung high over Times Square, Ginger Lynn’s films were in VCRs all over the country. Without her, there would be no Jameson – or any of the other adult entertainment crossovers that will come along.

“Skin,” which started Monday, stars Ron Silver as Larry Goldman, a purveyor of porn who is battling with a power-hungry district attorney. The Romeo-and-Juliet twist is that their offspring are having a fling.

Lynn, who broke into porn in the early 1980s as a perky blond, enters “Skin” when police looking for a missing woman tied to Goldman turn to her.

The character Ginger Lynn plays in the show is called Amber Synn.

Gone is her blond mane – a request by “Skin” producers who wanted her dark-haired – and in are glasses and a frumpy look.

“The girl I’m playing is very unstable,” she says. “She’s made some poor decisions, she needs to make changes that are good for her child’s future, so she’s there to just start up s–.”

Scared of dialogue, not nudity

Lynn, too, has had her share of problems.

After making big bucks in porn, she blew it on drugs. She’s had some famously failed relationships – including one with Charlie Sheen.

And she’s had serious health issues. (“I’m wonderful now,” she says, “I had several surgeries, they removed all of my girl stuff. I’m fine.”)

If it’s any measure, it took two hours to tell her tale in an “E! True Hollywood Story.”

When she auditioned for the “Skin” gig, show producers were concerned that the role might be too close to reality.

“I asked, ‘Are you going to be comfortable playing something so relevatory, so private,'” says executive producer Jim Leonard, who says he did not model the character after Ginger Lynn. “I felt like she really revealed herself and did not protect herself.”

Another aid to her portrayal is that she keeps a foot in both worlds.

She appeared in her last adult film over the summer. She had been away from the camera for 14 years until producer VCA Pictures offered a big-buck deal for three films.

She’ll also strip in December at the Appaloosa Showbar in Colorado Springs, Colo., to mark her 20th anniversary in the business.

“When I did my first film, the very first scene I shot I had no problem with the nudity. But the first time the boom came down, I couldn’t get the first line out. I was much more intimidated with talking than with being nude.”

Her history in porn movies makes for interesting discussions on mainstream sets.

“One of the lead actresses on the show was introduced to me, and she said, ‘I want to have your life,'” she says. “‘I want to do what you do. I watched “Blame it on Ginger” and you’re very good.’

“People will come up to me and tell me their deepest, darkest fantasies, and ask advice about trying a new sexual act they’ve seen.”

Allen doesn’t plan to star in any more adult films, but may direct some in the future.

“I’m 40, I don’t want to be naked in my own house with the lights turned down, let alone on video,” she says.

Instead, she’ll continue chipping away at mainstream roles, which, despite the new wave of porn acceptance, is harder than it sounds.

“I wouldn’t say it’s easy now,” she says.

Though she’s progressed from secondary characters in B-movies to parts in larger films such as “Young Guns II” and guest roles on prime-time series, like “NYPD Blue,” “Skin” is her first TV gig where she’s played a recurring character. As it stands, she’s in at least three episodes, perhaps more.

“Yes, it’s the role of a lifetime,” she says. “It’s the one I’ve been waiting 20 years for, and now I have the role I’ve been doing for the past 20 years.”