It seems like anyone who appears in an adult film or two can be called a porn star, but Sasha Grey has certainly earned the title: She's appeared in over 150 X-rated movies in the last three years and was named Female Performer of the Year by Adult Video Network in 2008. That's especially impressive when you consider that she just turned 21 in March. So there was considerable excitement in Wasserman Cinematheque April 30 as the audience waited for the start of a screening of The Girlfriend Experience, Grey's latest movie."Is she naked in it?" asked the boy sitting just behind me.

"She's trying to go mainstream," his neighbor reminded him.

The film, directed by box-office powerhouse Steven Soderbergh, aired at Sundance and the Tribeca Film Festivals earlier this year. Grey disrobes a few times (to the audible delight of those in the next row) but does not have sex on screen.

The Girlfriend Experience depicts a few days in the life of Grey's character Christine, alias Chelsea, a prostitute who specializes in giving each of her clients the feeling that he is in a committed relationship with her.

Set in New York City in October 2008, the movie shows Christine asking advice from johns about recessionproof investing and voting in the presidential election. Unlike the stereotypical call girl, she isn't flirty or vulgar. She laughs only once in the movie's 77 minutes and hardly cracks a smile the rest of the time. She politely asks about her clients' families and listens to their mundane anxieties. For the most part, the movie feels like a high-budget reality TV show. It might just as well be called The Business Lunch Experience.

After the film, Grey joined Brandeis alum Scott Feinberg on stage for a question-and-answer session about her career. If you haven't seen her work, she might not be what you're picturing. With straight dark hair, sardonically arched eyebrows and proportionate breasts, Grey is practically the anti-Jenna Jameson.

The difference goes beyond appearances. After all, how likely is it that an 18-year-old contemplating pornography as a career would not only consider the stage name Anna Karina (after a French New Wave actress) but also discard it for being disrespectful? Instead, she created the pseudonym Sasha Grey by combining the name of the lead singer of the band KMFDM with an oblique reference to the Kinsey scale of sexual orientation.

Grey entered the pornography industry the same way most kids pick a college-after painstaking research and reflection. She spent seven months watching porn movies before deciding she could bring something new to the business. "I saw a blank canvas that needed to be painted," she says. "I took some photos and wrote this little mission statement and sent them to different adult agencies." She signed with the first agent who responded and moved from her family's home in northern California to Los Angeles.

Grey approaches her adult film roles with the same discipline as her initial decision to enter the business. "I don't just check into set and say, 'Okay, let's f---,'" she says. "I like to be prepared in all aspects, mind and body. I even do an affirmation Oe la Raging Bull."

She believes that in order to survive, the porn industry must push beyond basic depictions of penetration. "You can get that for free, so why would you buy that?" she asked the Wasserman audience. "You can go film your neighbors having sex, and it will look exactly the same."

Instead, she advocates adult films as a healthy way to explore sexuality. "Your deepest, darkest secrets, they don't have to be secrets," she says. "We should all feel comfortable to explore them and talk about them openly, because we use sex to sell everything these days."

Upon arriving in L.A., Grey immediately developed a reputation for performing unusual sexual acts onscreen. Asked to discuss her first experience on an adult film set, she shook her head and smiled before answering. "First off, it was an orgy scene. Yes, I did deep-throat [co-star] Rocco [Siffredi]. Did I ask him to punch me in the stomach? Not in that context. ... That was an exercise in improvisational fantasy."

Tyra Banks hosted Grey on her show in 2007, criticizing her for demeaning herself by acting out sexual violence. Grey still recalls her appearance on the show with anger, but concludes, "Slander, defamation of character: That was good for me; that was good exposure."

Although her life is very different from the average 21-year-old's, Grey wouldn't be out of place on a college campus. She wears a ponytail holder around her wrist and says the person she'd most like to meet is the late actor-director John Cassavetes. Asked if she worries about staying physically fit, she announces, "I did have some lamb chops today, and they were delicious." She says if she weren't a porn star she'd probably be at school.

As others her age get ready to graduate and enter the labor market, though, Grey is set to launch her own film production company later this month. "I wouldn't be happy doing the same thing for 25 years," she says. "The titillation that you see in a mainstream film, that's the kind of quality I want to bring to my movies that I direct.