Catching Up with Jillian Janson

"I was 18, my junior year at high school, May of 2013, and I thought, ‘I can be a waitress,’” Jillian Janson recalls. But then she took a trip to California and found a much better career option. “I was going to finish high school,” she says, “but if you’ve got a career already, why go to school for another career that you don't even know if you're going to like or not? It made it a lot easier when I got home and had a lot of money in my pocket.” And Janson’s found plenty to like as an adult performer. "I just finished a feature for Girlsway. It had a Mean Girls vibe. There were four of us girls—Aidra Fox, Aria Lee, Avi Love and Sabina Rouge, that’s a lot—and two days of shooting. We started at 7 in the morning and went to midnight. The next day they moved the call time from 8 to 11. It was exciting to be involved with something that had so many parts to it. I love acting. I did a scene with each of the girls, but we did it separately. I did one scene with Avi Love and Sabina—I think that'll be up for an award next year." Janson says that she appreciates being accepted by the adult industry, where she cam be herself. "Not a lot of people can handle me. I was, I guess, a whore in high school. I had sex with a friend's brother—well, we were friends too—but I moved around a lot so it was me trying to fit in with a clique of girls, and I guess the way to not fit in is to fuck their brothers. The word went around and everyone knew. Eventually I went to Facebook to meet people from other schools. I got onto My Free Cams through a guy I met online. As soon as I started performing online, it was first very awkward but after about a week I was talking to words on a screen. And then I could see somebody cam-to-cam. The more he tipped me, the more I would take off. I would tease him and I loved that. 'Wow, you're really good at this.' A couple of days later, my agent found me. Another agency reached out to me first, but he wouldn’t say what it was about. My agent logged on, paid for my time, and we talked for three hours. I booked it right to California." That California trip changed Janson's life: High school didn’t mean anything to me any more. I like to learn, but I learn visually, hands-on, by doing. I was over it. I was skipping school. Then I got bullied. Every time I walked down the hall I heard whispers. 'Psst. She's doing porn.' I could have stayed and it would have been a big 'fuck you, I can do porn and I can do high school.' But my career blowing up the way it did was also kind of a big middle finger. I'm happy with the choice I made." Her father "didn’t like that I went off and did it" but her mother "was very supportive. In fact, to the point that she asked me 'Do you really want to go with this agent? Are they the best agent out there?' She wanted to make sure I read the contract and helped me understand a lot of it. We're a lot alike. We have the same skills." She is still proud of her star showcase Just Jillian, which received five AVN Award nominations for the 2016 Awards: "It's been probably my top seller when I get the DVDs and sell them at conventions. That was my very very first showcase. It was awesome. I had a blowbang, I had a scene with Ariana Marie who is a really good friend. It's popular because I love it and fans love it. That's a career highlight." She's proud of her acting turn this year for director François Clousot in Digital Playground's The Silent Caller. "There were more parts to it, and I was involved in all the acting—and then we did a sex scene. I also did a funeral scene for Brazzers with Kieran Lee. I just got my pages, I would like to read the whole script." Still undone on Janson's to-do list are "a big black cock showcase with Greg Lansky" and shooting with Pure Taboo and Bree Mills. She's also running a campaign to get on the cover of Maxim: "I'm in second place in my group. Hopefully in a couple of months I'll be on the cover. "That's my dream, to cross over to mainstream. I did a mainstream movie last year, Cynthia, which was nominated for AVN last year. I love that people can see that porn people can be in mainstream."