March 10, 2021 |
Fresh Faces: Gizelle Blanco |
LOS ANGELESâWhen Motley Models performer Gizelle Blanco says that she loves working in the adult industry, and that sheâs ânever been happier,â she brings the receipts. Her dedication is so high that for the first five months of her career, she commuted to Los Angeles for shoots â from Hawaii. Not only was the flight more than five hours each way, making the journey in the middle of the pandemic added even more time, waiting in lines at the airport for COVID testing. âItâs a bitch to travel there right now. Thatâs part of the reason I moved out here,â she tells AVN. âI saved a whole lot of money moving out here. I do try to go at least once a month to see my family, and my dogs as well. Itâs just constant COVID testing. And Iâd always have overweight bags, traveling back and forth when I lived out there. That was costing a ridiculous amount. And by the time you get off the plane, you have to stand in an hourlong line to confirm your COVID test is good.â The convenience of living in L.A. has become a career necessity for Blanco. She flew from Hawaii to film her first professional scene, after building a following on OnlyFans, in August, and sheâs been busy ever since, even âa little too busyâ she says. âEvery time I would come out, Iâd be super booked-up,â she says â which was of course good news for her young adult career, but not so great for her bank account. She says she was spending $300 in overweight bag fees, plus the plane ticket, for every flight she made between August and December, because she had so many bookings that she never knew what to bring for wardrobe requirements. âI was literally bringing half my closet every time.â The move was worth it, however, not only as a money-saving measure, but because it allows her to more easily do the job that she has loved even before she had it. Before her discovery by her current agents, Blanco â a native Hawaiian â found that she âfell in love with stripping,â at which she worked for three years, even though she describes herself as an âintrovert.â But her personality type didnât stop her from making the transition into performing in adult videos, because she found thatâs where she was most happy. âPornâs always been something I thought about since I was, like, 18,â she says. âI used to make my own little videos and I loved to watch myself getting fucked! I was like, âWow, I look really happy! Why am I not making money off of this?ââ Though her career appears to be hitting an early high, Blanco still finds that she is adjusting to her new environment, and that transition has been a bit more difficult. âItâs definitely not my taste!â she says, laughing. âIâm in the city right now. And Iâm not a city girl. I miss the countryside. I miss open land and fresh air. Clean water. All that kind of stuff. Itâs a huge jump. But Iâm learning to discover different things about California. Different places to go, that are really pretty. Iâm excited about that. Thereâs so much open land to explore. Back home you can only go about an hour away from anywhere, and thatâll be it. It takes an hour to get to the other side of the island, and anywhere else.â While she says that âspending time outdoors is something that I really need in my life, like every day,â Blanco also calls herself a âbookwormâ with a particular affinity for âpoetry and prose. Things that make you think, and feel, and remind yourself how to be present in certain periods of time, before itâs gone.â Blancoâs current present moment in time is centered on her fast-rising adult career. In fact, she enjoys the entire process of filming porn, even beyond her own performance. She singled out a recent shoot with Vixen as one she particularly appreciated, for the companyâs âattention to detail in their productions. Theyâre always super-meticulous about that. And so am I. I love it. I love the creative aspects. The more complex it is, the more Iâm into it.â Eventually, she says, she would like to get behind the camera â but until then, she still has one major goal. âI would love at least win one award,â she laughs. âAt least one, and Iâll be satisfied in my career!â But ultimately, shooting adult video is an expression of her free-spirited approach to life, which she sums up by saying that she is âa firm believer in doing whatever the hell you want,â as long as it brings happiness. âI love to tell people that, because some people just overthink it,â she says. âItâs really so simple just to be happy and do what you want. Itâs really that easy! You make excuses for yourself not to do it, and make it harder than it looks. Thatâs something I used to do. And then I stopped worrying. And now Iâm having the time of my frickinâ life!" Photography by Laurent Sky (1, 2, 5 & 7); Jules Jordan (3 & 6); and Nate Tengbergen @aloha.nate (4)
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