Emma Rose Talks Repeat as AVN Trans Performer of the Year

This feature appears in the March edition of AVN magazine. Click here for the digital issue. LOS ANGELES—The 2024 AVN Awards were a good night for Emma Rose. After her wins for Best Trans Group Sex Scene and Trans Performer of the Year in 2023, she was nominated in five categories for 2024: for her acting in Pride & Orifice; for One-on-One, Group, and Virtual Reality — Trans sex scenes; and a repeat nomination for Trans Performer of the Year. By night’s end, she had won Virtual Reality for her scene with Dante Colle and repeated her triumph as Trans Performer of the Year. “It felt absolutely amazing,” Rose told AVN. “The whole year of 2023, I’ve just been working, but also trying to diversify. In 2022, I was just working a lot of scenes. And then last year I was doing podcasts, traveling, I was doing events. It was an entire, like, plethora of things. It’s just crazy how the momentum has just gathered for this year.” Rose started her performing career in 2020. “I had two scenes before COVID hit. I was still living in Florida and I was dancing. I already graduated college and I just knew that I couldn’t dance any more. I told all my friends I’m moving to Vegas because, like, I want to start porn and take it seriously. I moved here in June, and they weren’t shooting in June. Porn started back up, I think, in July and it was such a slow build. I didn’t know anybody when I moved here. I didn’t even really know the directors, I just shot with them. The whole end of the year of 2020 and the start of 2021 was really, really difficult.” Things changed when Rose joined TransAngels as a contract performer in February 2021: “I think that really helped my career take off. It was a three-month contract that kept on renewing, and after nine months we parted ways. And then after that it was just like one thing after the other. “After TransAngels, I started doing some top scenes and working with Adult Time. I didn’t start working with women until my debut scene with Brazzers with Angela White. That was the tipping point. I started working with a lot of women and a lot of directors started shooting me as a top, bottom for boy-girl scenes, for girl-girl scenes, it really just showed that I was very versatile.” “I felt an immediate connection with Emma when we first shot together for Brazzers,” White told AVN. “She is an amazing performer who gives her all to her scene partner. She is a consummate professional: intelligent, disciplined, caring, and passionate. She deserves all the accolades she has received for her hard work over the past couple of years. I was so happy to see her win Trans Performer of the Year for a second time.” Rose’s next champion was director Ricky Greenwood, who shot her with Victoria Voxxx for a scene that was released by Dorcel as Emma4You and compiled in Stars Vol. 10. It also was nominated for Best Trans One-on-One Sex Scene for the 2024 AVN Awards. “It was the end of 2022 when I first shot for Dorcel. It was their first trans scene and it was a lesbian scene and it was absolutely gorgeous. Ricky Greenwood was like, ‘I really want you to do this thing. You’re gonna be great.’ And since then, I was able to shoot another Dorcel scene, in More. Absolutely amazing. It was beautiful.” “There’s one scene I’m very, very proud of [in More] and it was just in the moment,” Greenwood said at the More premiere party. “The first scene of the movie is a threesome between Emma Rose, Casey Calvert and Kira Noir. It’s three women, but one of them is a trans woman. Normally when we shoot a trans scene, you will have the trans topping the cis woman. We were like, 20 minutes in the scene, and all the girls are having fun kissing, eating out each other and everything, and we didn’t do penetration yet. I said ‘I will not do penetration in this scene. I want to keep it as a girl/girl lesbian movie, just no penetration. It’ll only be three women enjoying each other’s body without penetration.’ It’s one of the best scenes I’ve shot. It’s so beautiful, it’s so natural, it’s so in-the-moment.” The change to no-penetration surprised Rose: “I was very ready to top. I was very ready to fuck, I was horny. And when they told me that, I was thinking I would just love Kira to ride me at this point. Kira Noir, Casey Calvert, big-time crushes in the industry, reliable performers, amazing performers. Finally working with them, it was just too good to be true.” Rose is now angling for more mainstream exposure. “I’ve been really pushing to get on more talk shows. I love talking. I feel like I have a lot to say, especially just in the short four years—for trans models and trans performers—the landscape has changed. It’s like even more in last five years than the five years before that. It’s just blossoming in every social media platform. One of my favorite interviews was with the ‘Coffee Breakup’ podcast in Miami. A lot of people who are on my side of the divide, people who are trans, they expect [outsiders] to just know things. And in my experience, most people just don’t know. I don’t know a lot of things, either, but that’s fine, I’ll learn. They asked a lot of questions that kind of skim the surface for people who wouldn’t expect a trans girl to speak like that. They learned a lot of new things. I’d rather be funny and people listen to what I need to say instead of people say like she’s an asshole and ignore me.” Rose and Angela White co-hosted the first season of the Vice podcast “THOTline” in late 2023. Segments included discussions on pegging, deep throating, dating, dirty talk and a quick tutorial on the best way to take a sexy selfie. The “THOTline” podcasts can be accessed on YouTube. “Everything has just been building on top of everything that I’ve already built and I really like that nothing’s been far out of field when it comes to my portfolio,” Rose said. “I wouldn’t have been able to do this without putting in the work here, and having my director leading me there, and it’s like everything’s been building. “Now, I’m able to host award shows and to throw events and to be a speaker at an event. Now, my brain is starting to wrap around things. I still feel like a baby in the industry, but I’m not. I have a Marketing degree with a concentration in Brand Management, so I don’t know the little things when it comes to, like, figuring how business works, but whenever someone talks about Emma Rose, they may not remember your name or they might not remember your face, but they remember how you made them feel. And my brand, I think, is always like that: a little bit manic, but still put together. ‘She’s like crazy but like so fun.’” Photography by Chance