The Flashback Interview: The Return Of Ginger Lynn
One of my earliest interview subjects for Pop Geeks was Ginger Lynn. I first interviewed Ginger in 2014, back when Pop Geeks was called Bilateral Warp. Our discussion focused on both her adult and mainstream work. We’ve kept in touch via social media since then, and upon looking at her websites, I saw that Ginger, in addition to her on-screen adventures in both adult and mainstream entertainment, is an accomplished painter. A look at her Ginger Lynn Art website made enough of an impression on me that I knew I wanted to speak to Ginger again. We did so on Tuesday, August 6th, 2019, and I hope you all enjoy my new conversation with Ms. Lynn. We discussed not only her painting, but conventions, recent acting work and, yes, some NSFW stuff as well.
Say hello again to Ginger Lynn!
Johnny: Hello, Ginger.
Ginger Lynn: Hi, Johnny.
Johnny: It’s great to talk to you again.
Ginger Lynn: It’s nice to hear your voice. How are you?
Johnny: I’m doing good. I have my questions ready to go.
Ginger Lynn: Fantastic. I’m ready when you are.
Johnny: I’d like to start with this question: How did you first begin painting?
Ginger Lynn: You know, my sister was always the artist in our family, and I didn’t start painting until I was about 35. I had a child. My son was two years old at the time, and I was always looking for things to do that were creative and fun. I bought a couple of canvases and paints, and we started painting. My son painted naked (laughing), and I have to admit that occasionally I do that as well, a little DNA in a lot of my artwork. It just happened out of love for my son, and wanting to keep him happy and growing, and I found that I was able to pull up things. I paint from a song, from a memory, from an anger, from a fight, from something happy, from the best day ever. I’m inspired by so many different things, and so each of my pieces of art express something about me. One of my favorite new pieces…You know when you have those weepy days, for no reason? I’m hypomanic, so usually, 99 percent of the time, I’m on the go and moving. I can’t stop, and then there’s one percent that I’m not. I was having a weepy week. I just had a crash. If 99 percent of the time you’re at 200 percent, there are times when you’re not. I was listening to some music, and The Who came on, and the song was “Behind Blue Eyes”. The tears started to flow, and it was one of those “Oh, I want to curl up in a little ball today” feelings. She is one of the most beautiful, exotic, erotic and soulful pieces that I’ve ever painted, so i never know where it’s going to come from. It takes me over. I can’t go, “Oh, I’m going to paint today”. I have to be inspired, and fortunately, I find inspiration in so many different parts of life.
Johnny: Alright. I’ll get to some of those paintings in a moment, but first, besides the inspirations you listed, which painters would you say have been an influence on your work?
Ginger Lynn: Absolutely none. I’ve never been to art school. I’ve never taken a class in my life. I know of Picasso and Matisse and Rembrandt and Van Gogh, a lot of painters, but I don’t really have a particular style of even my own. My entire house is floor-to-ceiling canvases with my artwork, and if you walked in, you would think that there were 20 different people that painted them. I’d love to say I had an artist that made me feel something and go someplace, but my inspiration is not from another person’s work. It’s from within me.
Johnny: Alright, I can definitely see that in your paintings. For these next few questions, are you at a computer?
Ginger Lynn: I’m not. I can be. Hold on. It’s going to take me a minute.
Johnny: It’s because I’m looking at your art website, and when I give the number of the painting…
Ginger Lynn: Oh, then I can tell the story. Perfect. I’m a little slow today. I’m a martial artist, a third-degree black belt, and I’ve had four knee surgeries in my right knee because when I fight, I really fight. I was walking down the stairs yesterday carrying something, and I thought I was at the bottom and had one more step, so my knee completely blew out to one side, so I’m just a little slow getting to my computer (laughing).
Johnny: No problem. Take your time.
Ginger Lynn: I apologize if my answers are long-winded. It’s very difficult for me just to give a yes, no, or short answer. I know I ramble on sometimes, but that’s the joy of Ginger Lynn (laughing).
Johnny: It certainly is, so think nothing of it.
Ginger Lynn: Wonderful. Okay, let me sign in here. Luckily, I have a computer downstairs, as well as my upstairs one. Alright, so we’re going to go to my art site. Give me a second. Johnny, what city are you in?
Johnny: Me? The city I’m in is Greenwood Lake, New York.
Ginger Lynn: That sounds like a beautiful area. Alright, so I am at GingerLynnArt.com.
Johnny: So am I, and I’m on the first page under the link Original Artwork, so I’d like to start with painting number 1 (Ginger laughs). What’s the story behind that?
Ginger Lynn: This painting is called My Big Giant Ass. I had cancer and I was going through treatments. I had good days and bad days, but I was in bed for a long time. I just wasn’t feeling great, so I hadn’t looked at myself in a while. I mean, I took showers and took care of myself, but I wasn’t really dressing up and going out. I was basically in my pajamas. It was Mother’s Day, and my bodyguard took a photo of my son and I. I saw myself for the first time in months and went, “Oh, shit. What happened?”. I gained 36 pounds in 28 days from my last weigh-in. My thyroid went out, so all of a sudden, I had this big, giant curvy ass (laughing), and I had a chick moment where I’m like, “Alright, I’m going to own it. I’ve got a big booty right now. I’m going to put it on canvas”. That’s how My Big Giant Ass came to be (laughing).
Johnny: I must say it’s a fantastic painting. I really love the style of the colors in it.
Ginger Lynn: Thank you so much. It’s one of my favorite pieces, and it’s a large piece. There are pieces I call my signature pieces. They’re the ones that I don’t really want to sell. I would, but I don’t go out of my way (laughing) because I fall in love with, and I get very attached to, my paintings. This one was a lot of fun. Thank you for the compliment. It’s just one of my all-time favorite pieces.
Johnny: Cool.
Ginger Lynn: If you wake up one day and you have a big booty, own it, (laughing) and put it on canvas. A lot of my paintings, this one in particular, I use my fingers in different areas, so there’s always a little bit of Ginger Lynn DNA on every piece of art I do. My paintings, and My Big Giant Ass is a perfect example, I love texture. If you close your eyes and touch my paintings, almost all of them have something going on. I use different products and gels. It may be raised up here and lowered down there. With this piece and so many others, if I were a blind person, I would appreciate my art. I use sand. I use glass beads. I live at the base of this beautiful mountain just outside of Las Vegas. My backyard literally is the mountain, and it’s covered in natural quartz crystals. I hike up there a lot and I bring home the crystals. I grind them up, and I have natural crystals in a lot of my paint.
Johnny: That’s amazing.
Ginger Lynn: It’s so fun. You never know where things are going to go in life. Fortunately, right now, I’ve got more films lined up over the next year than I’ve had in, like, a 5-year period. I’m a really lucky girl.
Johnny: I’ll be getting into those films later, but for now, I’d like to ask about painting number 32, and the story behind that, the one that looks like a fence.
Ginger Lynn: Oh, 32. 32 is Jezebel. Look carefully to the left side of the image, and if you’ll notice, there’s an arm. There’s a very long face. There’s hair that comes down all over the woman’s face. Do you see her yet?
Johnny: I do.
Ginger Lynn: Okay. You can see her eye, and she’s behind a fence. Jezebel is the side of me that is dark, and the side of me that I don’t really like. It’s just the complete opposite of who I am, and this is Jezebel. I’m sounding crazy right now, but we all have different parts of our personalities, and this is just a side of me that I think should be kept behind a fence (laughing). She doesn’t come out so much anymore. She did a lot when I was younger. It was the 80s. It was the party days. It was champagne and cocaine and porn, so Jezebel came out a lot more back then. She’s one of the pieces that is really special to me.
Johnny: I can definitely see that. It is a very fascinating portrait. To go to Original Artwork, Page 2, what’s the story behind painting 54?
Ginger Lynn: Oh, that’s Fred. What do you see when you look at this painting, if anything?
Johnny: I see kind of an ocean landscape with light coming out of it, with little fires coming out of the ocean.
Ginger Lynn: I can see that. Interesting, interesting. Alright, refocus. Look at the round green dot. That is an eyeball. In front of it is a beak. Basically, it’s Fred, my bird, from the neck up. The top is his plumes.
Johnny: Aaah.
Ginger Lynn: Do you see the eyeball and the beak and the bird head now?
Johnny: Now I do.
Ginger Lynn: Yeah. A lot of my art…I love that when people buy my pieces, I get so many e-mails back afterwards saying, “I just found this in there, and now it looks like this”. I’m able to get a lot of emotions all into one painting. If you look at the lower left corner of Fred, there is a demon face. He’s got two eyes. He’s got a big, fat nose. There’s some black hair coming out. It’s the head of a demon if you look carefully within the bird. Fred? He loved to dance. I’d put music on, and I’d dance and he’s bop around. I’d let him out of his cage and he’d be on my shoulder, and so we were Fred and Ginger. Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers, get it? Fred learned to talk, and my bodyguard taught him a few things. I run around naked a lot. I did that, and I’m still doing it now, and so the first thing Fred learned was how to do the catcall. (Ginger whistles) He would whistle if I was naked, which was adorable. Can I swear?
Johnny: Oh, absolutely. Feel free.
Ginger Lynn: Okay. He learned all different kinds of little words and things here and there, but his favorite phrase that my bodyguard taught him was, “Fuck off! Fuck off!” (Ginger and Johnny giggle), so he was really good at whistling at girls and then telling me to fuck off. When I became pregnant with my son, I bought quite a large home. There was a big giant room that we had a man cave in, and my office was in there. We did photo shoots in there, and that’s where we hung Fred. Now, I bought the house six weeks before my due date, and Fred hung in the office in his cage, screaming “Fuck off” 24/7. I couldn’t take it anymore, so Fred lives with the crazy bird lady. He’s still alive. This type of bird usually has a lifespan of 30 to 50 years, depending on a lot of different factors when they were in captivity, so Fred’s still kicking around. He just doesn’t live with me anymore. Fred’s one of my favorite pieces. He hangs in my bedroom.
Johnny: It’s definitely a fantastic painting. I just love the style of it. I mean, I know I’ve said it several times so far, but you really are a talented painter.
Ginger Lynn: That means so much to me. You know, as I said, it’s so fun. I kind of feel like I’m the luckiest girl ever. My job…One of the things I do is paint and get paid for it, and I get nothing but joy. Even when I do an angry painting, or if there’s a sad story behind it, what I get out is so filling I can’t even tell you, so thank you for the compliment. It means the world to me because I paint from my heart.
Johnny: No problem at all. You’re very welcome. Still on Original Artwork Page 2, we come to the aptly named painting 69. Was that another self-portrait?
Ginger Lynn: Mmm-hmm. 69. I was one of those girls that got good advice from people when I got into the adult film industry. One piece of advice I was given was to make sure that, when I did a photo shoot, I owned the photos with the photographer, so the photographer paid me, had the rights to sell the photos to whoever they would sell it to, and I was also able to take those photos and use them. I could make copies, use them for conventions. When I was going through photos, I was finding different poses that I had done, so a wonderful photographer named Clive had done this photo shoot, and so yes, that is a self-portrait. It’s small. It’s 12X18, but I have it priced so high because I don’t want to let it go. The rights to use it have already been granted to a band called The Bones. They put this on the album cover, and her name is Caramel. They put her on the cover, named the album Caramel, and named the title track Caramel, so she’s quite a famous piece.
Johnny: I can see why. It’s definitely a fantastic painting.
Ginger Lynn: I wish I knew what I did. A lot of times, I’ll figure out how to do something really cool, and then the next time I try to recreate it, it’s just not happening (laughing), so I’m still trying to figure out how I blended so well. It was one of those times where it just flowed out of me. Some pieces take three months. Some pieces take three hours. This was like a three-day piece.
Johnny: Cool.
Ginger Lynn: Mmm-hmm. Thank you.
Johnny: To go to the third Original Artwork page, what’s the story behind painting 77?
Ginger Lynn: 77. I grew up in Rockford, Illinois. Today, it’s a shithole. I mean, all of Chicago’s leftover Mafia people go there. They moved a housing project called Cabrini Green, that was just excessively violent, to Rockford (laughing), but when I grew up there, we had Three Rivers, and the air was clean. It was fun, and a little country. My house was where, if I walked a block, I would be in a cornfield. One of the things that I used to do in the Summers was lay out in the sun. You know when you douse yourself in baby oil, and you put the lemon juice with Sun-In in your hair, and you get those big, fluffy clouds that come along? Well, we had a cherry tree, and so there was a time in the Spring when it would be covered in the fuzziest, most beautiful, soft caterpillars you’ve ever seen, and they just lived in our cherry tree, and then they became butterflies. We had purple flowers in our backyard in this giant bush, but that’s not where the butterflies were, so I kind of combined another flower with our cherry tree and our butterflies, so this is just a really happy piece. It’s a wonderful, makes-me-smile, childhood memory. You know, I can see the caterpillars crawling in my mind right now. I’ve also got a caterpillar painting that is a totally different style, but same memory.
Johnny: Alright. Staying on Page 3, what’s the story behind painting 81?
Ginger Lynn: 81. I have a nickname, and it’s Dory. I see shiny things a lot, and people have to wrangle me. (Singing) “Just keep swimming, just keep swimming”. I didn’t want to paint a Dory fish, but I’m OCD, so I was able to combine the shiny objects, the things that are so beautiful they would distract me, along with my OCD, so I made it kind of neat. It’s neat and lost at the same time, and so she’s called Dory (laughing). It’s an endearing term. My son calls me Dory. His friends call me Dory. It’s kind of like being a dumb blonde, but not dumb, just that total excitement and energy and everything. Things make me smile. Life makes me smile.
Johnny: Fascinating. It has a wonderful design to it. Going to Original Artwork, Page 4…
Ginger Lynn: I love that you looked at so many of my things. It just…Aww, it makes me feel really, really good. Oh, I love this page. Okay.
Johnny: Paintings 101, 103, 104 and 106 seem to be variations on a theme. Was that intentional?
Ginger Lynn: Yes. I’ve sold tons of nudes. I will be putting a section back up with just a gallery of all of my pieces. It was just getting to be too much as I had 15 pages of paintings, half of which were sold, so to avoid confusion, I pulled all the sold pieces. They will be going back up into a gallery, but these pieces, in particular…I had done so well with my nudes that I took, again, photos of myself. Not 104, but 101 is a photo of me that I believe Suze Randall shot.
Ginger Lynn: I’m not good at faces, but I had a lot of fun with her. She was a different color scheme than I’d used before. I wasn’t quite sure how they’d turn out, but I love her. She’s a large piece. She’s 24X36, so she’s not huge, but you’d need a space to put her on, and she’s very striking. Her name is Tangerine, and I named her because, as I was finishing her off, one of my favorite bands with one of my favorite songs came on, Led Zeppelin’s “Tangerine”. I was painting and finishing her off to Tangerine, and that’s how she was named. Number 104? I do a lot of yoga. I told you I blew my knee out yesterday, and I’ve already had four knee surgeries, so I can’t fight anymore. I don’t do anything half-assed, and so I can’t go in and just do light kicks, you know? If I’m going to do it, I do it hard, so I can’t do it anymore. Painting 104 was from a photograph, but my intention was for her to be more soulful, more introspective. What I’ve done is replace my martial arts, and I just switched all of that energy, all of my aggression, all of that wonderful getting it out, into yoga. This is kind of me changing. It’s a different phase in my life. It’s calm, and it’s peaceful, and it’s comfortable and cozy, so she’s a little bit introspective, and I love that piece.
Ginger Lynn: 106 is Behind Blue Eyes. That was my weepy week. I had no reason, but (laughing) I was just weepy all week. She hangs in my living room. I have one spot that is especially for my latest piece, because I like to sit and look at my pieces and enjoy them before they go off to their new homes. I have had Behind Blue Eyes, which is number 106, up in my living room for two months now, and I’ve done several paintings since, but I don’t want to take them down. I love her. You can look at it and see sadness. I see more honesty, you know? I was just being how I felt and who I was at that moment, so that’s 106.
Ginger Lynn: What was the other one you asked about?
Johnny: It was 103. (Ginger laughs) To me, it seemed like a more abstract version of the previous three paintings. I could be wrong, though.
Ginger Lynn: No, it is. Oh, I’ll get myself in trouble if I tell you the inspiration for this one.
Johnny: If you want to use a different name, we can do that.
Ginger Lynn: Oh, no. I’ve painted Christy Canyon and Nina Hartley. Those are both long gone and sold. This is actually Jenna Jameson from the back, and I did what’s called a pour. What you do is you mix several things in with your paint. You can add a little oil, so I use a little bit of that. A little water can give your paint a different consistency. The trick is to pour it into the shape you want without it bleeding into each other, so these are really fun to do. I had a blast, and the reason I chuckled a little bit is because I intentionally gave Jenna a giant fuckin’ head (laughing). It’s so disproportionate to her body, and it’s just…That’s Jenna (laughing), the Jenna that I knew and I met. I don’t know her today, but I might see her in 10 years, but that’s my memory of her, and how full of herself she was. That’s Jenna Jameson. That’s kind of a secret, and one of the things I don’t do on GingerLynnArt.com is I don’t tell you the name, I don’t tell you the size, and I don’t tell you the story, because I want you to really know it. I talk to my buyers. I’ll call them if they’re really interested in a piece, and I’ll tell them the story. I always get back with long e-mails that really go into details, but I like the healing connection, and because my artwork is so personal to me, it’s like your dog having puppies, and the puppies go away. You know, you’re sad and you miss them and you love them (laughing), so that’s Jenna Jameson with a big old head (laughing).
Johnny: Fascinating.
Ginger Lynn: Okay, you should laugh, too. Otherwise, I just sound really mean. C’mon, give me a giggle. (I laugh as well) Thank you.
Johnny: My apologies. I’m just enraptured by the paintings. They’re just so wonderful, and now I’m on Original Artwork, Page 5. What’s the origin behind painting 116?
Ginger Lynn: Okay. Again, I told you I love texture. I love it, and so what I did was I mixed semi-heavy gel with my colors, and when you touch this painting, not only does it look like I painted it on bamboo, it feels like bamboo. I was lucky enough, in probably ’86 or ’87, to have a three-week trip to Japan, paid for by Penthouse. I was in Japan for two weeks. Tokyo was where my main hotel was, but I went off to Kyoto. I took the bullet train. It was Springtime. The cherry blossoms were in bloom. I went to the most amazing, real sushi places, where you have your own geisha girl in between you, and if you order a drink, you get the entire bottle. The toilet seats were heated, and it’s an honor to be taken to this restaurant. It’s $1000 per person is what I was told. I had my geisha girl, and she spoke a little bit of English. I was taken out by Penthouse one night, and the next night, there was another magazine that I was doing a shoot for. They took me there, and I didn’t know that you were supposed to be hush-hush. I walked in, saw my geisha from the previous night, and was like, “Oh, it’s great to see you again!”. She shuffled over, put her finger to my lips, and rushed me off to the bathroom and said it was a bad thing for me to be like, “Oh, I was here last night”. She saved me, so this is a combination of just how fucking cool it was, you know? I got to do these ritzy things, but I also went over to Hong Kong for a week and was taken around. and saw just a whole other wonderful world, and I loved it. It was such a contrast being in Tokyo, and then going out to areas where there are rice fields, being in the middle of nowhere (laughing). This is a bunch of wonderful feelings. There’s no particular shape, no particular thing. It was all these wonderful smells and tastes and climates, all these experiences, so it looks a little Asian, but also doesn’t really look like anything (laughing). What did you get from it?
Johnny: Um, well, what I get from it is difficult to say, but I do admittedly see a little bit of sexuality in it. Some of the shapes look like breasts…
Ginger Lynn: …And penises. I didn’t even notice that until you pointed it out (laughing). You’re absolutely right. I subconsciously added some sex in there, which is perfect because we went to Kyoto, and we went to a bathhouse, and it was so adorable. There are all these little old Asian ladies, and they bring you in, and there’s something like a trough, but it’s on the floor. I don’t speak their language, and they don’t speak mine, and so they’re squatting down butt-naked, washing their pussies and telling me I have to wash mine. You basically take a little whore’s bath in this running stream. I got a massage, but they wouldn’t give me a happy ending, but me and the girl, we finished my man off together, so that was another experience. This is just like a combination of all these really cool things that I did not even see or think. I didn’t intentionally put any sexuality into the painting, but now that you bring it out…See, even with my own pieces, I see new things in them, so thank you for pointing that out (laughing).
Johnny: I’m glad I was able to help you look at it in a new way (Ginger laughs).
Ginger Lynn: I try to put them up in a size that you could kind of tell if it was a large piece, and all three on this row, 112, 115, 116, are all 16X20s, and they’re all affordable. I mean, you can buy a piece of art for $300 online from my site, or a $12,000 piece. There’s something for everybody. I mean, $300 for an original piece is a good deal (laughing), if I do say so myself.
Johnny: Another painting that looks like it may be a self-portrait is painting 118. What’s the story behind that?
Ginger Lynn: (Laughing) Okay. I told you my nickname is Dory. I was a feature dancer for 13 years. I have no rhythm. I can’t walk without tripping over things. I look up, I miss all the good stuff. I look down, I trip over everything. I’m always all over the place, so this is me dancing. The inspiration for this was one night where I was shooting a guest starring role on a series called Hardball, with Richard Tyson and John Ashton. I got to wear this beautiful, sequined, green full-length gown with a split up the back, just beautiful. They let me keep it, so I go on the road and take it with me. I go out on the stage and I’ve got this beautiful gown on. I can move sexy to the music, but I just can’t dance. I’ve got the sexuality, so that’s how I brought it all out, but the klutziness was still there (laughing), so I had this dress on, and there was no rail at the end of the stage. I was trying to unzip it from the back and I couldn’t get the zipper down, so I pulled it up over my head and I got stuck, and I literally walk right off the stage (Ginger and Johnny laugh). People caught me and I didn’t get hurt, but it was classic, so this is kind of in-between. I’m not totally klutzy, but you can tell it’s not my area of expertise (laughing), so I’m kind of making fun of myself in that painting. It’s really cool, though, and again, texture. The whole background, I did this 3-D-like thing. I used Elmer’s Glue and all these different products and stains, and I had a blast, so this one feels really good, again, to touch.
Johnny: Definitely. To go from arts to crafts, you also knit (Ginger laughs). Where did you learn that from?
Ginger Lynn: I just finished a blanket this morning and started a new one. My grandmother taught me so many things. She was my muse, my inspiration. She’s the one who taught me patience. She taught me how to knit. She taught me how to sew. She taught me how to design jewelry, candles…We were always doing something creative. Going back to the story I told you of how I started painting with my son, I kind of did with my son what my grandmother did with me, so I learned to knit at a very young age. It’s very difficult for me to just sit still, so if I’m watching television, I need to be doing something, and so I knit. I call them Ginnerbug Hugs. My nickname when I was a little girl was Ginnerbug. These are the softest blankets you will ever touch, and they’re machine-washable. I just made a couple for the toddlers of a friend of mine, and I told her they can run in the mud, they can stamp on it and puke on it and dump their juice…You toss it in the wash and it comes out just as soft. I don’t have those up at GingerLynnArt.com, but those are available on eBay, and my seller name on there is gingerlynn_com. Right now, I’m starting a new Lakers blanket. My favorite one, as I’m a hockey fan, is the Blackhawks blanket. That’s one that I’m not selling. Again, it takes a long time to make one, and they’re very reasonably priced. They’re priced at $250, and they’re perfectly imperfect. They are the softest thing you will ever touch, and everyone I make one for calls up and says, “Can you make one for this person? That person?”. The two that I just made for my friend’s children, her husband was like, “I want one!” (laughing), and he’s like 6′ 7”, 380, a big boy, so I don’t know if there’s enough yarn to make one for him (laughing), but I do custom orders. People can contact me, and I can do any colors that you want. You can design it to go. You can get basics, and then I can send photos of the art that I’ve chosen, so…
Johnny: That actually leads me to my next question: Have you ever considered knitting a design, and then painting on it?
Ginger Lynn: Hmm. I’ve never though of that. That might be really cool. It would have to be a pour. You couldn’t do it with a brush, but I could do a really cool pour. That could be a nice piece, and I could just put it between two pieces of Plexiglass. For the texture, again, you could have it soft and the paint would be hard. That’s a really good idea.
Johnny: I was inspired to ask that because when I interviewed Ami Dolenz last year, I asked about her artwork as well.
Ginger Lynn: Ami was in Hardball with me, where I wore the green dress that painting 118 is based on! That is so funny. What are the odds?
Johnny: She mentioned mixed mediums, and I’ve since asked Loretta Swit, whom I interviewed late last year, about that.
Ginger Lynn: Oh, I saw some of her work. She’s so talented. Just amazing.
Johnny: She certainly is. I must say that all three of you are fantastic artists.
Ginger Lynn: Thank you so much. You have no idea. It just makes me smile from the inside out. Even my pinkie toes are smiling (laughing).
Johnny: To go away from art, and to go back into films, you’ve worked on several intriguing films since our first interview back in 2014, starting with your role as Cherry Bomb in Rob Zombie’s 31.
Ginger Lynn: Yes.
Johnny: Your second collaboration with him, what’s your favorite memory of that project?
Ginger Lynn: Richard Brake, without a doubt, is my favorite memory about that project. I got my script months before we shot, so I had all my choices. I was totally prepared and ready to do the role, and the morning of the shoot, Rob sends an e-mail at, like, 6:30, with a total rewrite (laughing). No pressure there, though. I was in the makeup trailer getting my makeup done, and Richard came and knocked on the door. He introduced himself and said, “As soon as you’re done here, we’ll do a run-through”, so we didn’t even have time. I mean, as soon as I was out of makeup, Rob was so precise. Very on-time, very meticulous, and so Richard and I did not even have time to go through it. Once we were on the set, we both said something to Rob about it, and he said, “Just make sure you get the key words in there, the lines that we’re looking for, and then you two just go for it. Just ad-lib”. My favorite part of that film, for me, is the thirty minutes on the cutting room floor where I actually HAVE a character. I play his girlfriend, and we developed just the most wonderfully fucked-up relationship. We had a blast. It was so good. My boyfriend was on the set, and he said that people were on walkie-talkies saying, “You need to get up here and watch this. This is fucking amazing!”, but Rob shot so much. He probably had four hours on his first cut, so the more you cut, the less the character’s developed, and so rather than being this really messed-up, wonderful couple, I’m basically just a thot, so I will say that I would’ve preferred it the other way, that there actually was a cut where you saw that footage, because it was unbelievable. I had so much fun. Richard Brake is just one of the kindest people I’ve ever met, and oh my goodness, his acting. His opening monologue was just brilliant, absolutely brilliant.
Johnny: Alright. To go to a movie where your presence was definitely known, you played Roxy Carmichael in Streets Of Vengeance.
Ginger Lynn: YEAH!
Johnny: A tribute to 80s exploitation movies, but with a rather progressive bent, your work in the 80s was a big influence on the film, so besides being an influence on it, what made it so special for you?
Ginger Lynn: Everything. Paul Ragsdale and his girlfriend Angie are two of the most humble, sweet, kind and talented people that I’ve ever met. Angie is an artist as well, and she paints. They work together as a team, so you know how things trickle down. You’ve got these two amazing people who are running the show, and Paul wrote a role where I had the opportunity to shine, and to do something with my character, which was a gift for me. You know, because of my past, for the longest time it was, “Oh, yeah. Wink wink, nudge nudge, we’ll get you through this movie”. I was more of a novelty. I did get some great roles. I wouldn’t change a thing, and I’m grateful for every role I’ve ever had, but it’s strange. I mean, I’m at an age right now where I’m just getting job after job, and it’s really fun. I went from porn to small roles in B-movies to leads in B-movies to small roles in A-movies and then television, and everything kind of snowballed, but with Streets Of Vengeance, I had good dialogue to work with, a great director to work with, a great team, and other great actors. Paul was open to ideas, as I always am as well, and it was a pleasure. I’m actually shooting another film for him called Slashlorette Party. We begin mid-September, and it’s going to be so cool. I love the script, and if Paul gave me something to work with before, this is just a gift. It’s just an amazing character that I can develop, so I will be in Slashlorette Party, filming in September 2019 (laughing).
Johnny: Fantastic.
Ginger Lynn: Yeah, and I love doing the throwback. I love that 80s slasher film type. I enjoy those types of movies, and I can’t talk too much about what we’re doing, except for the title of it, but it is in the same genre as Streets Of Vengeance was, so I’m very excited about that.
Johnny: Cool.
Ginger Lynn: Yeah. It’s really cool to have people at the age I am now. Porn’s been gone forever. I’m not the ingenue anymore, I’m not the MILF, but I’m not the grandmother yet, so I’m at this age where, with the opportunities and the roles I’m being offered, I have to pinch myself sometimes (laughing).
Johnny: On another entertainment-related note, you’ve made a decent amount of convention appearances over the years, including appearances at Chiller Theatre in Parsippany, NJ, and The Hollywood Show in Los Angeles. What’s been the most rewarding part of attending conventions like those?
Ginger Lynn: Seeing my friends and meeting my fans. I love meeting people that enjoy my work. I have real conversations. If you’re waiting in my line to see me, I’m not going to look up, ask your name and push you off. I actually talk to everybody, and it’s just fun. It’s like a weekend of meeting all kinds of new friends as people usually get a three-day pass, and so that part is hugely rewarding. When I’m done, I have been drained of every ounce of energy because I’ve given it all away because I love it. It’s so fun. Of course, the cast of The Devil’s Rejects, we’ve done so many conventions together. I love Leslie Easterbrook and Kane Hodder and Bill Mosely and Sid Haig. There’s a lot of us, but those are the main core group that do the conventions together, so it’s like old home week. You get to know people on a shoot, but if you’re only there for a day or two, you don’t get a whole lot of social time, so it’s been getting to know people that I’ve worked with, and it’s so nice. There are some nutjobs out there. I won’t mention any names (laughing), but they live up to the stereotype of, “I am an ACTOR!”.
Johnny: What’s been the most wonderful piece of memorabilia you’ve signed at a convention?
Ginger Lynn: Ooh, interesting question. Oh, I know…My name on the back of someone’s head that came back after getting my name tattooed on the back of his head (laughing). My whole Ginger Lynn signature right across the back, so that was probably the most interesting.
Johnny: Alright. You and quite a few other adult film veterans were presences at Chiller Theatre for years, but haven’t made appearances since the convention moved from the Sheraton Parsippany back to the Parsippany Hilton. Will you ever come back to Chiller?
Ginger Lynn: I would love to, absolutely. I’m always open to do conventions as long as there’s not a time conflict. I do the ones that I’m offered, so I have a couple of agents that work for me, and if the opportunity arises, oh, hell yes, I am so there…Only if you come and see me (Ginger and Johnny laughing).
Johnny: Well, to go to another question: When we first did an interview back in 2014, you had a podcast called Blame It On Ginger, named after your movie of the same name. If you’re allowed to discuss it, what led to the end of that podcast, and what will you be doing differently with your upcoming podcast, The Ginger And Ro Show?
Ginger Lynn: Oh, you’ve done your homework. Well, first of all, if you can’t tell, I enjoy talking (laughing). Doing radio, I started at KSEX, and moved from there to Playboy on SiriusXM. To combine all my experiences in radio and podcasting, it’s about 15 years, and I absolutely love it. What will be different this time with The Ginger And Ro Show? We’ve worked together before. Ro DelleGrazie opened for Lisa Lampanelli. They worked together and she mentored. With my last podcast, I did it 5 days a week. I don’t remember the exact lineup or days, but Nina Hartley would be there every Monday, Tuesday would be Kelly Nichols, Wednesday would be Ro DelleGrazie, and so on. There were 5 days a week, and every Monday through Friday you knew who to expect. We found that the combination of adult and comedy really works, and it was, by far, the most popular show that we did. This will be Ro and I combining comedians with adult film stars as well as sex workers, and we’ll have topics and games. It’s kind of a combination. It even opens like a late-night talk show. When I did radio, one of the rules was “20 minutes is the attention span for most listeners driving their car”. After 20 minutes, they change the station, so rather than doing what I used to, which was a three-hour show, we are now doing 20 minute shows that are more condensed and more convenient. You can just pop it in any time, and anywhere you listen to podcasts, we will be there. We start doing 15 shows on Saturday, August 17th, I believe, and we’ll be going through Patreon so people can help us get off the ground and get things moving. It’s fun, it’s sexy and educational. You’re going to be entertained the entire time, and then, of course, we’ll have our YouTube channel that goes along with it. Sometimes we get a little risky (laughing), or risque, I should say, so with shows where people get topless or squirt or whatever they may do on the show, that will then be available through GingerLynn.com. You can’t put up titties on YouTube, and I don’t want to blur everything out as it takes away from it, so people will have the opportunity to see everything that we do.
Johnny: Fantastic. This was a question I didn’t think to ask in our first interview, but since I like both your works, you’re a native of Rockford, Illinois, and so is Jodi Benson, the voice of Ariel from Disney’s The Little Mermaid.
Ginger Lynn: I didn’t know that!
Johnny: Did you ever cross paths with her in your high school years, when she was known as Jodi Marzorati, and if so, have you seen her since then?
Ginger Lynn: No, and I had no idea she was even from Rockford. I never met her, never ran into her, or knew anyone who brought her up. That’s interesting. I know everybody from Cheap Trick, so that was kind of my thoughts of who got out of Rockford (laughing). Rockford was great, like I said, years ago. It just changed a lot, but it was a wonderful place to grow up, so no, I never ran across her, but whenever I see Cheap Trick’s playing some place around, I always go and meet up with everybody and say hi.
Johnny: Alright. I do have a few sex-related questions, if you don’t mind. Is that okay?
Ginger Lynn: No, that’s fine. If I have a problem with a question, although I’m pretty open, I’ll let you know. Fire away.
Johnny: If you were to film some new scenes for your website, and you could do scenes with any mainstream actors, actresses or musicians, who would you choose, why would you choose them, and what kind of scenes would you do with them?
Ginger Lynn: Ohhhh, interesting. Cameron Diaz, Andy Garcia, throw in Brad Pitt, just for the hell of it (laughing), and Gina Gershon. LOVE her. Absolutely love Gina Gershon. Those are the ones that come to mind right away, and why? I’m just big on people, you know? I have a boyfriend that I’m with, and we celebrated 10 years, and I’m faithful to him completely, but I’m attracted to a person more than a look, and these are all people I think I could hang with. If I don’t like, I could never sleep with you. That was a big thing that was important to me, being in adult films. If I didn’t like someone in such an intimate act, I would just say no. Oh, also, Matthew McConaughey. My boyfriend sitting next to me goes, “Really?” (laughing). Yeah, he’s got a nice chest. It’s so funny. I’ve been working on my book for 30 years. I’ll be dead before it comes out, but in Dallas Buyer’s Club, there’s a scene where he’s jerking off and he’s got pictures of porn stars, and he’s jerking off to me (laughing) in Dallas Buyer’s Club. I’ve got a couple of movies where they’re like, “Is that Ginger?”. Yes it is, and that’s one of them, so I can say that I’ve worked with Matthew McConaughey (laughing), and he definitely knows who I am.
Johnny: Cool. What body parts do you find sexiest on, respectively, women and men?
Ginger Lynn: Mmm. I like asses on women. I’m an ass girl. I really like girls’ butts. We’re talking sexually, not just overall, so I’m going with what would turn me on. Men? It’s the weirdest thing. I love blue jeans…A button-down shirt that’s completely open, and a pair of blue jeans. It’s a HUGE turn-on for me. I don’t know why. I just find it sexy and manly. I like the feel of the roughness of the jeans.
Johnny: Alright.
Ginger Lynn: I know. See, I’m weird (laughing).
Johnny: No, there’s nothing weird about that. I now come to my final question: It’s been almost five years since Robin Williams’ passing. Robin Williams named the trope I Call Him Mr. Happy to describe assigning nicknames to genitalia (Ginger laughs). Along those lines, what are your favorite slang terms to use to describe the genitals?
Ginger Lynn: I love the word “cunt”. I just think it’s cool, very precise. It’s like: When I say “cunt”, it means something, and not necessarily negative at all, either. I just love the word “cunt”. I don’t have a nickname for my pussy. When talking during foreplay, I’ll call it your package, your junk (laughing), but “cunt” is probably one of my favorite words, and “cock” is another good one. I like the simplicity. It’s in your face. There’s no doubt what you mean when you say it, and I think they’re beautiful words (laughing).
Johnny: Alright. Well, that does it for my questions. I again thank you for taking the time out of your schedule to do this. When we did that interview in 2014, I never though we’d be doing another one, but I’m glad we did. You were a fantastic interview subject as always. I loved discussing your paintings. You’re really an all-around talent, and it was an honor to speak to you again.
Ginger Lynn: Awww. It’s little things like that that can make someone’s day. I started this recently at the beginning of the Summer. Whenever I go out, to the grocery store or the P.O Box or wherever I’m going, I will pick someone and give them a compliment. Just a random act of kindness, and I love doing that. It makes people smile, and I’m saying that because that’s what you just did for me. It was like, “Oh, I’m on the other end of it”. This is really cool (laughing).
Johnny: Well, I mean every word of it. It’s an honor to count you among my friends.
Ginger Lynn: I appreciate you thinking of me, and your interest. You know, you can tell when somebody going through the next question and the next question, and when somebody has actually thought it through. You did your homework, and that means a lot to me. I appreciate that.
Johnny: You’re very welcome, Ginger. I’ll definitely be in touch, and I hope you have a fantastic afternoon.
Ginger Lynn: Thank you. You too, honey.
Johnny: I’ll talk to you soon.
Ginger Lynn: Alright. Bye bye.
Johnny: Bye.
I would again like to thank Ginger Lynn for taking the time out of her schedule to speak to me. Ginger Lynn Art is the website for her paintings. You can also visit her official website and her auction site as well.
Coming soon to the Flashback Interview are conversations with actress and former beauty queen Shawn Weatherly and the very busy film-wise Dawna Lee Heising, as well as a 2nd interview with the Aphrodite Of The Accordion, Judy Tenuta. Thank you as always for reading.
