Sussi La Cour: Jeg fik nok af sex

Sussi La Cour, known internationally as the porn star Katja K, started her career in 1997 at age 29—old by industry standards—after watching adult films at home with her husband, looking up the producers in a telephone book, and cold-calling them. She had no connections, no modeling background, and no clear expectation of what would follow. But she knew she wanted to work at the highest level, and within a year she had moved from European productions to Los Angeles, the center of the business.

The art of performing under pressure

What interested La Cour most was not the sex itself but the craft of performing it. On a typical LA set, there could be 15 to 20 people: a director, assistants, lighting and sound technicians, makeup artists, runners. She had to be completely intimate in front of all of them, and the performance had to feel natural and convincing. "You can't know in advance if you're going to enjoy it," she says, "because you may not have worked with the person before." The skill was in letting go of nervousness and self-consciousness in the moment, and giving her sexuality freedom while always being aware of the camera. She describes looking into the lens as "looking into the eyes of the spectator," an abstraction that required constant attention.