Sunny Leone has a crush on Obama. While born in Sarnia, Ontario, she’s planning to cast a ballot for him in November, making no secret of how she intends to vote. The point is, she can. Leone has hooked up as a spokesmodel for Declare Yourself, an alleged non-partisan and non-profit youth voter initiative funded by Norman Lear, the 85-year-old creator of All in the Family.
Some other celebrities attached to the campaign also include barely-legal Heroes starlet Hayden Panettiere, reggae hitmaker Sean Kingston lending his voice to a cover of “I’m Eighteen”, and the actor who played Superbad’s fake-ID icon “McLovin’”.
Today is Leone’s second 4th of July as an American, although she’s lived in California since age 14 when her Punjabi parents relocated to Orange County to be closer to the rest of their extended family. Today, at age 27, she has risen to the top of the ultimate all-American job title: porn star.
Sunny Loves Matt, her most recent starring vehicle, was the source of great expectations prior to its release by Vivid Entertainment in March. Reason being that Leone had spent the previous seven years building a modeling and movie portfolio without engaging in heterosexual fornication before a camera.
The turning point came while on the sidelines of a scene where Leone was overcome by the desire to have what her co-stars were having, despite having made a pact to not perform with men.
“I was so turned on that I wanted to jump right in there,” Leone tells Scrolling Eye. “But I was contractually obligated to stay out of that part of the action. It was a big decision because I only wanted to do movies with people who turn me on.”
Enter Matt Erickson, already her fiancé of four years, eager to share the spotlight with Leone’s upgrade from 34B to 34C.
Reviews have also focused on the epic volume of seminal fluid publicly produced by Erickson during the epic scene – which Leone insists was not a special effect.
While initial promotion for the film focused on the couple’s monogamy, including a wholesome profile in the Torstar-published magazine DesiLife, the traditional Punjabi wedding planned to coincide with the DVD’s March release was called off. Matt told Sunny she deserved someone better.
Their on-camera chemistry will again be evident another still-untitled movie this fall. There will also be more of the girl-girl scenes Leone has become famous for, and copulation with another male star, Tommy Gunn.
For those who have come to find images of people having sexual intercourse on a screen about as arousing as a Tetris videogame tournament, it seems the shock value is now achieved through other methods. Leone hasn’t gone the tattoo route, although doesn’t hold back on the verbiage.
But, in the throes of passion, does it have to be so vulgar?
“Personally, I don’t find it shocking,” she says. “It’s a form of expression, and exactly the kind of thing you should be saying if you want to have good sex.
“I’m not going to do scenes with anyone who I don’t have sexual chemistry with, so I can assure you anything that you’re hearing is real.”
Encouraging recently-18s to register to vote is just part of Leone’s mainstream crossover, though. This past spring, she journeyed to Oman to film her part in a legitimate Bollywood feature, Pirate’s Blood.
“The story involves six of us trying to find a treasure,” says Leone. “I get killed by the ghost, and then buried alive. It was a lot of fun.”
Now wait, didn’t she just divulge how it all ends?
“It’s a horror movie. That’s usually what happens.”
How exactly the woman born Karen Malhotra got to this stage in life is a bit less predictable. She was a nursing student who got into nude modeling, not exactly a common profession for someone raised Sikh.
“The adult industry is very competitive,” she says. “Competition is good for striving toward what you want to achieve but it doesn’t affect me. It’s not like I’m looking at a beautiful blonde thinking that she’s going to steal my part because no one out there looks like me. I have my own niche.”
Growing up in Sarnia, her parents sent her to a Catholic school, figuring it would be more comfortable than the public system.
“It was definitely a white city,” she says. “But my memories of growing up there are all good, mostly involving wanting to play outside until the sun went down.”
The family packed for California in the mid-1990s, after a pit stop in Port Huron, because “it was my grandparents’ dream that the whole family be in one place.”
A nursing school classmate, moonlighting as an exotic dancer, encouraged her to pursue modeling as a sideline. “Sunny” was the professional name she chose, while “Leone” was picked by editors at Penthouse.
Hundreds of photo sessions later she’s still discovering new things about herself.
“Your body always changes and your face always changes,” she says. “One second you can look thin, the other second you look fat. But, over time, I’ve gotten to know my body quite well. I know what positions work well for me, in the same way I know what kind of shirt or pants look good.
“I have a separate look in my everyday life, though. I’m not wearing a skimpy skirt or bare midriff to the mailbox. I’m more conservative than average, I think.”
Leone does her best to maintain a link to Sikh traditions, even if more in theory than in practice. But she’s unlikely to disavow her career path due to religion.
“Girls will leave the industry claiming that they found God,” she says. “Well, the fact is, God has always been with them the entire time.”
And spending her entire professional career under a White House that looks unkindly on her profession motivated Leone to speak out and encourage young citizens to exercise their right to declare themselves.
“George W. Bush hasn’t been very good for the adult industry,” she says. “Plus, when we’re paying $5 a gallon for gas, it means that it’s time for a real change.”
scroll@eyeweekly.com