Page 56 - AVN June 2022

“I like to say what I want and go after what I want.”
“It was the spring of 2017, and I was getting ready to shoot what was my biggest undertaking to date: Justice League XXX,” Braun tells AVN. “As with all my parodies, casting was crucial. Finding people who can act and give a strong sexual performance is not easy, but finding ones who look exactly like a specific character and are willing to endure my notoriously long days on set is near impossible. Which is why, after an extensive casting call that saw more than 100 girls show up to audition at the Wicked offices on a Sunday afternoon, I still found myself without the perfect Wonder Woman.”
Then he remembered his conversation with Rain.
“I had only shot Romi once, in an all-sex movie a few years prior, but I suddenly recalled
bumping into her at the AVN Awards earlier that year, and that she told me, ‘Hey Axel, keep me in mind for one of your parodies... I know everybody thinks I’m just a gonzo girl, but I’m a pretty damn good actress!’
“She wasn’t lying.”
Braun asked her agent at the time to have Rain come to his office for an audition but she was
out of the country and had to submit a video,
“It was nothing short of incredible,” Braun continues. “She had memorized a lengthy
monologue, and she conveyed so much raw emotion, strength and charisma that I instantly knew I had found my lead.”
When they met in person a week later and he told her she got the part, “she literally burst into tears,” Braun adds.¬
“That’s how much she cared about my project. ‘Thank you for this amazing opportunity, Axel. I won’t let you down!’ she said. And boy, did she she keep her word.”
Despite Justice League XXX becoming what Braun calls “the biggest nightmare of my 30-plus year career,” Rain proved to be “the glue that held the entire production together.”
“Day after grueling day, she conducted herself with grace, class, patience, courage and incredible professionalism, all the while not only delivering a career-defining performance, but also showing everybody what an absolute badass she was,” Braun says.
“The movie ended up being a huge hit, but while that experience gave me PTSD and made me drastically change my approach to filmmaking, the memories of working with Romi will always hold a special place in my heart, just like she does. She may have been dismissed as ‘just a gonzo girl’ until then, but after she became Wonder Woman, the entire industry realized what she had been all along: a fucking superstar.”
56 AVN.COM | 6.22 | ROMI RAIN