"I never felt pretty enough to do porn, so I thought I needed to do all the extra gymnastic stuff," Lea Lexis shared during an open conversation on the Holly Randall Unfiltered podcast. What began as insecurity soon became her signature—delivering head-rushing acrobatics in adult films that left audiences and directors coming back for more.

Lexis' background on the Romanian national gymnastics team led to scenes that pushed physical boundaries in ways the industry had never seen. Lea dives into it, "the hardest one was a scene I did with Stoya, where we were probably 20 feet up in the air. She was on a hoop, and I was on silks, we never touched the ground. We were in San Francisco at the Armory, concrete on the ground, if you fall, you fall."

Not too shabby considering I mostly sat on my butt for the past 18 months. In every class I ask .jpg

But it wasn’t just the aerial work that set her apart. Lexis pushed herself into positions that would soon become cautionary tales.

"I used to put myself in these positions that later on I would heavily regret. But I felt like I wanted to stand out in my own way. So I'd be like, what if we do a DP while I'm in a handstand, and I'll just do the splits, and the guys can enter from the top—like a pile driver. That’ll be amazing. Yeah, let’s do it!"

But the reality of the sexual stunt was difficult, to say the least, "having to hold that while you're being pushed and grabbed—while the guys are trying to get their edge—puts extra pressure on your wrist. And now your face is all red, there's a vein popping out. Then you're like... I should’ve just kept my mouth shut and gone with doggie."

What struck Lexis most about her first day on set wasn’t the nudity or the sex—it was the power dynamics. "The guys are just a tool in the scene, not necessarily the driving force. The female is the driving force," she observed. "And on camera, it got portrayed totally differently. The guys took all the action and did everything, and the girl was just there."

This contradiction between behind-the-scenes reality and on-camera portrayal would shape her future mission as a director. She witnessed how performers had complete control when the cameras stopped rolling—yet appeared powerless during scenes.

For Lexis, the adult industry became an unlikely sanctuary. "I feel like porn kept me safe, because if it weren’t for porn, I would have wandered off in my perversion into unsafe environments. It was fun and celebrated to be a perv," she explained. Coming from Romania, where sexual exploration faced cultural barriers, the professional adult film environment provided a space to explore her desires safely.

Speaking about her gangbang fantasy, Lexis shared: "I remember talking to my friends about glamorizing a gangbang and asking, how do you do one safely? I was like, I think you do it in porn. I don’t think you just go out and do it randomly… In a professional setting, you get to have that experience."

It was Christoph Clark who initially put the camera in her hand—and she instantly fell in love. "I remember he just put a camera in my hand. He was like, hey, while you're getting ready, start shooting some stuff... spin around and then drop the camera into what you’re looking at."

While Clark sparked her passion for filmmaking, it was Bobbi Starr who truly opened the door to directing. Starr gave Lexis real opportunities to develop her skills behind the camera. This early mentorship allowed her to begin translating her performer’s perspective into directorial vision—setting the stage for a deeper commitment to transforming the industry.

It was during quarantine that she had time to reflect on her intentions as a director—to help clean up the industry. She recalled particularly uncomfortable moments when she felt pressured to perform certain acts just to get booked. "I felt wrong about it. I’ve always been in long-term relationships, and I was like, this feels wrong for my relationship," she said.

Those experiences helped shape her purpose: "That’s why I’m doing this. Because there are still people like that around but we can still make porn—and we can still do good."

Now directing for major brands like Brazzers, Digital Playground, Kink, and Twistys, Lexis brings her performer's perspective to create the sets she always wished existed.

"We can make cool movies, but we can still not feel so dirty, guilty and ashamed about it," she emphasized. Her approach focuses on communication and safety, implementing boundary checklists that some might think kill spontaneity.

“I so stand behind the checklist, and I don’t think it takes the magic away... To me, that boundary checklist lets me know what they don't like. So the performer can do more of what they do like, and you get more out of it."

That kind of communication has become even more important in the post-COVID era, as the rise of content creators and OnlyFans has introduced new challenges on set. "So now we're getting people on set that just want the fame, just want to be on the big website that gives them the big exposure," Lexis noted. "But they don’t love sex. So it’s harder for me to create a comfortable set."

Building on that shift during the inrush of COVID, Holly chimed in, “that was such an interesting time for the adult industry, because I felt like it was really a second MeToo wave. All these women were coming out on social media, talking about predatory male performers and the experiences they’d had. And I think that was really fueled by the success of OnlyFans, right? Suddenly they had financial freedom and weren’t worried about being blacklisted anymore."

Lexis' journey represents transformation—not just of herself, but of an entire industry's approach to performer safety and empowerment. Her advice for performers who are striving to move behind the scenes is piercing and thorough:

"It's a job with no résumé. It's not the type of movies you've shot—it's the experience you leave people with and how they perceive you. Being professional, being on time—those all carry so much weight when people have to decide if they can trust you with their money. You need to have a business sense, and nobody teaches the business of porn.

If you have a bad day, you still have to show up to set. Because if you have a bad day as a director, your entire crew loses work. It's this entire unspoken résumé that you leave people with. So anybody who's trying to hire a new director will do their due diligence and ask around. So you have to be professional beyond your scene."

From gymnast to performer to director—and beyond ( designing AVN dresses, building her own sets, and doing makeup), Lea Lexis embodies the passionate pursuit of creating better, safer spaces for sexual expression. Her acrobatic skills may have gotten her noticed, but her commitment to change has made her indispensable.

Looking ahead, Lea is developing an ambitious dance project that combines her love of movement with sexuality. "We are focused on true dancing, because dance itself has a lot of eroticism and sexuality to it," she explained of the upcoming reality series and showcase. Or as Holly's mother, the legendary photographer Suze Randall, puts it: "having sex is like a dance, darling!"