A Neighbours star has made surprising transition from soaps into porn

An Australian actress, best known for playing a schoolgirl on Neighbours, has opened up about her somewhat unorthodox move from TV into porn.

Caitlin Stasey, 32, played Rachel Kinski on Australia’s most iconic soap between 2005 and 2009, and went on to star in a number movies, including last year’s horror hit Smile.

However, her involvement in less mainstream screenwork piqued the interest of listeners to the I've Got News for You podcast on Monday – namely her role as a director of adult films.

Speaking to host Andrew Bucklow, Stasey explained that she had written and directed a series of movies for female-led porn studio Afterglow.

Describing one of her ideas, she said she’d been inspired by perfume adverts which make “zero sense” but are “always so sexy”.

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“It always feels like sex is about to happen,” she said. “Everyone's sniffing each other's necks and licking each other's wrists. So I kind of came up with a concept of a perfume commercial that then becomes a lesbian threesome.”

The Sleepover Club star was generous with her praise for “ethical porn” and clearly loved her time on set, but she also admitted that being a director was “tough”.

Stasey told listeners: “The content is pretty intense, but it runs just any other film set. And if you're making ethical pornography – whatever that means to you – the sets tend to be really inclusive.”

She explained: “There's a lot of women, in fact, I think there are more female directors in pornography than there are in mainstream film or television. Certainly outnumbering men at this stage, at least I hope that's true.”

The Australian star has gone from squeaky-clean soapstar to porn wizBBC1/Getty Images

Praising the sets that she was “part of or leader of” as always “very warm and kind and patient”, she said the aspect of the work she found difficult to deal with was not the content but “being in charge of a group of people.”

“I have a little bit of a hard time stepping into that controlling position,” she confessed. “As an actor, your job is to come in – you have control over such a small portion of this massive enterprise – and when you're the director, you are judged during an executioner and it's tough.”

Still, she hasn’t hung up her acting shoes yet. Stasey is one of the protagonists of Prime Video’s recently-released Class of ‘07, which is about a tidal wave hitting a ten-year reunion of an all-girls high school.

And yes, it’s all about a group of women who find themselves thrust together by fate but, unlike some of Stasey’s other work, this series isn’t X-rated.

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