Born in Leeds, Wash West headed to America, where he found fame as a gay porn filmmaker. Now he has joined forces with Grief director Richard Glatzer to write and codirect The Fluffer, a thoroughly engaging comedy-drama set in the porn industry. QX's Jack Leger chats with Wash and Richard about gay cinema, filmmaking and fluffing...

QX: This film is very different from other films you've both worked on...
RG: Grief was a very personal film for me and was very low budget. It was basically a one-location movie with a static camera, all about the script and the acting. The Fluffer on the other hand offered more opportunity to open the story out. It's a matter of stepping from a film that was a private vision that I barely managed to get on screen to something that was more general interest and that we could paint on a larger canvas.
WW: [laughs] Well, for me it's great to have a crew! When I'm doing the porno stuff it's basically me and a PA and a photographer, so I'm really doing everything myself-the lighting, the camera, the catering. And it works like that for the porno because if you're going to have intimate sex scenes, to have a huge crew isn't necessarily an advantage. But with The Fluffer we had over 50 people, which was wonderful. We had actors who turned up having learnt their lines and even having done a tremendous amount of research. I mean very few porno stars turn up on the set and say, "What's my motivation?"

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