LOS ANGELES — Samantha Bentley remembers exactly when she received the news she would be returning to the cast of “Game of Thrones” this season.
“I was at a festival having breakfast with Lexi Lowe when I got an email from them that said we really like what you did last season and we’d like to see you again,” Bentley recalled.
“And I just burst into tears.”
The British adult star, who has amassed more than 75 adult movie credits in the past four years, enjoyed a modest part in the fourth season of the HBO hit series, playing a prostitute in a Bravos bath scene opposite Liam Cunningham's Davos Seaworth.
That career highlight brought her international media attention as she continued to raise her adult industry profile with an array of hardcore performances. But being asked to come back gave her an even bigger thrill.
“Oh my god, I was so happy,” Bentley told XBIZ from her home in London. “It was just a great experience. It’s just an honor to be part of such a huge show. It’s such an overwhelming feeling. It means so much to me.”
The premiere episode of Season 5 of the medieval fantasy drama last Sunday drew a record audience of 8 million viewers. While Bentley could not divulge the specifics of her appearance on the current season, she said rejoining the cast on location in Northern Ireland was unforgettable.
“I actually was more nervous this time just because last season I hadn’t seen any of the show,” Bentley confessed. “I only had a small role last season but getting the part was awesome and it got such a great response. So I was really, really nervous this time.”
After getting the invite last June, Bentley filmed her Season 5 role in September and October, traveling to Northern Ireland from Budapest, where she was living at the time.
“I was back and forth quite a bit this season — eight or nine hours each way,” said Bentley, who was changing planes in London on the way. “It was a ridiculous round trip. I did it a few times.”
To calm her nerves on the first day of her shoot she kept the same routine she has before a high-stakes porn scene.
“I will always wake up an hour before I have to leave and do yoga,” she said. “I didn’t sleep that night beforehand.”
She said being on the “Game of Thrones” set is such a departure from the typical porn shoot.
“It’s such a different experience,” Bentley said. “For example a closed set is 100 people. If a porn set is closed, it’s the camera dude and whoever is fucking. They say ‘closed set’ and still have 100 people on set — an entire crew. I never even really knew who leaves when they say ‘closed set.’
“As far as experiences go, it’s a career highlight and I’m so honored that they had me back this season. It’s opened a door for me to do other things. It’s one of the best things I’ve ever done.”
Speaking of new opportunities, Bentley on Thursday night made her debut as a club DJ at the Total Uprawr “Game of Thrones” party at the Purple Turtle in the Camden area of London. She plans to headline other clubs as a DJ this year.
Bentley originally was asked to audition for Season 3 when the casting director was looking for a girl who could “bend in half backward, like completely in half.” Ultimately, she didn’t get the part because “they said, ‘she’s bendy, but we need somebody that’s even more bendy.’”
“But they asked me to come back to read for Season 4,” Bentley continued. “I couldn’t come to the audition so I had to do a video audition. I had to have to my friend film me in the bathtub reading the lines. And I didn’t hear anything for ages. I was just wondering and I kept poking them.”
Bentley took a booking with Cum Louder in Barcelona when she finally received the official call in the late summer of 2013.
“I said, ‘I’m in Barcelona, there’s no way I can get back to London right now.’ They said, ‘we’ll book you a flight from Barcelona in the morning,’” Bentley recalled, adding she was supposed to be shooting four scenes for Cum Louder and she had already done two.
So she squeezed in the other scenes, doing all four in one day.
“That’s the most I’ve ever done, who does that?” she joked. “I’m a trooper and I did it all.”
Before appearing on Season 4, Bentley said she had only read the first book in George R.R. Martin’s series of fantasy novels on which the show is based. But when she got home from that initial "Game of Thrones" shoot the first thing she did was order the box set of the first three seasons.
“I actually watched them on the set of Harmony Films in Portugal for a weeklong trip,” Bentley said. “There were 30 of us and we had the box set and no one did any work all week. We were all just glued to the TV set.”
Bentley said she loves the series because of “the sex and the violence.”
“It’s all very real but in a fantasy world," she said. "It’s very real sex and real emotions. That’s what makes it so addictive."
Aside from her high-profile TV appearances, Bentley said she’d like to branch out into other areas and possibly start directing porn this year, noting that Evil Angel would be at the top of her list of studios for when she steps behind the camera.
“I owe Evil Angel lot. They’ve been so good to me. Everything I’ve done for them has transcended everything else I’ve done in my career porn-wise,” she said. “That would be my dream to direct for them. I love Dana Vespoli and I love Aiden Riley’s stuff.”
Meanwhile, she's looking forward to the release of the next edition of Rocco Siffredi’s “Italian Porn Boot Camp," a movie in which she took another leap in her career.
“That will be released later in the year. It’s the biggest scene I’ve ever done and probably one of the roughest scenes I’ve ever done,” Bentley said.
“It has 10 Italian guys that Rocco brought over from Italy that he auditioned with Valentina Nappi earlier in the summer. He promised me a feast of Italian men. We shot that scene last September [in Budapest]. I’m really excited about that movie.”
She added, “I really wanted to outdo myself because everything I’ve shot for Rocco is so intense and everything I’ve done with him has been the best I’ve ever done. So I had to make it the best. I was very proud of it.”
The personable star said she recently reached out to Siffredi to wish him well after reading his retirement announcement.
“Obviously, he has done so much in this industry and he loves his family so much. They’re really, really important to him. It’s sad for the industry, but really good for him,” Bentley said.
Now widely regarded as a bankable performer with a penchant for hardcore, Bentley eased her way into porn four years ago, doing only nude modeling and girl/girl for about two years before taking the boy/girl plunge with Harmony Films. Her first boy/girl scene actually turned into her first anal scene midway through when she demanded to be taken in the ass.
She would also later end up giving Harmony her first d.p. scene in 2012, when she performed in more than a dozen of their productions. Now that she knows the industry landscape she’s learned to take a more businesslike approach to her career.
“When I started it was like a game to see who am I going to fuck? Who are am going to work for? Now it’s more of a career and more of a job. Now I’m more choosy about who I want to work with,” she said.
Bentley continued, "I’m definitely not done with the industry. Not even close. Once you’re in this industry, you’re kind of with it for life even when you leave it.”
Before porn, Bentley studied design at a university while moonlighting as a stripper.
“I designed and made clothes at the university during the day and I took my clothes off at night to pay it off,” she joked.
She plans to collaborate with LA-based lifestyle brand Read The Label Apparel this summer on a fashion-related project.
“I miss being creative,” Bentley said. “It’s part of why I want to go into directing and be on the creative side.”
Photo by Jeff Koga.
