**FROM OLIVER ARLOW FOR SPLASH NEWS IN TOKYO **
Japan’s hottest rising adult actress was scared stiff of telling her parents about her job . . . but they already knew.
Since the start of the year, Rei Aoi had been struggling with a secret. She wanted to tell her parents how well she was doing in her new job, but was concerned about their reaction.
After all, doting parents are unlikely to take the news that their youngest daughter has become an overnight sensation in the pornographic movie industry very well.
But Rei’s parents had a secret as well. They already knew.
"I only told them yesterday," says 20-year-old Rei, with her trademark shy giggle.
"Ever since I started making movies, I’ve been worried about what people think of me because, after all, they see me naked. But since I realised that I have found something that I am good at and I enjoy what I’m doing, I have become comfortable in this life.
"I thought I should tell my friends what I was doing before they found out for themselves, and at first I was concerned about telling them, but they were supportive and they can see that I have not changed as a person at all."
But telling her family was a far more difficult proposition.
"Before I told them, I had listened to advice from a lot of people and had prepared in my mind all sorts of things to say when they got angry with me – but when I told them, they said they already knew," she says. "They were just waiting for me to find it inside myself to tell them."
Rei’s parents could not bring themselves to actively supporting their daughter in her career choice, which they discovered after finding her blog on the Internet, but they equally never pressured her to stop making adult movies.
"My father told me that he had known me from when I was born, that they had raised me well and that I seemed to be in the right place for me at the moment," she says. "They understand that I’m going through a process and they hope to learn from our experiences."
Mature beyond her 20 years, Rei speaks frankly about how she was recruited into the industry and what a typical day’s work involves.
She made her first movie in December – titled "Honey Bunny," which sold a very impressive 10,000 copies – and has now made five titles with HMP Co. Ltd.
"I was working as a model for bridal magazines and doing some other photos shoots, but I out shopping one day when a scout approached me and asked if I would be interested in doing adult videos," she says. "I listened to what he said, thought about it and then went to the company’s offices to see for myself.
"I spoke to a person pretty high up in the company, same some photos of other girls working for them and I was quite surprised," she said. "My image had been that this was a dark and gloomy world, but it’s not like that at all and now I’ve been working here for a while I feel very positive about the industry."
A film will generally be shot over two days, with Rei’s manager picking her up from her apartment and getting her to the studio around 9 a.m. For breakfast, she will eat figs – "Because I’ve been told they increase a girl’s hormones" – and a yogurt. She will also put some music on in the background before the make-up artist gets to work. That process is followed by a meeting with the director, when she will go over her lines and scenes and meet her male co-stars. Filming starts around 11 a.m.
"When I made my first movie, I couldn’t think," she says. "I was worried that so many people were going to be around, I guess I was self-conscious, but you very quickly get used to it."
She has quickly earned a reputation as a consumate professional and directors enjoy working with her because she so rarely makes mistakes when the cameras are rolling.
"There are times when I have to think about many different things all at the same time, but now I just enjoy it so much that it has become pretty natural."
After a light lunch, a second scene is filmed in the afternoon.
"After a day on the set, I’m really tired so I go home and have a long bath," she says. "I spend a lot of time in the bath, maybe reading a magazine, and the day after filming has finished I’ll go out with my friends."
She also spends at least an hour every day updating her blog – http://blog.livedoor.jp/blue_rei/ – and replying to her fans’ messages.
Rei is coy on the money that she earns but admits that even though she only works two days a month, she says she "has never had as much money as after making a film."
The working life of an actress in an industry where tastes change rapidly can be as little as six months but as much as five years, depending on the girl’s motivation, but Rei already has a longer-term view of how she wants her life to be. She loves what she is doing now – the worst bit is having to diet in the days before a shoot – she wants her films to be seen by audiences overseas and, one day, she plans to have three children.
And she will not have any qualms about telling them what their mother did when she was younger.
