A thought-provoking project focussing on 48 hours with Ron Jeremy

It’s generally accepted that society gets the celebrities it deserves, that fame doesn’t just happen and we have to understand why certain people get put on a pedestal. Nowhere is this more interesting than in the case of Ron Jeremy, the world’s most recognisable porn star. Recently Ron went to Sydney to promote a new rum that bears his name, and filmmakers Ingvar Kenne and Cameron Gray were given full access to him for 48 hours, travelling in his stretched Hummer to various parties whose organisers had applied on Facebook to have him turn up.

“I went about shooting stills and we had three assistants with DSLR’s on him as well shooting motion,” Ingvar explains. “It was a 48-hour plus marathon going from venue to venue – from a bachelorette party via a house party in Bondi to various venues in downtown Sydney.

“The whole scenario that played out in front of me was captivating. It was the effect Ron had on everyone. The lads were excited to meet a legend of the porn game and there were hordes of young beautiful women, strangers, who filed past and let him have intimate access to them. The imagery to me became a lot less about Ron and more about the Ron effect.”

The film is a mesmerising and thought-provoking five minutes that touches on our attitudes to fame, fun, sex and celebrity. We see Ron signing boobs and downing shots but we also watch him play his harmonica and we hear about his love of the outdoors, foraging for berries and leaves to make different kinds of tea. He’s clearly charismatic and has a nice turn of phrase, whether he’s talking about his figure (“I got careless with the buffet”) or the self-perpetuating nature of celebrity – “the more famous you get, the more famous you get.”

But despite the amazingly intimate portrait, Ron was a strange person to work with.

“The weirdest thing was that he did not want to talk to me; nor did I hear him express curiosity or asking questions about anyone else. I have never met a person that closed and private before, but at the same time he was all accommodating to any camera thrust in his face or flash going off.

“To me he felt fixed in this role while the world just revolved and happened around him. He didn’t fight it, he just got carried along. I didn’t hear him talk about porn or women at all. He just told stories, sometimes repeatedly, about his acting aspirations as a youngster in New York, his cameo on Ghostbusters or his wish to just live a quiet life and read Shakespeare when it all stops.”

The project’s title – The Hedgehog and The Foxes – comes from the philosopher Isiah Berlin’s observation that he fox knows many things, but the hedgehog knows one big thing. Or to put it another way maybe, we’ll put up with a one-trick pony if the trick is impressive enough.