“What’s your fantasy?” It’s a question women are often asked of their weddings, their families, and sometimes their careers. But how often is it asked of their sexual desires? The answer, according to the writer-director Shana Feste, in short is: not enough. “Dirty Diana,” a new podcast helmed by Feste and actor Demi Moore, aims to change that.
In addition to serving as co-producer, Moore lends her signature voice to the titular character, a corporate executive struggling to rekindle sexual intimacy with her husband. It’s an issue Feste herself is familiar with, having overcome a tumultuous period in her own marriage. She realized there’s a larger purpose (and pleasure) a project like “Dirty Diana” could serve. In each episode, which are all available for listening wherever you get your podcasts, a female character consents to divulge a detailed sexual fantasy, which Diana then records and uploads to a hosting website, giving new, literal meaning to the “female gaze.”
How to Start Your Own Podcast As erotic as the series is, Feste was conscious every step of the way to veer away from the tropes of traditional, male-accommodating porn. “I wanted to make the experience as authentic and real and visceral as possible,” she says. “How can we make listeners feel like they are literally there when she is having sex?”
So how does one direct an orgasm over Zoom? What tools are needed to make a safe space—albeit cyberspace—for actors? Under normal circumstances, Feste might have treated a sex scene like a math problem, remaining didactic, while providing logistics in order for actors to feel comfortable. But these scenes were taking place in cast members’ homes. Wouldn’t that cross a professional boundary? Surprisingly, the director found the opposite to be true.
“If you’re on set with 200 people watching, it can be really intimidating! I feel the performances were even more intimate because no one was watching,” she says. “When actors did their scenes, we would mute ourselves and [turn] off video so they could really just interact with their scene partner.”
From the outside looking in, Feste’s transition into podcasting appears seamless; every episode of “Dirty Diana” runs like a fully-produced radio play. But a stellar creative team and decade of filmmaking experience were not enough to thwart every doubt. After all, not only was she making a show about intimate connection during a time of unprecedented distance, but the subject matter demanded an intense level of vulnerability.
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That fear, however, ultimately proved to be an asset for Feste. As she explains, “If it’s not scary to me, it’s some of my worst writing.” When advising students at the American Film Institute, where she teaches, she implores them to do the same thing: “I tell them, ‘There are stories out there that only you can tell. And your job is to find those stories.’ ”
Feste’s career is evidence of just how much she takes that approach to heart. Every one of her major directing credits corresponds to a writing one. Her careful examinations of family and marriage can be seen in every genre in which she’s worked—from the twangy “Country Strong,” to her upcoming horror flick “Run Sweetheart Run” (coming soon to Amazon Prime).
“I was part of a study of women filmmakers at Sundance. The women involved were absolutely amazing, but we realized that every one of us that premiered their first film at Sundance had written it, and those of us lucky enough to premiere a second film had written it,” Feste says. “The scripts are not being submitted to women to tell other stories. I knew I had to generate material in order to take control of my career. If I had waited, I would have never gotten what I wanted.”
Dirty Diana, a QCODE podcast, is available on Apple Podcasts and most major podcast platforms.
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