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Sunday, Nov 8, 2009
Are performers scared? Is there a lot of suspicion about working with other people right now?
I think they're confused. They don't know what they want and don't know how to go about getting what they want. There are meetings being held, but they're not being well-publicized. It's not an organized effort yet. There are still nine to 12 people that are waiting for results, and if even one comes back positive, the [quarantine] list would grow up to 120 people or more. We're still waiting to see what will happen next.
Do you feel you're taking a big risk in requiring condoms in your movies?
Look, the big risk is that I'm risking losing a lot of sales. But I'm minimizing the danger to the performers I work with, so it isn't really a question. I think that, generally, I'm at less risk than someone else in the gonzo world. I have a little bit more of a mainstream audience than the average gonzo producer, thanks to my name being well-known and through the cable show. Because of that I think I have a less demanding gonzo audience -- I have couples and I have a lot of women. I don't think to the couples and women it will make much of a difference whether people in my movies are wearing condoms or not.
So, I'd like to think that I'm taking less of a risk than others would be, but the other side of the coin is not taking the risk and just going on with business as usual. I couldn't do that. I need to be able to sleep at night.
Why is it thought in the industry that condoms don't work in gonzo?
If you compare the appeal of non-condom to condom, you're gonna find most people will generally prefer the non-condom, because of the fantasy.
Gonzo is all about reality, and condoms are a reality for most people -- I just need to find a way to make them hot. They don't need them to necessarily dominate the action, but I need to find a way to keep the heat in the scene.
You can compare our work to stuntmen in Hollywood: When you see a stuntman flying through the air, you don't want to see the cables there that are holding him up or protecting him. The reality is, though, that the cable is there, because the guy is taking every reliable precaution. I don't know if I'm going to try to hide the cable -- if I'm going to try to hide the condoms -- but I'm going to have to be creative.
Vivid and Wicked are the only companies that have a condom-only policy. The only ones. If one particularly hot girl comes in, she can say she'll only work with a condom, but that's not true for everyone. Most companies will say they're condom optional, and then not follow through -- it's up to the producer. If I get an e-mail from an agent telling me about some girl, and if she's something special, then she can say what she'll do. Most producers will not listen to someone who isn't well-known.
