Diary of a Geek Porn Star: Spider-Man, Superman and Star Wars XXX

The first time I appeared in a porno movie I ended up hanging off of a rooftop with Spider-Man’s crotch in my face. That he was fully clothed is a minor detail. Such is the life of a Geek Porn Star, which is a nice way of saying that I have a couple of small cameos in Spider-man vs. Superman XXX and the upcoming Star Wars XXX parody from Vivid. How did such a thing happen? Let’s go back a bit.

The year was a couple of years ago, when a young upstart film critic from Los Angeles named me met a less-young upstart Geekscape founder named Jonathan London. A little film called Who’s Nailin’ Paylin? was only just making the rounds as a top flight pornographic parody of everyone’s favorite Republican vice-presidential candidate, and I had procured myself a copy for the sake of irony. And masturbation. Jonathan London liked that – the irony, that is – so he and Brian Gilmore suggested that I write a review. The gag would be that I would write a terminally serious critical overview of the film, treating it as reverently as one would Citizen Kane. And thus Geekscape After Dark was born. Hustler Magazine discovered the review and supported the series, originally intended as a one-off, and I swiftly began running the already flimsy excuse for a joke into the ground, filling notebook after notebook with such observations as “Brightly colored costumes in Not the Bradys XXX = Umbrellas of Cherbourg reference” and “This Ain’t Hell’s Kitchen XXX does not take place in Hell’s Kitchen… Discuss.”

And eventually there were set visits, to which Geekscape was invited by legendary pornographic director Axel Braun, a man who texted me as I was writing this article to make certain I introduced him as “the reigning AVN and XRCO Director of the Year,” and to specify that he is “awesome.” Gilmore and I set about our task not so much like kids in a candy store but like 20-something dudes on a porn set, between which there are notable similarities. What we discovered was that shooting pornography was a lot like shooting any other kind of movie. It consists primarily of waiting around to do your job, giving us ample time to get to know Axel Braun and discover that his geek brain was just like ours: passionate, a little dorky and filled with pop culture minutiae. The majority of our visit was spent brainstorming ideas for new pornographic parodies, including the now-famous Batman XXX parody, which justifiably won many awards and pretty much ended my interest in continuing Geekscape After Dark. If the joke was that I over-praised simplistic and naïve filmmaking, then it ceased to be funny when the movies were actually pretty darned good.

Since that fateful day I’ve visited a few other Axel Braun sets for Geekscape, which always sounds fun in theory but in practice I’ve never entirely enjoyed being on a film set as a member of the press. Everyone is always very nice and accommodating, but as the one person on the production who isn’t actively contributing to the creative process I always feel like I’m in the way. At worst I’m an obstacle to be overcome. At best I’m a welcome visitor who constantly needs to dodge the crew as they run around doing their ‘real’ jobs. As a film school graduate who’s been in a fair share of productions in as an actor, script supervisor, boom operator and so forth, it’s humbling and occasionally outright annoying to see everyone around you work their asses off and have nothing useful to contribute yourself.

But then the day came when I was actually expected to contribute to a production, with my cameo in Spider-Man vs. Superman XXX. At the urging of Jonathan London, Braun allowed me to play ‘Willy,’ a snitch who gets interrogated by the amazing Spider-Man. Here at last I would be on-screen with my childhood idol, who crouched over me on a rooftop, wearing a suit covered in stains from what I could only hope was web fluid. My part: I would beg and plead to not get thrown off the roof, and then begrudgingly reveal that “Doc Ock and Luthor are going to Metropolis.” It sounded simple enough. Or at least it did until the 20th take.

So there I was, manhandled by my hero, my head hanging off a roof with the entire crew of a major movie production waiting on me to get my act(-ing) together. The director of photography was perched atop a ten-foot ladder on the edge of a three story building on a windy day with heavy equipment in his hands. My cunning creative decision to impersonate Scorpio from Dirty Harry was getting in the way. Axel Braun is no hack. He demands excellence from everyone in his crew. And we were not coming down off that rooftop until I’d got it right, even if it killed the camera guy in the process. No pressure, Bibbs. There’s a reason why my acting career began and pretty much ended with the web series Bus Pirates. Compared to porn stars, I suck.

When I was done, Braun came up to me and said, “Bibbs, when I watched your performance I could only think: Brando, Olivier, Gielgud…” “Yeah,” I replied. “They’d all think I sucked.” We had a good laugh, hiding my bruised ego (and neck, since I’d been resting it on concrete for the better part of an hour). We then proceeded to shoot the proverbial poo about the geekier elements of his superhero movies, and I made off-the-cuff remarks about how I’d make a great Jarvis in his upcoming Avengers parody. Axel Braun’s skillful ability to change the subject was evidence of his professionalism and tact.

But despite its bevy of geeky superhero cameos, Spider-Man vs. Superman XXX is nothing compared to Braun’s production of Star Wars. Visiting the set this weekend made for a bizarre trip down memory lane, as a set which had previously been filled with bondage gear and leather masks was now completely transformed into the famous Mos Eisley cantina. Strewn about the location was evidence of Star Wars fanaticism at work, from a spot-on replica of Luke’s speeder to a piece of an X-Wing cockpit which I could only assume would live up to its name in the near future. I’d been debating wearing Star Wars paraphernalia to the set but decided against it for fear of being “That Guy.” I needn’t have bothered: “That Guy” was everywhere, from crew members wearing their Star Wars underwear to actors comparing their Princess Leia tattoos. Star Wars XXX is definitely a labor of love, so much so that Axel Braun revealed that he’s abandoning the Hollywood gimmick of the day – 3D – to improve the quality of the product, despite previous press releases to the contrary.

That’s right. Braun is one of the only filmmakers in the industry to turn down what many consider to be ‘free money’ for the sake of their project’s artistic integrity. That the project is pornographic is incidental. This is Star Wars, and nobody wants it to suck. They should have thought of that before they put me in the film.

Axel Braun texted me to say that if I wanted to appear in the movie I should arrive early, at 10am. So I hopped in my car and braved the nefarious I-10 to make it more-or-less on time. Naturally, it wasn’t until 12 hours later that they would actually shoot the scene, so I had plenty of time to wander the set and make myself a general nuisance. Kimberly Kane, one of the most talented porn stars in the business and one of the most attractive humans alive was on set so most of my carefully chosen words came out something like “Whadsfef.akads.mvsd≤ƒxmcalkmx.f,cma.se.” I spent most of my time chatting with the crew about the trials and tribulations of working in the industry. The visual effects guy was knee deep in Spider-Man XXX, struggling to put together CG-shots of New York for Spidey to zip by on his webs within the budget provided. Axel Braun is a perfectionist, it seems, and it’s been tricky meeting his exacting standards. Braun showed me a clip of the upcoming film, in which J. Jonah Jameson chastises the wallcrawler for tearing up the city in a fight with the Juggernaut. It’s with a look of genuine disappointment in his eye that Braun reveals that the actual fight had to be cut for budgetary reasons.

Star Wars doesn’t seem to have too many problems in the budget department. Although yes, it’s not a $100 million production, the prop room is filled with a variety of impressive monster masks to populate the background of the Mos Eisley cantina, and a set of spot-on Stormtrooper outfits. Of course, these Stormtroopers are equipped with bare midriffs. To fill out the cast of the decidedly male-centric Star Wars series, Braun & Co. have decided to make all the Stormtroopers female. Fantasies, it seems, really do come true.

While Kimberly Kane and Aiden Ashley, playing Mos Eisley denizens Senni and Brea Tonnika, got it on in a corner of the bar for the cameras two things crossed my mind: 1) those characters are twins, so… hot… and 2) all the extras are being corralled. Yes, all the background actors were hanging out in a caged area below the rest of the stage, awaiting their moment to make pornographic history. There were many jokes about releasing the Rancor, but alas… he wasn’t on set that day.

As the waiting continued… and continued… and continued… I found myself in the costume department finding a suitable outfit. The first pass found me in a trenchoat, fedora and scarf thinking to myself, “Great. I get to cameo as Dr. Who.” It turns out that a Dr. Who XXX movie is in the works from Eli Cross, the writer of Star Wars XXX, but don’t call it a parody. When asked which Doctor he’ll be featuring in the film, based on The Three Doctors, Cross responds, “The 19th, 20th and 21st.” Why not just do a David Tennant episode? “Because I can’t get David Tennant,” he replies. Cross considers his upcoming film a canonical episode of the series, with – to quote the producers from Sullivan’s Travels – “a little sex in it.” That the Doctor is only supposed to have 12 regenerations in his life cycle is a minor point. He figures the showrunners are already thinking their own way around that little problem, and besides, as we both point out at the same time, The Master had his own regeneration cycle restarted by The Time Lords in the episode The Five Doctors. So it’s all good, folks. Have no fear.

Later, fellow Cantina denizen Labria (the red guy with horns), Jabba the Hut’s slave girl Oola and a couple of humans I didn’t recognize fornicate mightily together on a couch that I will later be forced to sit on for a shot. One thing to remember when visiting a porn set: hand sanitizer is your friend. The other thing to remember, as is shouted repeatedly throughout the day, is that “Porn is hard.” It’s as grueling physically and mentally as any other kind of film production, and so complaints, chain-smoking and repeatedly checked watches are common. But Star Wars porn is harder than most. Halfway through shooting the Cantina sequence in which Dr. Evazan (Kris Slater) and Ponda Baba (Brian Street Team) tell Luke Skywalker (Michael Vegas) that they like him and want to buy him a drink – a bemusing reversal of the original scene – they briefly halt production because Luke has been standing at the wrong part of the bar: the corner as opposed to the front. They eventually decide that it’s not worth reshooting, but that they seriously considered it speaks volumes to their dedication to the original film.

And by original film they do mean the original film. When asked whether Han shoots first, the filmmakers reveal that not only does Han shoot first but that he shoots Greedo in the back and then a couple more times once he’s dead. Point made. I’ve been asked not to reveal much about the surprises in store in Star Wars XXX, but since Braun himself spilled the beans about that little nugget back in March to Comics 101 I think I’m in the clear. I’ll give geeks a little hint of things to come when I say that Eddie Izzard was quoted repeatedly on set, and then step back into the shadows, a phantom.

I wish I had stepped back into the shadows when the time came to do the scene, because Axel took one look at me and decided that I looked “too normal.” Well, there’s a first. On set, the crew calls this kind of thing “Getting Axeled.” Everything’s going fine, they’re about to shoot, and the Axel Braun finds some detail that needs to be changed, halting production for his artistic vision. When I refer to Axel Braun as “The Stanley Kubrick of Porn” his crew winces, laughs or shakes their heads, but they don’t actually deny it. So he sends me back to the makeup room where they proceed to butcher my perfectly ungroomed beard and paint black swirls all over my face. Then I return to the set, looking like a total ass.

In the scene I get to try – and fail – to make time with sexy slave girl Oola. “It’s the part I was born to play!” I joke, fishing for a compliment. None were forthcoming. Later I get to introduce Obi-Wan Kenobi (Tom Byron) to Chewbacca. Chewbacca’s played by Alec Knight, who’s suffering under 40 lbs. of fur. He’s lucky he doesn’t have to wear pants in this scene. There’s no sex yet, there’s just a good chance that he’d die otherwise. Crewpeople are needed to fan his legs between shots, and sweat is trickling down from the nostrils on his mask. “Oh god,” I’m thinking. “Please don’t let me screw this up 20 times again. I don’t want to be held responsible for killing Alec Knight.”

An hour later, after I mug haphazardly at the camera after Obi-Wan Kenobi gives me the stink-eye (he’d just slaughtered Evazan and Ponda Baba seconds prior), Axel gives me the go ahead. I can leave now. The money’s on the dresser, apparently. Except there’s no money… just geek immortality. I’m 29 years old. Money would have been perfectly acceptable.

That was Day One on Star Wars XXX, formerly Star Wars XXX 3D. Thirteen hours, and I didn’t even stay until the end. Porn is hard. Later I would text Axel Braun for a follow-up question and asked when I was going to get my big sex scene. His response: “Lexington Steele almost backed out today… I was gonna have you stunt-cock for Vader… sadly the skin tone would have given it away.”

“Vader’s a white dude,” I replied. “You should be using a stunt cock anyway.”

“Um… ever wondered what the “dark side of the force” really meant?” 

Thank you Axel. Star Wars is in good hands.