Creating some of Wicked Pictures’ best and biggest features, Brad Armstrong has become known as an icon in the Adult Entertainment Industry. Canadian born, Brad was a stripper at night and a male model for Hustler magazine while still studying art and advertising in college. After graduation, he headed to Los Angeles and started to perform in adult films. He desired to create higher quality, more entertaining films, while still keeping the sex hot. Brad met Wicked Pictures President and Owner Steve Orenstein and the rest is history. His vision of making storyline films that are incorporated with even more erotic, elegant and smoldering sexuality has become a huge success for him and Wicked. Known as one of adult’s most in-demand performers, he has accumulated awards for all of his talents: as actor, director, writer, art director, cinematographer, screenwriter and best sex scenes. His partner and soul-mate Jessica Drake stars in his latest movie “Coming Home”. Brad plays a military man who has to have his head shaved. It proved to be a nervous moment for him, as he relates to us in this openly honest interview.
SLV: You are so hot right now with your 7 AVN awards for the Manhunters movie in 2007, and now winning Best Actor for your movie, Coming Home in 2008. You must be on top of the world.
BRAD: Coming Home is a pretty strong movie! There are a couple of awards every year that I think I can really win. I was going to be f***in’ pissed if I hadn’t heard my name called for Best Actor. There was another one, like Art Direction for The Craving, that I was going: “That one better be mine, or I’ll be pissed.” It’s always tricky when you’re going into the awards. The in-house people can think it’s a great movie and then the reviewers can look at it and they see it a different way. So it’s always tricky. You can feel very confident, that it’s one of the strongest movies you’ve ever made, both as a director and as an actor. I had a lot riding on that one. Most of my movies are my babies, as is Coming Home, because I wrote, directed, and starred in it. If it’s not perceived well, it’s totally on me. You know when you’ve done your best work and if somebody else is out there that’s done better, then power to them. But you know the ones that are dogs, just like I know when I’ve made a dog movie. Coming Home was exciting as well, because I was in front of the camera so much that it was Jessica’s first time taking a bigger hand in the directing/assistant directing field.
SLV: Do you feel totally out of control when you’re in that position?
BRAD: It’s one of those things where I have a really good tight-knit crew and no matter how many things I’m doing, things pretty much run smoothly as far as the production end of it. Where I feel out of control is the acting end of it. I’m not watching the monitors and it’s always harder to tell how you’re looking, like: “Was that a stupid look I gave there?” I can usually tell when if I’m saying something that gets stupid, and I go: “Let’s do that one again. That sucked!” It’s the look that you don’t always know whether you’re getting across. That’s why it’s always important to have someone behind the monitor that’s covering your back. Jessica thinks I look good all the time, even when I look like shit, so that’s a little tricky. So, I give her the “Don’t Let Me Look Stupid” speech.
SLV: In Coming Home you had to have your head shaved. Have you ever been bald before and were you nervous about it?
BRAD: It was one of the trickiest scenes in the movie, both for me and for Jessica, because I’ve never shaved my head before. It was about halfway through the production. It was a day where we had half the day acting with hair and the second half without hair. So if I looked really stupid with a bald head, we were in the thick of it. There was no getting out of it. It was a little hairy for me (pardon the pun), just being nervous about shaving my head and really nervous for her because she wanted to make sure that everything was shot right and that we got everything we needed, because it was a one-time deal. It was a little bit of a frantic scene for both of us.
SLV: Wicked is the only company requiring condom use. How do you feel about this, and why don’t you think Vivid and Digital Playground do the same?
BRAD: It’s solely a personal decision of Steve Orenstein. He has decided that that’s the way he wants to run his business. As a director, I can go either way, because I’m seeing it from both the production end of it and the talent end of it. Obviously, all the producers want no condoms and the talent is 50-50. It’s a strange thing, and I have to beg people sometimes to leave the condoms on. Both male and female, when we’re not rolling, they try to take them off and when we’re shooting soft-core, they’ll try to take them off. It is really a weird thing that both male and female, a good chunk of them, just hate condoms. I don’t know where the mentality is but really and truly, it’s just the way Wicked is. There was a handful of them that started after the last outbreak that said: “Oh yeah, we’re all condoms.” Then it was condom-optional and it was down to us and Vivid and they were half and half because their exterior productions like Club Jenna and Teravision and all those other ones were non-condom or condom-optional. Vivid dumped their condom policy, so that was the perfect opportunity for Steve to dump it, but he held by his guns and his beliefs.
SLV: Do you think it has hurt sales?
BRAD: If we stopped condom use tomorrow, would our sales go up? Yeah, absolutely. I think we’re where we are sales-wise because of the quality of our work. Does it hurt us in Europe and a few other places? Absolutely. But I think our work stands on its own. Because of the core audience we’re trying to hit, which is more couples-oriented and higher-end people, they understand condom use and are looking at it more for the quality than the raunchiness.
SLV: Do you get scripts presented to you or do you write them all yourself?
BRAD: About ninety percent of my scripts I write. Lately it’s been a little less than that because Jessica has started writing some of them as well. She wrote Love Always and Just Between Us. They’re both just recently out.
SLV: What is your favorite part of the moviemaking process?
BRAD: The preproduction is where the work is. Once you’re on the set, it’s either easy or hard, depending on how well your pre-production is going. If you’ve got all your ducks in a row, directing is easy. It’s calling: “Action,” and then letting the chips fall where they may. It’s all the stuff you bring to the set that makes it go easy. If you haven’t done your homework, and something goes wrong, that’s when you start having really bad days. The pre-production is crucial—it’s the pain-in-the-ass.
SLV: You are involved in almost every aspect of the process. Is this because you are anal or because you haven’t found people who have the same vision that you have?
BRAD: It depends on who you talk to. (laughter) Some people call me a taskmaster and say I’m a little anal about things. I think it’s one of those things where you have a vision. When I first started, there was no four, five or six-day movies—it was two days, at best. The more I did, the more I could put on screen for the dollar. So I learned how to do all this stuff way back in the beginning and it’s one of those things that I haven’t given up. I have a great crew, and I trust them implicitly, but it’s one of those things, that I happen to do a lot of jobs.
SLV: You say you hate gonzo and High Definition. Does this all go together with making the magic your style?
BRAD: It’s just more work to get it back to where I needed to get. It’s such a rough hard edge. It’s beautiful for colors, and all that, but for the average woman, high definition isn’t really her friend. If you’re watching HBO and you’re switching between high definition and regular, it’s not that flattering to women of any age. The younger ones—you see their pimples and the older ones—you see their wrinkles. Unless you’re that perfect middle-aged woman, where you’re in your mid-twenties so you’ve lost your zits or your early thirties where you haven’t got wrinkles yet, that’s the perfect zone for HD.
SLV: Do you think that the trend of going more mainstream—having a storyline and plot—is going to grow?
BRAD: I think that it’s been proven over the last five years. I don’t know if it’s growing, but it’s separating itself. It’s like gonzo is gonzo, and big features are big features, and the middle-ground is what’s disappearing. I think features definitely have their place, and gonzo is pretty much more, faster, dirtier. It’s their motto and that’s the exact opposite of what we’re trying to do. We’re trying to do prettier, better and more interesting. It’s two separate entities and their clientele isn’t really our competition and our clientele isn’t their competition, so it’s one of those things that only hurts as far as the distribution network. If you have distributors and store owners that are looking to make a fast buck, they’re going to go with them. If we’re looking for consumers that care about the product and what they’re looking at, they’re going to come to us.
SLV: Have you done any movies that can be made into an R-rated films?
BRAD: We have three movies that we’re going to do that with. Manhunters, Falling from Grace, and probably with Coming Home. Certain movies lend themselves to that— where you can pull all the sex out of it and you’re still fine watching two hours of it.
SLV: How do you go about finding the contract stars?
BRAD: If you look on the internet, it’s whoever speaks with me. (laughter) But that’s not the way it works. It’s a long process. We see a lot of girls and they can be great looking and great at performing, but it’s the total package. It’s about the attitude, and for us it’s very important that they can act. I’m not saying spit out a line here or there without looking like an idiot, it’s whether they can really act. When you’re starting to get into that field, where you’re deciding which movies, you’re deciding whether you’re putting into the R-rated or not, they really have to convey a character. It’s not like: “Hey, let’s see what you look like naked,” take a Polaroid and: “Okay, you’re good.” We sit them down, we read them, we bring them back in, we get them to read the script again, see what their attitude is and check them out. The perfect package is hard to find and every once in a while we get lucky and every once in a while we make a mistake. Every once in a while we let one slip through our fingers because we’re deciding too long and someone else snatches them up. It’s a tough process.
SLV: Do you have a lot of personal questions you ask, like are they on drugs?
BRAD: Not so much me, I’m the professional end of it, because that’s where I have to deal with them. As far as the personal goes, those are Steve Orenstein questions. We both sit in the room with them and he’ll take one side of the fence and I’ll take the other and we’ll feel them out. He’s the one who has to deal with them more on a personal level and for me, it’s what they can do on the set and how much of a pain-in-the-ass they’re going to be.
SLV: Have you ever been well into a movie and then had some girl flake-out on you?
BRAD: Never so much the contract girls, but you always get girls on the set that either A: they don’t show up or B: they’re just horrible or C: it’s like: “What did I do here, bringing this pain and suffering onto myself?” You always run into that—hours late, don’t show up, show up with none of their wardrobe, and show up not knowing one line of their script—all that kind of stuff. Then again, sometimes you’re so pleasantly surprised. One of my greatest surprises this year was finding a guy that could play my younger brother in Coming Home. The guy I decided to go with flaked-out on me at the last minute and Scott Lyons was a recommendation of Barrett Blades, and the little guy came in and I thought he did a great job. This is an unknown actor who is basically a gonzo guy doing hundred dollar blow jobs. Barrett had just worked with him and I brought him in and read him, and I worked with him a little bit and he was a trouper and did great!
SLV: How much longer do you think you’ll be performing in the movies?
BRAD: Well, right now I’ve got a little bit of a beer belly, so I’m going to get my ass back in the gym and get skinny. Looking at Hershel and a couple of guys that are up in their fifties and they’re still performing, I figure I’ve got a couple of more years in me.
SLV: It takes a lot of work to keep in shape and compete with those younger guys.
BRAD: I worked out solid, every day for six years when I was a male dancer, ‘til I was about twenty-seven and then I came down here and I just got so lazy. I hardly went to the gym. I literally haven’t worked out for ten to twelve years. I definitely have a good metabolism, ‘cause I’m a chocolate cake junkie, (laughter) and I’m not the best at passing by a fast food restaurant, so I have two strikes against me, plus not working out. I should be in big trouble. And, Jessica’s an excellent cook. Breakfast in bed is not a stranger in my house. So I should be about 250 or so, but luckily enough, I’ve got some good genes. I was in Playgirl Magazine about twenty years ago and we’re thinking about doing a twenty year then and now pictorial, so I’m trying to get skinny for that.
SLV: You really like being onscreen yourself. Will you ever be content just directing?
BRAD: There will probably come a year where I am just a director, but I really like the acting part of it. I started as a “wanna-be” mainstream actor. I did some stuff up in Canada and obviously the goal was to come down here and try my hand at it. Then, as I’ve gotten older, you get wiser and I think my acting’s pretty good now and I think I’m a pretty good actor compared to people in the business. I definitely enjoy it, especially when it’s not my movie and then all I have to worry about is my acting. That’s when it’s really fun; when I get to play characters and all I have to do that day is being that guy as opposed to worrying about production, directing, and wardrobe. There are a lot of times that I have to dress myself for a scene and then dress three other people for a scene and then go remember my lines. It’s sometimes a very painful experience.
SLV: What do you think about Viagra and other male enhancement drugs? Are they a necessity on the set?
BRAD: I think drugs will help a performer, it won’t make a performer. I’ve seen a guy down two Viagras and he’ll have no penis whatsoever. It’s one of those things that we did before drugs ever came around. I was doing scenes in the freezing cold at three o’clock in the morning, long before there was ever Viagra. Now, people have come into the business and started doing it right away, and use it constantly for every scene. I think that’s bad. I think it’s a great tool as a standby. When you’re in a scene with a shitty set, freezing cold, it’s a good thing to have in your pocket.
SLV: You have been married to Dyanna Lauren and Jenna Jamison.
BRAD: I know that’s on the internet, but it’s not true. Dyanna and I were engaged but never married.
SLV: You were married to Jenna. What did and didn’t you like about being married?
BRAD: My spouse! (lots of loud laughter) What’s wrong with my marriage? My spouse! (more laughter) You can print that, by the way. I don’t think I hate the thought of being married. I think it’s overrated. I think it’s not that great when you’re in the business ‘cause there’s a lot of factors that are just ready to jump on you and bite you in the ass as far as really trying to hold things together, for any purpose other than you’re just happy. I think that’s the key. You’re with somebody because you’re happy, not because you’ve got a ring and you’ve signed off. It works for some people. I got my green card out of it!
SLV: Did working with Jenna play a part in your breakup with her?
BRAD: No. I mean Jessica and I work together on almost every project one way or another. Whether she writes it, or she helps me art direct it, or she’s there on the set, or it’s her movie. I work with ex’s even. For the most part, the people we pick as far as our contract girls go, we’re looking for people professional enough to let the bullshit fly for the sake of the movie, and/or the company. I’ve had ex’s that were still contract girls that still worked with us, but it’s one of those things where that particular partner did not fly. Even then we still worked together after we were divorced because she was a Wicked girl.
SLV: You and Jessica are not married. Are you comfortable with both of you having sex with other people, or do you have your little rules?
BRAD: I don’t want to call them rules, let’s go with preferences. There’s certain people I’d rather her not work with; very few, but there are a couple, and vice versa with her. She has a couple of people on her “No list” for me to work with. We have a very sexual-oriented relationship. We go to swingers parties and do all kinds of stuff, especially when it’s for work. There’s really no situations that…especially me, ‘cause half the time I have to tell the guy how to fuck her. (laughter) “Could you fuck her a little bit harder!?!” It’s definitely kind of a weird thing, especially now that she’s starting to get behind the camera. She’s certainly going to have to tell the girlies how to open their pussies for me more! (laughter)
SLV: So, you have it worked out between the two of you?
BRAD: If she was working for a different company, and I was working here, and we wouldn’t cross paths that much on the set, then that’s one thing. Here, even if it’s not her movie, she might be doing a scene in a Carmen movie. We’re on the set together a lot. Now that she’s getting more into the production end of things, she’s the writer and wants to see her vision carried out, or I’m swamped so she’ll say: “I’ll come help you.” There are a lot of times that we’re on the set together for professional reasons, not even that we happen to be on the same set.
SLV: Tell us about discovering Carmen Hart?
BRAD: We’re always looking for new talent. Each year they have the Dancer’s Expo and she’s a big feature dancer, so she was at the Expo. She kind of caught my eye and then we were walking through the casino and I said: “Hey, what is it that you’re doing here?” She said: “Trying to be a porn star.” She was with the Adam and Eve crew. I figured that if they were escorting her around, chances are they’re going to pick her, but they didn’t. So, it just kind of clicked. We found her to be actually one of the most animated characters there are. I think she has a great attitude. I think she’s very talented as an actress, for someone who’s been in it for such a short time. She has quite a body of work that she should be proud of. We’re always looking for new people, but it’s not always the hottest chick or the chick with the nastiest…we’re looking for the total package. Obviously with every girl there are times you overlook the bad, to find the good, but weighing them all out you decide whether you can work with her on a long-term basis. A lot of companies, they’re there for three or four movies a year. Most of our girls are doing six or seven movies a year, so you’re going to keep crossing paths with them on the set.
SLV: To be one of your girls, does she have to be someone you’re attracted to or Jessica would have to be attracted to?
BRAD: No, not particularly. I didn’t say attracted to, she just caught my eye. You want a girl who when she walks into a room, heads turn. Then from there, once the heads turn and people start talking to her, that she can carry her own. More important than that is does she light up the screen?
SLV: So it’s more than you just being attracted to her?
BRAD: Absolutely. I’m not the only guy who brings girls in. Other girls like Kailani, at the beginning I didn’t really think that much of her. Michael Raven brought her in and then she started getting quite good. A good chunk of the girls come through me because of my long standing relationship here, but there are girls that Mr. Ornstein sees on the internet and goes: “Check her out and see how she’s selling.” Michael Raven has a lot of internet feelers out there. He’s always looking for girls who are interested in doing movies. We have a Web site called newstar.com that girls from all over the country send in their pictures to. The problem is that they’re from all corners of the states. It’s always tricky to bring in girls, uprooting them, unless they already have their heart set on coming to L.A. and being a porn star. You can’t really promise them anything, so it’s hard to start uprooting someone’s life on a maybe.
SLV: What was your first sexual experience like, and as a teenager did you consider yourself highly sexual?
BRAD: I was kind of like a middle-of-the-road kid. I started with chicks around thirteen. The first time I went: “Hey, I’m the man,” was the night we were in a strip bar on an amateur night and that was my first experience with being a stud. I went out for amateur night and won. Then it was like: “Yeah, I’m going to be a stripper,” and I was for ten years.
SLV: Do you tend to put things in your movies that you find erotic or is it just a formula that you follow?
BRAD: It’s a tricky line we have between story and sex. Some stories are totally revolving around the sex. Others are more like Manhunters and some of the action ones. That’s when it becomes tricky fitting sex in, so it’s not just stupid but story relevant. There are a couple of formulas I use where I make sure that you get enough sex in and disperse it evenly through the story. You can have the entire story going on and you kind of forget about: “Oh fuck, I need a sex scene here. It’s been fifteen minutes since my last sex scene.” That builds for a whole lot of fast-forwarding. As I’m writing the script, it’s always in mind, and then when I get further on in the script I make sure the sex is moderately spaced out and you’re not going too long without a sex scene; especially your opening scene. It should come pretty quickly into the movie.
SLV: Obviously you’ve got the job that most men can only dream of. What’s the toughest part of the business, the part that the average Joe doesn’t know about?
BRAD: As far as the directing goes, it’s when your first girl doesn’t show up. It’s eight in the morning and you’re sitting there for three hours with your finger up your ass. The other end of that, is as that day goes horribly wrong and it’s starting to get very late, you still have tons more to do and now it’s two o’clock and it’s cold and late and I can’t get a hard-on. That’s probably the most uncomfortable moment. It’s when the whole crew is sitting around waiting for a guy to get a hard-on, and it’s really late at night and the crew is looking at you going: “Okay, when are you gonna call this?” (laughter)
SLV: What’s the toughest part as an actor?
BRAD: It’s the same fucking thing. The moment where you’re sitting on the set and your dick is not hard and it’s getting increasingly later and everybody’s waiting and looking at their watches. You feel that uncomfortable cough in the silence and it’s like: “Oh man!” and the poor girl is looking up at you like: “What do you want me to do?” Then even worse is the poor girl that just walks away while you have your dick in your hand. It’s brutal! I’m one of those guys, one of the few that especially in the feature game, where I’m the director and talent, so I kind of see it from both ways. Some of the guys get so distraught and I’m like: “Dude, I’ve been there. I know exactly what you’re feeling. Don’t worry about it.” It is what it is. You try to make the best of it in post and it’s funny ‘cause some of the hottest scenes are just on the set, fucking just smoking, and it is what you figure pornography is. Then you get in the edit bank and you’re watching the scene and it’s just not coming together. And, vice versa, I’ve seen guys who’ve taken three and a half hours to squeak out enough footage to put a scene together and with the right editing and right music it looks like the guy is the biggest stud in the world. It definitely has a lot to do with the editing.
SLV: What is your favorite thing to do outside of the movie business?
BRAD: The movie business is kind of all-encompassing. I’ve got the greatest job where I don’t have to be in the office and I shoot whenever I feel like it. I shoot whatever movies I want to do, so it is truly all you’re thinking about. Everything I do revolves around pornography. I’m not a big hobby guy.
SLV: What is this about a clothing line? Is it just for the movies and Jessica?
BRAD: I do all the art direction and wardrobing for pretty much all my movies and some other movies as well. I know how to dress a woman. I really do. I started doing show clothes for some of the girls, especially Jessica. I do a lot of shopping for her or actually sewing of the garment or we’ll take a garment that we buy and totally retrofit it to her. It’s like: “Oh my God, you should go into the business!” It’s not something that I’ve thought that much about. If porno stopped tomorrow and there was no porno, I might think about it a whole lot quicker. It would be great to have. Every time I’m walking down Melrose, (which is our big shopping street where all the girls get lovely clothes for the signings and the shows) every time I walk by there and see an empty store I go: “Oh man, that would be so cool.” But I think that if you did it as a business, it would take a whole lot of fun out of it.
SLV: Tell me something about yourself that would surprise everyone to know.
BRAD: A lot of people think I’m stuck-up and very standoffish—and more than anything, I’m really a little bit on the shy side—not so much on the set, where I have complete control, but when I’m in an atmosphere that I’m not quite comfortable with…I’m really on the shy and insecure side. If I’m going on a mainstream read and it’s a cold read—oh my God, my heart is pounding and I’m shitting a brick. It’s one of those things that I might look confident on the set, but it’s just because I’m comfortable with my environment.
SLV: You have a home in Hawaii...which island? Do you completely relax when you’re there?
BRAD: We’re on the big island.
SLV: Do you completely relax when you’re there?
BRAD: Yeah, but you know what, we’re still on the Internet. There are all these E-mails going back and forth. I have stuff shipped to me over there where I can take a last minute look at it and approve it. I do some writing out there as well. We definitely have a bunch of projects that we have all broken down and we’re going to hit the computers while we’re there, especially at night because it’s a laidback area that we’re in, so it’s either watch TV or fuck around on the Internet.
SLV: What do you want to do that you haven’t done yet?
BRAD: My perfect world is certainly to get into some form of mainstream directing, whether it’s music videos or films. Music videos, I think, are more my forte because of the art direction side of my strengths. I think that’s probably the easier realm. I make ten big movies a year, so I’m a busy boy! It’s always hard to start hustling things. You’re making a nice living doing what you’re doing and then if you’re going to take time off from this to attempt to do that, knocking on all the doors—you just stay comfortable. Human nature, especially me…I’m one of those bird-in-the-hand versus two-in-the-bush guys. I’m happy here, so if something falls in my lap, I’m more than happy to jump on it, but like I said, with that insecure side of me, it’s definitely tough to get that rejection when you’re out knocking on doors.
SLV: Where do you see yourself in 10 years?
BRAD: I definitely think there’s ten years on the directing side of things. As long as the business doesn’t go through anymore weird metamorphosis, where the feature movies are butted out even more than they are now, that’s the plan.
SLV: Then you’d go over into mainstream?
BRAD: Yeah, in a perfect world. I’m getting my reels together now. That’s the goal. SLV |
