LOS ANGELES — This past weekend at the Roosevelt Hotel in Los Angeles, photographer Rosie Marks and writer Esra Padgett celebrated the release of “Raw Talent,” their new monograph about Aylo’s iconic studio Brazzers.
Wednesday, Interview Magazine’s Mekala Rajagopal published a tête-à-tête-à-tête with the two authors, who go behind the scenes and break down the circumstances behind several photographs from the book.
Up first is a photo of megastar Angela White enjoying a meal at In-N-Out Burger, with her just-won Pornhub Award for Female Performer of the Year on the table in front of her.
“It’s like the paparazzi pictures of people sitting with In-N-Out burgers after winning an Oscar,” says Marks.
Adds Padgett, “Winning Female Performer of the Year is like the apex, but Angela’s also a very intelligent performer and businessperson. I hesitate to say she’s at the peak of her career because she’s had a long career already and probably will continue to for a really long time. She’s masterful at figuring out how to reinvent herself as a performer.”
Next, superagent Mark Spiegler is pictured in his Woodland Hills home, surrounded by boxes of awards his clients have won.
“At least half of the female contract stars in Brazzers are represented by him, and to get repped by him is like your ticket to the porn Oscars,” says Marks.
She goes on to point out Spiegler’s seemingly clairvoyant knowledge of industry trends.
“When we were at his house, Esra was asking him who he thought was the next big thing, and the first name he gave was Gal Ritchie, who is an English girl who has been in the industry for less than a year,” she says. “But then at all the awards three weeks ago, she won Best New Star, which is the award that basically all of the Angelas of the world have won. So he’s got a good instinct.”
The two talk at length about Brazzers’ now-infamous “performer gets stuck in object” genre, accompanied by pictures of Danny D “stuck” in a vending machine at Brazzers’ U.K. headquarters, and Abella Danger’s entrance at the studio’s 20th anniversary gala, emerging from a giant washing machine.
“Getting stuck in things is a major trope of Brazzers,” says Padgett. “Any common household appliance or situation that you could possibly imagine getting stuck in, or would never think of getting stuck in, happens. And at Danny’s studio, they build all these special contraptions that people can get stuck in. The classic one is the washing machine.”
Frequent Brazzers collaborator Mick Blue’s versatility is also discussed, accompanied by a picture of the star behind the wheel of his race car, with which he’s won multiple championships.
“He seems to excel at everything he does,” says Marks. “He’s now a race car driver and has won all these awards for that. And then he started doing jiujitsu and ended up as a black belt, and now he’s building his acting career outside of porn and he’s got a recurring role on ‘General Hospital.’”
Following a picture of Miami’s notorious Bang Bus and its driver Chubbs, the two discuss Brazzers’ early days.
“Brazzers is Canadian, so when they started, they were trying to emulate things like the Bang Bus, and they took a lot of inspiration from these classic American early internet porn sites,” says Padgett. “Now, the interior of the Bang Bus is just insane. It’s just dirty, ratty old yoga mats and nasty blankets and it’s all torn out so they can just have sex in the middle of it, but there’s a little bench in the back. Chubbs has one of those claw grabbers to pick up dirty tissues or whatever in the back.”
Says Marks, “I think Abella Danger and Luna Star, who were big contract stars, had their first or first major scenes there.”
The interview concludes with photos from after a shoot in a Hollywood bar for the studio’s “Sneaky Dive Bar Throwdown.”
“This scene was shot in a public place, and most of the shoots that we were on were either in private houses or a set in the Brazzers headquarters,” says Marks. “So that one was unique. They were shooting until 5:57 and at 6:00 the bar opened to customers, so that was a real last minute scrub down.”
Padgett notes that not every studio could get away with that type of shoot.
“They have an impeccable reputation for cleanliness,” she says. “Not all places would even let them rent out their venue for having a porn shoot, so once they do, they have a pretty high bar of cleaning it. This was a real divey bar in Hollywood, so I think they genuinely left it cleaner than when they came in.”
To read the full interview, visit InterviewMagazine.com.
