When “Deadly Vows,” the latest feature from director Ricky Greenwood, premiered on Digital Playground, it delivered more than high-gloss eroticism. The series unveiled a full-throttle action spectacle with sword fights, betrayals, and a main character who combines Jackie Chan’s martial artistry with a thirst for vengeance worthy of the Bride, Uma Thurman’s memorable assassin character in “Kill Bill.”
Now, with the final episode dropping Monday, star Ryan Reid — who plays the fiery, ruthless Sarah — spoke with XBIZ about the intense training she did for the series, the on-set challenges, and a very big “first” she’s unveiling in the finale.
‘Who trains for porn?’
For Reid, the shoot wasn’t just another gig. It required months of prep, a crash course in fight choreography, and the challenge of sustaining villain energy through long days of stunts and sex.
“It’s not like your average porn at all,” she laughs. “It felt very mainstream. Honestly, it’s fucking insane. They came to me around January and said, ‘Hey, we want to shoot a movie in the summer — but you’re going to start training in April.’ I was like, ‘What do you mean training? Who trains for porn?’”
The story of “Deadly Vows” is pure pulp mayhem with a twist. Betrayed and left for dead by her own sister, Ellen (Elly Clutch), and an ex-lover (Ricky Johnson), Sarah is pulled back from the brink by a mysterious martial arts mentor who teaches her how to fight, survive, and sharpen her rage into a weapon. Along the way, she finds unlikely allies in Christie (Yhivi) and Smoke (Scott Nails) as she gears up to face Ellen’s crew of merciless enforcers. The reckoning comes on Ellen’s wedding day, where bullets, blades, insults, and fists fly in an all-out showdown between two brutal babes hell-bent on destroying each other.
“Ricky cast me so well,” Reid marvels. “I told him I wanted something spicy, something physical, something insane. When he heard that, he was like, ‘Yep, you’re going to be Sarah.’”
Bringing Sarah to life, however, turned out to be quite a process. It began with waking up early to meet
a trainer and drill weapons work with co-star Clutch.
“I had no idea what to expect,” Reid recalls. “I’m just meeting up with this lady in the middle of the Valley, learning fight sequences. Finally, I saw the script and it all clicked. I was like, ‘Oh, that’s why I’m sword fighting and throwing nunchucks around.’
“When you think of porn, you think of stretching your asshole for anal, not waking up at 7 a.m. to practice sword fighting!” she adds with a laugh.
Although stunt doubles were on hand, Reid and her co-stars found themselves handling far more of the on-screen hijinks than expected.
“A lot of the stunts Ricky thought we’d need doubles for, we ended up doing ourselves,” she says. “Ricky really did a good job of making sure we were prepared.”
Embracing Her Villain Era
Sarah, the protagonist of “Deadly Vows,” isn’t your typical heroine. Betrayed by everyone around her, she dishes out revenge with righteous ferocity.
“She fucks everyone over, because she got fucked over,” Reid explains. “She wants her get back.”
To embody the role, Reid immersed herself in her character’s state of mind.
“I kind of just maintained that ‘fuck you’ attitude the entire time,” she says. “Even after filming, I’d see one of my co-stars or Ricky and be like, ‘How am I supposed to approach you?’ I got very stuck in that evil villain mindset.”
Sometimes that meant blurring the line between Ryan and “Sarah.”
“Ricky’s sets are structured, but I’m the wrecking ball,” Reid laughs. “I need bursts of energy, so I’d be crazy and funny between takes, then snap back into character. Me and Ricky developed this love-hate relationship. In the beginning, he didn’t understand my sarcasm at all. There were times I’d joke, ‘Okay, I’m bored, I’m leaving’ — and he’d call my agents like, ‘Ryan’s leaving!’”
Over time, however, Greenwood realized her dry humor was just part of the package.
“Once he learned my personality, he was like, ‘Okay, we can work with this and make a character out of it.’”
It helped that Reid became attached to Greenwood’s dog.
“She’s so well-behaved,” gushes Reid. “She won’t walk into shooting, just sits by Ricky. She’s basically the emotional support dog for porn sets.”
Having the pup around proved such a comfort that Reid joked on set, “If the dog isn’t here, I walk.”
Long Days, Leather Fits and the Airtight Scene From Hell
The shoot lasted seven intense days, with call times from 7 a.m. until midnight.
“Ricky was nice enough to get us trailers so we felt like real movie stars,” Reid says. “If I wasn’t on camera, I was in that trailer napping.”
Wardrobe became its own subplot. When the original costumer became unavailable, the team turned to a last-minute hire, which left everyone nervous. After four fittings, however, Reid’s leather outfit for the final fight scene came together.
“It made me look like I had huge knockers — don’t actually have those!” laughs Reid. “It ended up being perfect.”
Of course, not everything went smoothly. One sequence with an elderly actor had Reid worried.
“I had to do these moves on him and he almost fell,” she recalls. “I was like, ‘Holy shit, am I going to break his hip? Now my DMs are like, ‘Are you going to fuck the old man?’”
Reid’s most memorable moment, however, was shooting her very first airtight sex scene — in a sweltering downtown LA warehouse.
“It was probably 115 degrees inside, no AC, no fans on set and I wasn’t eating because it was anal,” she says. “It was day one of shooting, and all the kinks were still getting worked out. But the grunginess of it all is going to look so good! It looked like I was literally fighting for my life, because I was. Right after the big bar fight, I walk in and have sex with all these guys. It was insane.”
For Reid, the ordeal just added realism.
“They asked if I needed lube and I said, ‘No, pussy sweat is enough. Everything is dripping right now.’ We were all disgusting. But it made the scene look so much more realistic and grimy.”
Despite the punishing schedule, Reid enjoyed getting to know her co-stars and the crew in between jokes and naps — especially Clutch.
“We’d seen each other in passing before, but during training we were together constantly,” she says. “Finally we were like, ‘Hey, we sword-fought, so should we fuck each other? Should we book content for OnlyFans together at this point?’ We finally did a collab scene and it was kind of funny because by then we were just homies.”
Looking back, Reid says the thing she’s most proud of about the series is Sarah’s complexity. She’s already lobbying for more.
“Request Season Two!” she urges fans. “Because I would love to do it all again.”
"Deadly Vows" is streaming on DigitalPlayground.com.
Follow Reid on X.com.
