Porn Valley- The last time I saw a porn star playing chess, it was a record label. I caught up with Evan Stone [pictured left] www.adultfyi.com/read.aspx?ID=940 during some down time with the Sinsations: Skinflicks shoot for Dusk Till Dawn Entertainment, www.dusktilldawnentertainment.com. Stone was about to check mate Nick Lambert, vice president of the company.
Stone finds himself yet in another soap opera-series. Just like the one he was shooting for Hustler when the Evan Stone Got Shot story attracted some major Internet traffic one summer weekend last year. Similarly, Stone also gets to ham it up in the new softcore series.
"I get to play a character who plays Evan Stone," laughs Stone. Asked if this was going to be a stretch, Stone says, "I've never really liked Evan Stone- I never liked him personally and socially. And he's a lousy kisser. And I play him in such a way that everybody hates him. For good reason."
Stone has done few softcore movies already and with that notoriety is getting even more work.
"They find out that porno people can act- whoever 'they' are," he says. Because he's got a couple of series in progress, Stone says it takes him awhile to get into the swing once he's on set.
"Usually by the last hour of the last day I'm really into the character- of course, by then it's over," he laughs. "But that last 45 minutes of shooting? I'm right on." Speaking of shooting, I ask Stone about the calls he fielded once the story got out implying that he had bought the ranch thanks to a bullet.
"A very brilliant author was on the set one day and wrote a synopsis of what happened," Stone continues with a sly wink. "It was about me having been shot on the set. Wouldn't you know it, people reading the site, they assumed the worst that an actual porno person had been shot, being Evan Stone. Now I don't know what world their from, but someone gets shot in The Valley, and it's a porno person, it doesn't matter if it's a boy or a girl, it's going to be big time news. Of course they read what they wanted to read because it reads either way. I had taken phone calls all that day. "When I'm on a set and I'm in a movie, it usually takes two or three days for me to return someone's phone call," he goes on to say. "Everybody knows that, and everybody deals with that when the producers call me. The reason is when I'm in a movie, I'm in a movie. I don't want to be disturbed; my phone is off on the set. I'm already where I'm supposed to be for those three days and I don't want to deal with problems. By the time I fielded my phone calls, I already had 47 messages. A couple of them were from one male talent. This was from a guy who I thought was my friend and I he was my friend at the time.
"He calls me up and says, hey, man. I heard you got shot. That was the first call. The second call was 'hey, man. I heard you got shot. Give me a call. It's not cool that you're not calling me back.' If I was shot, why would I call you back? The third call was 'I found out that it wasn't really real and you can just pound sand in your butthole. Screw you.' I'm thinking wow, what kind of idiot does something like this? Then other people found out about it, and, of course, they blamed me. They go, why would you do something like that? I didn't do anything. That's how you read it- that's your own interpretation and you read it wrong. You can read a right-wing newspaper and read however you want it. But either way it's still going to be a right wing newspaper. Same way, they're holding me to blame. That just shows me that they believe everything that they read- which they probably shouldn't do; and they should probably read more because, obviously, they're not getting the full scope of what they're trying to accomplish with their reading."
Brigands generally don't read, and Stone was the lead male character in Pirates.
"We shot five days here; then we had two days off and then shot four more days here in a studio in Chatsworth," says Stone. "Then we went to Florida. We shot a couple of days in a studio and then we went on the ship. The ship itself is an actual working tri-masted schooner. Everything from the deck up is just like it was back in the period of time in which the ship actually ran. It has wooden block and tackle and the sails are silk. But below deck it's all stainless steel with up-to-date navigational equipment. Everything that was shot that would take place below deck was shot in a studio. Everything shot above deck was actually shot on deck. When we went out to sea, the crew had to learn how to climb up the rigging. There's a correct way to climb up the rigging and the crew that was running the ship was showing our people, the actors, how to do it. And they really took it to heart and got into it. They were climbing up and down the rigging just for no reason.
"They also took it to heart when they were shown proper ship etiquette and how to treat the captain. When I'd walk on deck, they'd snap to attention. Well, these characters took it all the way into the hotel. So even when I was walking down the hallway, they'd snap to attention. Then of course, even eating, when we were in the mess hall, I was eating with the director of the movie, Ali Joone; the real captain of the ship, the executive producer and the line producer. The other people like my first mate, the boastswain's mate, and the real first mate of the ship were sitting at the junior officers' table. And then all the crew was sitting with the crew at the crew table. So for the two weeks we were in Florida, everyone stayed in character off camera and on-camera. And it helped develop the whole movie."
Except Stone swears he never said, arrrrrgh once during the movie.
"And Capt. Kirk never said beam me up, Scotty," he adds. "But everyone when they saw me at CES they went, arrrrgh." While Stone saw a lot of the movie in post, he never saw the whole movie from beginning to end.
"When I first saw the F/X work it was early, and the shadowing was bad and it really didn't look good," says Stone. "I was really concerned and I really didn't want to do it at first. Ali Joone has never done anything of this size. There's very few directors that can do something this big or would even tackle something this big. You have to hold the whole project in your head for those days plus this was something different- there was a month and a half between the time we shot in Chatsworth and the time we went to St. Petersburg. But Ali kept it right up there, up to par. And when I saw the special effects, I didn't want to do a movie that sucked on Olympic scale and have people, go, oh yeah. You're the guy who was in that movie that sucked. But I gave it a try- if it doesn't work out after the first day, I'll let them know right there in the Valley. And they could easily get someone else because there were other people that were clamoring, trying to get this part. But Ali kept it altogether that first day; so I gave him a second day and the second day was even better. And we were right on time. I've never been on a production that rolled right on schedule. And when we wrapped for the day, we were within a half hour of our wrap for each day.
"Florida was a little different," Stone goes on to say. "We had to deal with some weather- it rains every afternoon in Florida and that kind of hampered things because the cloud cover didn't match and we had to wait for the clouds to clear. Other than that, it was like clock work. I had never been in a production that flowed that smoothly."
Asked if he partook of any grog, Stone says no. But he did have mead.
"it's made from honey, and it's kind of like a beer," he explains. "It's thick and it's very sweet. You can drink a little bit of it. I was, eeeh. I had to set it down. But I was able to come back and drink some more of it. But the people that play the crew, work at a medieval festival so it was no big deal for them to stay in character all day or all week. Even when we were at the hotel, after dinner, they were outside in the parking lot altogether in a litle group drinking mead and stuff. It was like 3 o'clock in the morning. I got up and went down there: hey, what's going on? 'Aaaaargh, matey, we're having a good time.' "
Stone also mentions the fact that there weren't any shower facilities on the set and there were some warm afternoons.
"Everyone got gamey towards the end of the day," he says. "And a couple of these guys didn't take a shower the next day. And so, in retaliation, we didn't take a shower. Pretty soon it smelled like a pirate ship and the pirates smelled like pirates. But by the end we got everyone to shower."
Asked what he was doing with Evan Stone Productions, Stone notes that he's shot some vignettes. "Then I decided I wanted to shoot my own movie." It sounds like Stone was talking from experience when he mentions situations that compromise your artistic ability.
"You answer to the person who's footing the bill and you compromise," says Stone. "It hampers the whole show. The producer's going, hey, I'm banging this girl and I want you to make her the star of the movie now. Well, I've already shot three-quarters of the movie, what do you want me to do? I didn't want that to happen. So I executive produced my own movie- Sin City bought that one right off the bat. Then I did a larger one which Simon Wolf purchased. After that production, I sat back and bought myself some toys. But I haven't found an idea that I really want to shoot yet. What happened right after that, we went into the pirate movie. After the pirate movie I was so busy towards the end of the year that I didn't have a chance to shoot. But I'll probably be shooting something midway through July."
The joke is that when people recognize Stone, they invariably ask him if he knows Ron Jeremy. I asked Stone how Jeremy was. Stone recalled the time he traveled with Jeremy to New Zealand.
"I decided I'm going to get this guy, even though he doesn't know what's going on," laughs Stone. "As soon as I got off the plane, he walked right behind me. I go, Ron Jeremy and there was a big crowd in New Zealand and they follow porn religiously. Like soap operas. I'd go to the convention and people would know all my shows and they'd be reciting stuff like the Rocky Horror Picture: remember in that movie when you said this? And they'd do whole paragraphs of what I did."
Is that flattering or disturbing, Stone is asked.
"It was disturbing at first because I thought, oh, stalker," Stone replied. "Then it happened again- oh, stalker. Then it happened again and again and again. I was, like, this is the behavioral norm then. Then it was no big deal. Then I went to Japan with Ron Jeremy and soon as we got off the plane it was, oh, it's Ron Jeremy!!! The American stewardesses recognized me. Of course I had Evan Stone stuff on but, man, as soon as we got off the plane, they were all over Jeremy. It was just crazy."
It's commonly thought that female porn stars would have their stalkers and I ask Stone if he's had an instance of one.
"Not yet," he replies. "But I'm looking forward to my first stalker. I've gotten some e-mails that aren't disturbing; what's your favorite movie, what's your favorite- then it's let me tell you about my life...then it's three full 21-inch monitors full of their life. I'm not really sure how to answer that."
Has anyone sent him penis pictures? I ask Stone. Stone says no but he invites people to fire away.
"I'm [email protected], send me whatever you want," he laughs. "I get a lot of gay email: hey, dude, you're really cool- you ever thought about doing gay movies?"
I note that Jack Lawrence seems to have a pretty strong following among the gay crowd.
"I'm pretty good-looking, I don't know why the gays don't like me," Stone roars. A lot of emails that Stone gets are from husbands and wives.
"Sometimes from the husband but most of the time it's from the wife," Stone notes. "They tell me they love watching my stuff as a couple and find me very entertaining, you're a good actor- your sex scenes are hot, blah-blah-blah." But none of these wind up being invitations to a threesome.
"They never invite me," says Stone. "I'd go, but they just go, keep up the good work. We love you. But no picture. I look for the attachment but no attachment."
I tell Stone I know the feeling- all the years running AVN and no porn girl ever offered to suck my dick in exchange for an interview.
"It's the strangest thing," Stone agrees. "A lot of times people will try to get me to do stuff for free, like advertise for their company. For instance AVN."
Stone says he was very excited to be at the AVN show. At first.
"It was really nice then I got the award which I didn't think I was going to win," he says. "Last year I expected to win because I had seen everyone's work and I thought my stuff was better. I didn't win and I was pissed off. This year I didn't see anyone's work, I had no idea. So when I won, I was really surprised and didn't know what to say. Nor did I know what to say when I went into the back room and was accosted by this guy. First I got a message from this producer: hey, why don't you do this coffee table book at the AVN show. I go what does it pay. I'm told it doesn't pay anything. I go, okay, then if it goes to charity, I have no problem.
"I was then told, well, no, it doesn't all go to charity. I said it either needs to pay or it all needs to go to charity. I'm told, no problem. Great. So I get off the stage and I'm walking in the back- I get accosted by that producer who called me and the photographer whose name I forget. He [the producer] says I understand you want your check to go to charity- I'll write it out. You tell me what charity. I go, hold on a second. Are you paying anybody else. he goes, no. I go, that's not how it works. If you're going to pay me you need to pay everybody and if it goes to charity, it all goes to charity. I don't need your tax write-off, I'll take it for my own write-off. He goes, that's now how it happens. I go, well, that's how it's going to happen. Or I'm not going to do it. He says you have to do it. I said no, I don't have to do it.
"I hand him my award. I said, here. Take a picture of this. That's all you're going to get. He's going, no, no. I've got other people who are doing it for free. I go for free? I understand. I go are you making a profit off of this? He goes probably not. I said, look. Do I look fucking stupid to you? Obviously you're going to make money on this. I don't want to be the champion of the people but I'm not going to sit by and let people take advantage of talent or producers or anybody in this business for that matter. This is my family and I'm not going to let that happen."
Stone says he's talked to other people who have told him a similar story and now he's looking into it.
Asked who is money would be on in a Kurt Lockwood-Voodoo fight, Stone says he just heard about it the other day.
"I would bet my money on Voodoo," says Stone. "Lockwood's a little crazy but Voodoo won't give up. He may be a bloody mess but he'll still get up and keep on kicking ass."
