my interview with the most famous foreign JAV porn star.
talking about fake poop, fake cum, and real dreams <3
Nominative determinism is the hypothesis that “people tend to gravitate towards areas of work that fit their names.” Take Usain Bolt, the fastest man in the world… or actual Fire Department lieutenant, Les McBurney.
Following the nominative determinist theory, then, what fate might a name like Victor earn you? Well, if you’re an unimaginative teenage boy envisioning the pinnacle of success - what the kids call #winning - you’d likely say porn star. Along with like… Roblox streamer sponsored by PRIME or whatever? And yes, in many ways, adult film performer, Victor (better known as Magnus), is a god damn winner. He’s charming, speaks four languages, and just spent the last seven years as one of the most successful foreign JAV (Japanese Adult Video) performers. Just how famous was he? Well, if you look up “black actor” on any given JAV site, you’ll find Victor in about 9 out of 10 videos.
Starring in titles like “New female teacher shattered by darkness” or “Adulterous partner is a foreigner with a strong shiny black dick… Married woman penetrated by his big dick burns herself with carnal love,” I grew curious about the person at the center of the enticing - albeit byzantine and let’s be honest slightly tokenizing- titles.
The porn industry’s fixation on race isn’t new, but the particularities of Victor’s story intrigued me; the ostensible backstory of a foreigner coming to Japan and somehow ending up as spy #2 in “An International Investigator Gets Pumped To Orgasmic Ecstasy With Black Magnum Cocks In A Creampie Hellhole.”* What was it like being a foreign AV actor in one of the most racially homogenous countries in the world. Who was Victor?
*I’m not hyperlinking these btw lol
Well, newsletter gang! You know how the story goes. I found Victor’s social media, shot my shoot, and got him to agree to to do an interview with me. When we spoke last month, he had just finished filming his last adult film and was enjoying a semi-retirement in the Philippines. From his sun-soaked Manilla apartment, Victor recounted the story of his life and career in strong, confident strokes - possibly a vestige of his time in the military. Below, you will find a redacted version of our conversation, in which we discuss sex, love, and the recipe for a realistic-looking log of poop.
First of all, thanks so much for sitting down to do this. Could you please introduce yourself to get started.
My name is Victor, a foreign Japanese AV actor from New York. I’ve been living in Japan for a total of 13 years and I just retired back on August 4th.
Oh wow, so you just retired!
(nods)
Then I guess my first question for you would be why did you retire?
It’s very physically and mentally demanding. I’ve been doing this for about seven years and I think I did everything I wanted to do. I just wanted to do something different. Some people are in the industry for 10+ years. I don’t know how they do it.
Eight years is still a long time!
Well, in the beginning I was just an extra. I’d be doing a movie once every three months or so for about the first year. Eventually, I started to get more notice and started to get more jobs and roles and the rest is history.
And by “extra,” do you mean you’d be standing without actually participating in the scene?
By extra, it means you might get a little scene for fellatio but you’re not the main guy.
Oh, I see. Because I understand there are videos where they’re not even performing.
I’ve done those as well.
What do you think about when you’re doing those?
I’m usually thinking about what I’ll do after the job but of course there are times when I wish I could be actually be acting acting that day.
Right, you can only just see it happen.
Well we’re not actually there when they’re having sex. [The production team] is very good about making the actors and actresses feel comfortable when on set. So for example, when they do these movies on a bus - first of all, everyone is a paid actor. A lot of people think these videos are real but everyone’s an actor. And what they’ll do is have all of the extras facing outward, away from the two performers, so the main performers can do their thing in the middle. And I’ve never seen an extra try to sneak a peek or anything. They’re all very professional.
You mentioned being in the military earlier. Is that how you ended up living in Japan?
Yes.
So then how did you get involved in the industry?
I used to date a girl who was a former AV actress who had already retired. One day, she came up to me and told me I should get into AV. That’s actually when she told me she used be an actress and I was like oh my god, what!
Oh, you didn’t know!
No, I didn’t know. And she told me for Japanese women to have at least some kind of experience with AV. I believe there’s about 10,000 actresses at any given time. But yeah, [my girlfriend] introduced me to the number-one foreign actor at the time and he was the one who taught me how to perform on camera because I really used to be terrible. You can be good in your private time but on camera it’s totally different.
Right. There’s a big misconception you have the easiest job where you just show up and have sex.
I wish! I mean most people assume the physical part is hard but everything starts mentally. You have to stay engaged enough to stay aroused but disengaging to the point where you can see everything around you. I have to keep in mind how much time I have left, what positions I have to do next, off-camera directions from the director. And most of the time, I’m looking at the cameraman to make sure to give him the angles. When people ask me about my job I tell them to imagine having the camera man so close to you you can feel him breathing on you but you still have to act. It’s a balancing act.
So when you’re having sex with a girl you’re looking at the camera more than the girl?
Well, not looking but I have to be aware of it peripherally. But I also don’t want the girl to feel like I’m totally disengaged. I think the best scenes are when I can make the girl forget the cameras are rolling, but some directors try to micromanage where they keep saying cut then go. I think the best directors will tell you everything ahead of time and then let you do your thing.
Are you communicating with [the team] in Japanese?
I am. Sometimes they don’t want me to speak Japanese in the movie because that’s part of the script. And then there are some movies where there’s a script with so much Japanese. I’m like, oh my god, what are we doing? Filming an HBO movie? (laughs)
What is it like, then, being a non-Japanese, specifically black, actor in the industry?
When I first started, I was typecast a lot; the gangster, the drug dealer, stuff like that. And every scene was a rape scene or something violent. Once I started getting more popular, I told them I didn’t feel comfortable doing those roles and what they represented. There are so many people out there believe that this is how [we] really act.
They thought it was real?
Not real, but they thought is what we were really like. I wanted to do things that were more romantic and passionate and that painted us in a better light. Most companies were reluctant but one of them decided to try it. There’s this site called R18 where there’s about 270,000 videos uploaded every month my movie was ranked number one. I did several movies after that which also ranked number one and I think that helped me break the mold and get away from being typecast as a gangster or mafioso. I’ve had fans hit me up and tell me their favorite movies are the ones where I’m playing an English teacher or the guy next door.
That’s very cool to hear. I mean I know many films are centered on portraying black men in a stereotypical light.
Right, it was kind of like black guys with the hoodies and the white guys were primarily the English teachers. But I do want to add I’ve never experienced any racism on the set from any of the actors, actresses, director, or crew members. I understand people have stereotypes because they don’t know, but I’ve never experienced anything I thought was racist.
Do you still keep in contact with your old friends from the industry?
Technically actors and actresses are not allowed to hang out. I don’t really know why but that’s the way it is. But I feel very sorry for the actors and actresses because a lot of them would like a boyfriend or girlfriend but being a porn star it can be very hard to find one.
I know the top Japanese actresses do meetups. Do you do those at all?
No, I do not and thank goodness! I mean, the girls who do the fan meetups have extremely micromanaged schedules. They rarely have time to do what they want to do. When I meet with them in public they usually have to wear a disguise or they’ll have fans coming up asking about what it’s like being a porn star.
What do Japanese people generally think about the actresses?
I think they’re held in a higher regard than they are in America. I mean we call the actors idols here. We don’t call them that in America. Of course, there are 10,000 actresses in total so not all of them might got the same treatment, but I do know that the top 100 ranked actresses get treated very well.
There’s also this image the [industry] is controlled by the yazuka but I’ve never had any dealings with that in my eight years. That might have been the case back in the day but there are so many safeguards in place to protect the safety and well-being of the actors and actresses. You have to show your STD tests to one another before the shoot and the cast and crew are so dialed in to make sure they actors and actresses are feeling comfortable both physically and mentally.
Who has been your favorite actress to work with?
I think it would be easier for me to think who wasn’t my favorite but I don’t want to give any names out! But I can count the bad ones on one hand, let’s say that.
So more positive than negative.
Way more. But my favorite? It’s so hard to say (groans). Let’s say Maria.
It was just good chemistry?
The chemistry was amazing. But I’ve never asked for someone’s number after a shoot because we’re definitely not allowed to do that. I try to remain professional.
It must be hard to share a super intimate experience and then not be allowed to date or even see each other privately.
It just goes back to your mental preparation. I want to keep a distinction between my personal sex-life and my camera sex-life and I don’t want the two to become intertwined. Kissing for me is very intimate so I usually try to reserve that for my personal life.
Has your professional life impacted your personal life?
Yes, definitely. I’ve only ever once told a woman I was an English teacher when I was an actor. We went to a hotel once and when we turned on the TV it was my movie! And we didn’t see each other again.
Oh my god. What are the odds! Did you try to play it off like it wasn’t you.
Well I tried to change the channel really fast but I could see in my peripheral vision she was already looking at me. It was this scene of me face-to-face with a girl and you could see my tattoos. There’s no denying that!
What do you think about those classic Japanese moans?
(laughs) the cat ones. So in the really micromanaged “stop and go” movies, the girls never have the chance to really get into the scene so they rely on those traditional cat-like sounds. But if the director lets us do the scene uninterrupted, you can see in the woman’s performance that it’s not acting and you won’t hear those cat sounds. But I’ve never experienced the cat sounds in real life.
Do you have any funny anecdotes or stories from set you’ve never had the chance to talk about?
I don’t want to kill this for anyone but you know the movies with fecal matter? That’s not real poop. I had to do a movie like that once and the poop looked so real, I didn’t even want to touch it! There was a scene at the end where I have to take it and smear it on the girl but I didn’t want to do it! The actor ended up taking my hand and pushing it down on her.
Do you know what it was made of?
Yeah this guy gets paid so much to make it. It’s cake mix, brownies, brown sugar, corn, and some parsley. He keeps it in some tupperware, puts it in the microwave and then into a cylinder which they shoot into the girl which she later pushes out.
Well I’m glad to hear these poor women aren’t actually getting poop smeared over their bodies.
Right. There’s also those movies where there are several shots of ejaculation. That’s fake too. I’m probably killing the industry right now and I might get blacklisted now (laughs) but it’s all camera magic and special effects. I mean think about it like this, what guy do you know can cum five times and with that type of volume? It’s a lot to do.
So the cum you see in movies is fake?
If it’s outside her body it’s real but if it’s inside her mouth - I’ll speak for myself personally - it was fake. One way to make it is a mixture of egg whites, bananas, and lotion. Another way is to take a type of dry, condensed milk and mix it up with some water. The director will say cut and a guy camera will it in her mouth or vagina with a syringe. Then you go in for a minute and pretend to cum. It’s fake.
Last question. What’s your favorite film you’ve been in?
I’m not sure. The titles are always so long and obscure. I will say that I don’t want watch much porn because I always end up critiquing it.
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In his career, Victor has assumed many masks: spy and english teacher; baker and candle-stick maker. But for the first time in eight years, Victor was free to choose his fate - abounded by micromanagement or industry pressures. Hot off the heels of a successful career in AV, I asked what his plans for the Philippines might be. “Undecided,” he responded with a smile. Victor studied exercise science in college but he was also curious about taking up a role behind the camera as a director or producer. Now just one question remained: How might Victor live up to his name next?
Subscribed now lol, great read tbh. Very respectful on both sides and surprisingly enlightening