A version of this article originally ran in AVN Men magazine. Click here to see the digital edition.
By his own admission, 2018 wasn’t the best year for Adam Ramzi. Thankfully, things quickly turned around for the award-wining performer as the year came to a close, leading him to a 2019 to remember.
“If I’m going to be honest, 2018 was actually a really, really difficult year for me. In so many ways. And it wrapped up in a way where everything just kind of went a total 180. I ended up becoming more involved in music again,” he says. “And then 2019 was amazing, one of my best years ever, just personally and professionally. Things have just been really good, and I’ve been inspired to make 2020 sort of next level.”
Ramzi went to Burning Man in 2018 as part of its mental health crisis intervention team, which proved to be a turning point.
“In 2018, I went through a pretty hard breakup, and my supervisor in my mental health career had died very unexpectedly, so I kind of went to Burning Man this very defeated person,” he says. “And after I got back, everything that I seemed to be doing was coming to a bit of a standstill. I wasn’t in the best shape, I wasn’t feeling great physically, my new boyfriend finally moved out after many, many months of trying to figure out how that was going to work out. I was sort of like, ‘Wow, I literally have no idea what to do now.’”
And it was right around that time that an angel came to him—in the form of singer Ioanna Gika.
“I had been working with her on and off for the past 10 years. I had mostly worked with her as almost like a creative consultant on this album that she has been putting together. Any time her and her writing partner were stuck on something, they’d be like, ‘Would you mind coming over, listening to some stuff, maybe giving us some ideas?’ And I was like, ‘Of course!’ For me, it was just an opportunity to hang out with friends. It almost felt like couples counseling, but in a creative capacity, because I would ask them certain questions about their intentions, like ‘Did you want this chorus to sound like this? Why?’”
Fast forward to 2019, Gika had released that album last April and signed on for a tour last October. She asked Ramzi if he would join her onstage, and he jumped at the opportunity.
“She’s been doing a bunch of little acts in support of that album, and I’m her kind of multi-instrumentalist, and this time she got a five-week tour across the continent opening for Chelsea Wolfe, so we just wrapped that up in late November.”
It was a creative outlet that Ramzi was excited to revisit.
“Before I became part of the adult industry, I was actually pretty regularly playing music. When I went back to grad school and I started doing porn, there just wasn’t as much time, so I kind of had to shelf that side of things.”
Shortly after Gika approached him in 2018, another opportunity fell into Ramzi’s lap when producers/writers/actors Kit Williamson and John Halbach of the Netflix series EastSiders came calling.
“They actually asked me years ago to be in their second season when it was still just a web series, and so I appear in the second season for literally about a minute … then they reached out to me (in 2018) and were like, ‘So, we’re gonna film a final fourth season and we’re bringing your character back for like four episodes. Are you interested in reprising the role?’ And I was like. ‘… of course.’”
The final season aired on the platform in December 1 of last year, right after Ramzi finished with his tour for Gika.
“I got to do most of my scenes with John, and it was really amazing to engage with them in this creative dynamic as opposed to just a friendship dynamic; it was like blending the two in a way. And they got so many names in the queer talent circle of L.A. involved, so it was a real honor to be among them. It was really, really special, and I got to see it on the big screen at the premiere. I have one particular episode in which I’m pretty heavily featured, and so it was nice to be able to watch to and be like, ‘Wow, this actually turned out really good!’ I tend to cringe when I look at myself on camera, and get worried about all of the choices I made, wondering about things I could have done differently.”
Ramzi was also approached by Peaches Christ about doing a show with Trixie Mattel in December of 2018, completing a whirlwind turnaround that saw the performer get his groove back.
“All of a sudden my life was filled with creativity, so I was like, ‘You know what? Yes to all of it!’” he laughs. “I just kind of liked seized those opportunities, and all of a sudden I feel like those experiences led me into 2019, in which everything sort of became about grabbing opportunities where I can, flexing my creative muscle a little bit, and getting some ideas of how I want the future to work.”
For Ramzi, it seems that there’s always a golden opportunity that pops up.
“I have been fortunate to have a lot of people who I know that are much better at being go-getters than I am—very creative people who include me in their vision … luckily, I have met a lot of people who are super creative who like having me around on set. I like to make a joke that for a while there, I was being a music video whore because I filmed a lot of music videos in the past year for several different queer artists. I’m just splattered all over YouTube in a variety of ways,” Ramzi laughs. “And none of them are my own. I’m always a guest in somebody else’s vision.”
Another friend, actor Sam Pancake, put together a queer industry storytelling night that included Darryl Stevens from Noah’s Arc and Drew Droege, who does the Chloë Sevigny impersonations on YouTube.
“He let me come on and be like the porn guy. So I actually got to do like a little 12-minute spiel where I got to tell a story of what it’s like to be in the porn industry, and I even used my GayVN Award as part of the bit, so that was fun.” (Ramzi won the Fan Award for Favorite Daddy at the 2019 GayVN Awards and is again nominated this year for Best Supporting Actor and Favorite Daddy.)
The busy calendar has put Ramzi’s counseling career on hold, but it’s still a passion he wants to pursue.
“Currently it’s at a bit of a standstill. I’m not seeing clients for about a year now. After my supervisor passed away, I had an acting supervisor for minute, but we just weren’t really a match, and my clients sort of dried up. I just didn’t put that much effort into continuing. And I figure, you know what? Right now, the energy that I need to expend has to be on my personal matters and building my future. So I’m just going to put that aside right now and see what happens,” he shares.
“That said, I was able to be involved in that world at Burning Man again (last) year, and I actually felt way more present for it that I did (in 2018). I was able to do some really good work for people, and I’m hoping that in 2020, depending on how certain projects go, I might look for another position somewhere to continue the mental health work.”
Meanwhile, he’s still (thank God!) doing porn.
“I feel really, really good about the porn work that I’ve done this year. Because again, in a weird way, the past year and a half or so, I would say 95 percent of the porn work that I have done has had some kind of creative element to it. So being able to work with Chi Chi LaRue and mr. Pam and Steve Cruz—and then in January I’ll be working with Davey Wavey again—it feels amazing that these directors can trust me to not only turn in a good porn performance, but to also show up emotionally for some of these things.”
Including a recent role in a high-profile feature where Ramzi played a priest. Again.
“Not only the second time as a priest, but the second time as a priest sharing a scene with Calvin Banks!” he laughs of his role in NakedSword’s Scared Stiff 2: The Amityville Whore, which followed his appearance in CockyBoys’ award-winning All Saints. “I even asked them, ‘Are you sure it will be okay?’ And they were like, ‘We don’t give a shit! Let’s do this!’ So I was like, ‘Okay!’ I have no idea what it is about me that says ‘priest.’ There’s a dad element to all of it I think, so it’s kind of funny. I was so honored that I got to show up and be stupid and recite lines written by the legendary Jackie Beat.”
A few weeks later, he was on location in Northern California to work with Steve Cruz for the Timberwolves sequel, something the duo had discussed for years,
“To actually pull that off, and for it to be this kind of gut-wrenching moment that I wasn’t even expecting—something happened and I sort of started crying a little on camera—it was a nice reminder that porn can sometimes take it there. I saw the trailer and I was excited to see what we were going to pull off in terms of this very serious horror film, and the dudes are so beautiful it’s ridiculous. So it was nice to be involved in Steve being at the top of his game.”
But Ramzi admits that this part of his life may not occupy as much of his time anymore.
“I feel like the porn work is waning a little bit, and I kind of like that I’m leaving it for just things that I feel a little inspired by. Chi Chi actually said something really sweet to me the last time we worked together, which I think was for (Icon Male’s) Uncle Bobby. He said something like, ‘Every time I work with you on a movie, it feels like an event, because you don’t do it as much as a lot of the other performers do, so every time you do do it, I know I’m going to get something quality from you,’” Ramzi recalls.
“It was just a nice thing to hear from a legend in the business, you know? It meant a lot to me, so I was like, you know what? I’m not going to book a bunch of shoots just for the sake of it. Thankfully, I’m currently in a position where I don’t financially need it, but who knows—that could always change. Things are very uncertain in these times, so I might be breaking Steve’s door down to hire me for something.”
In the meantime, Ramzi had a shoot planned in Austin with Davey Wavey for Himeros site.
“I’m looking forward to that. I think it’s going to be very interesting and challenging. He did one episode in the series already with Wesley Woods and Chris Harder. There’s usually a theme to it, and it has something to do with relationships. The erotic element is going to be available on his Himeros website, but the non-erotic content is all YouTube friendly. What I saw of it looked very, very emotional—and it was very nice to see Wesley tap into that side of him as well, because I adore him. This is going to be the second part of that, so I get to do some acting again as well as some fucking—two of my favorite things!”
