It's the end of an era. And we don't say that lightly.
Rocco Siffredi, the near-legendary European stud, arguably the most popular male performer of all time (only Ron Jeremy and John Holmes rival him for that title), is hanging up his well-traveled 13-inch sword after 18-plus years of boning into submission many of the industry's biggest female names.
"At the end of 2004, I am finished as an actor. In December I stop. It's going to be over," Siffredi exclusively told AVN on the set of his final feature film, Vivid Entertainment Group's Emperor, in November. "I will continue to work just as a director."
Siffredi, who will turn 41 on May 4, said he never wanted to become "the old guy" still trying to bang all the young girls in his movies. Thus, his retirement has been carefully planned.
In his first interview with AVN since he began his storied career in 1985, the handsome Italian star said that he would like to devote more time to his wife Rosa, a former adult actress, and two boys, Lorenzo, 8, and Leonardo, 5, who live in Budapest.
"Half of me is really sad," Siffredi said. "It's part of my incredible enjoyment of life. It has been a dream to be in this business. But I want to dedicate and turn my energy toward {Rosa}. ... It is not easy to fuck many girls all the time.
"As a man, and as a director, I need to face a new reality."
Siffredi came to Los Angeles for just the second time in the past eight years in mid-November to finish filming Emperor, a big-budget film directed by AVN Hall of Famer Paul Thomas in which he stars opposite Janine Lindemulder and Dasha. The notorious stud spread his seed on American soil for the first time since he came to LA in 2002 to film Evil Angel's smash hit The Fashionistas.
"There is no interest for me to shoot here," Siffredi said. "My way to do sex belongs to the European market."
But it was hard for Siffredi not to be interested during this trip, as Vivid trotted out a parade of ridiculously hot girls for him to fuck. Consider that during one four-day stretch, Siffredi worked with Dasha on Sunday, Nov. 14, Monique Alexander on Nov. 15, Lexie Marie on the 16th, and then Alexander and Lexie Marie together on the 17th.
Siffredi's past business trips to the States have been to perform in such critically acclaimed hits like John Leslie's Chameleons Not the Sequel and Alex De Renzy's Catwoman. He has performed scenes for directors such as Andrew Blake, Suze Randall and Fred Lincoln. Still, he said it was Evil Angel founder John "Buttman" Stagliano who was the first to give him a big-time shot here, around 1989.
"John was the first person who trust me for work in America," Siffredi said. "It's very different from Europe."
Siffredi brought the character "Dario" to life in some of Buttman's classic movies in the early-to-mid 1990s, when he traveled all over the world to shoot with him.
"For seven, eight years nobody recognized me," he recalled, "but through John Stagliano and Dario of Buttman, I became known."
Siffredi praised Stagliano for leading the gonzo movement that has now become so prevalent it occupies the majority of the market.
"John invented a new way, a new technique to shoot. Panasonic should give money to John for how many cameras they sold and all the people who have done homemade movies because of John," he said.
Siffredi's explosive sex scenes and daredevil maneuvers have raised the bar for male talent.
Veteran videographer Ralph Parfait, the director of photography for Emperor, called Siffredi "probably the most dynamic guy in the business."
"The energy he brings. There is something very unpredictable about it. He raises the girls' level of performance," Parfait told AVN. "I shot him years ago in the States. I know Rocco. I've always liked him. He's smart. He's a gentleman, and he's fairly sensitive to the girls. He's very charming."
For his part, Siffredi is aware of his place in the industry and takes great pride in his sexual performances.
"Absolutely, without pretension, I haven't seen anybody like me," Siffredi said. "Nacho {Vidal} has big passion, but since him I didn't see any other style like mine, and there have been lots of talent that seems to be without passion and don't seem to enjoy what they have in front of them."
Vivid production manager Shylar Cobi worked with Siffredi in Budapest in September and again on the set of Emperor in LA. He said the 2003 AVN Foreign Performer of the Year still shows up early for his call times.
"He's great. He has so much energy, and he brings it to the set. He's all about the sex," Cobi said.
He is one of just a handful of stars in porn that can be identified simply by a first name. Aside from Ron Jeremy, Siffredi is the most famous male porn star on the planet. He is revered like a matinee idol in Europe.
"In Budapest, it's great. It's his town. He knows all about it," Cobi continued. "We were on Hollywood Boulevard, and so many people recognized him and were yelling out to him. This week everybody wants to come on my set, and it's not because of Janine or any of the girls. I had talent offering to pay me money {to be in the film}."
Siffredi called The Fashionistas, winner of 10 AVN Awards in 2003, "My best movie ever."
But unfortunately for the retiring stud, his grand finale did not exactly go the way he would've scripted it.
"I had so much bad luck doing this movie," he admitted. For starters, Siffredi received a black eye from Vivid Girl Tawny Roberts on Day 1 of shooting in Budapest. Then he encountered Briana Banks, who, despite being anxious to work with him, was unable to give an adequate blowjob due to her jaw being injured before the scene.
"We were sitting around, {saying} what do we do? She was in too much pain," Siffredi said. "She had said it was her dream in high school to be with me. ... I'm quite disappointed about all this, to not have the result in my last project."
But what nearly leveled the whole production was Siffredi's nasty dispute with Janine that erupted after they worked together for the first time in LA. As a result, Emperor figures to be one of the most talked-about releases of this year.
"I think it will be great. I really do," director Paul Thomas said when shooting was finished. "This one was a real bear. Seven days in Europe and four days here.
"There is so much in it. There are a lot of great individual bits. The raw material I have is so good."
The highly anticipated, on-screen coupling between Janine and Rocco was incredibly intense, with the makings of a classic sex scene, but something went horribly wrong, and it spilled into the final day of shooting on Nov. 14.
While Lindemulder prefaced her comments to AVN on her 36th birthday on Nov. 14 with, "I admire Rocco a great deal for what he's given to the industry," she admitted, "this one was tough."
"It was like the alpha male and the alpha female meeting, and we clashed heads a little bit. I can handle the best of them," she said.
However, when Lindemulder heard that Siffredi had remarked to a writer that she couldn't handle the size of his dick, she took exception to it. She said that was not the reason that their scene went haywire.
"It was the roughest I've ever experienced," she said. "I'm a strong girl, and I do like my share of rough sex. But at one point in the scene, we were doing stills and I noticed he had no condom on. This is Vivid [which has a condom-only policy]. ... He crossed the line. But this is Rocco's m.o."
Lindemulder continued, "When I found out I was going to do my movie with Rocco I was excited. I was looking forward to it. I heard a lot of different things from different girls. I had never seen a Rocco scene, but I was eager, up for the challenge. I had high hopes for this. Rocco and I were talking a lot prior. We said this is going to be epic. We wanted it to be good. I wanted this to be epic. This is his last movie."
The two discussed the scene at the box cover shoot.
"He asked me if he could cut the tips off the condoms. He said, 'Do I need to wear a condom if we're doing these tests?'" Lindemulder said. "I said, 'I'm very fertile. I'm not on the pill. I'm a mother of two and I just had a baby. The condoms have to stay on."
Lindemulder maintains that they were in agreement on that point. But Siffredi disagreed, saying that Lindemulder did not make it clear to him that she didn't want him to cut the tips.
"She never said 'no,'" Siffredi told AVN.
"When I wear a rubber, the feeling goes 50 percent down. I don't feel the girl. I'm honestly speaking."
He continued, "I arrive in Los Angeles ready to do the best performance, and Janine can't take me. She's in pain. Unfortunately, the scene is not completed. We never get to finish in my way. PT (Paul Thomas) said when she fucks, it's like the center of power in Los Angeles is right there. All the energy, it's very powerful. I said, 'I better be ready, this is a strong woman.'"
Lindemulder said their scene together was "fast and furious out of the gate."
"It was definitely overwhelming. It was something I thought that I could keep up with. This was a scene that brought me to a whole different place sexually," she said. "There were elements of, I'm used to being the one in control of the situation. Rocco turned the tables on me. I wanted to be vulnerable, scared a little bit. Yes, he does have a big dick, but that was not the reason I stopped the scene. He only had a ring around his cock. He did tear the tip off the condom. I was betrayed. I felt violated. For some people, this is not a big deal. To me, it's a very big deal.
"I did give him a reason why not to do that," Janine continued. "It was a slap in my face. This is his thing. He's done this in the past. I was clueless. I had no idea this could happen. I just didn't think this could happen. I thought we had enough respect for each other as human beings. I trusted him in that situation. I was definitely susceptible of getting pregnant. We are not in Budapest."
Lindemulder said her concerns that day had nothing to do with Siffredi's size.
"I've had many big dicks. I would've kept doing the scene until I was black, blue and bloody," she continued. "He showed a disregard for my well being. Wear the fuckin' condom. It was more important for him to have the pleasure. He gave me the big 'fuck you."
The blonde-haired star said that when she discovered that Siffredi only had a ring around his cock, she immediately stopped the scene and talked to both Thomas and Siffredi.
"We finished scene the best way we could. In Rocco's defense, he's royalty. He's used to having it his way," she allowed. "In Budapest, he's used to it. No girls give him any grief."
Siffredi suggested that there was more at issue than just Lindemulder being worried about pregnancy. He said he didn't understand why Lindemulder opted out of the b/g/g with Dasha and him that was in the original script. Dasha and Lindemulder ended up working together, and then Siffredi banged Dasha later without Janine's involvement.
"Let's say I fucked it up," Siffredi said, offering a hypothetical. "Fortunately, I care. So I fucked up, and I say 'sorry' 20 times. Why the rest? What's the reason? I'm a professional. I've had girls shit on my face, shit on me for real - to break my balls and fuck with me. I didn't stop the scene. It's part of being a professional. ... I think it was that Rocco is too much. With her running away for the whole scene, in Italian, we call that bullshit. She is not a person who gives. This I see."
Siffredi addressed the issue of safety.
"I understand HIV is a huge problem," he said. "The day before I arrive I got tested. I test every three weeks. Even when I'm a director, I test because I may step into the scene," he said. "Honestly, the only reason [for not wearing a condom] was I wanted to do a great scene, with power.
"She's beautiful. If she would've been more feminine. ... She was chewing ice for two hours, eating ice for two hours. I've never seen this. She had this glass of ice for the whole scene. Where is the femininity? I am so disappointed about this. She had a chance to do a great movie."
"They pay a huge amount of money to me for this movie, an enormous amount of money," he continued. "One thing to remember, it doesn't matter who you are, or how good you are if the other half is not there. If the other half is not there, what can I do?
"This is my biggest disappointment in many years. I felt she was jealous of me. She didn't try to help out this movie. I felt like she was competing with me. She was treating me like another girl."
Siffredi said things got hot between them at the box cover shoot.
"I fuck her without rubber, we have a tape. Michael Bisco show the tape to them," he said. Since Vivid always includes the box cover shoots as DVD extras, that sex will likely be included in the release.
"I don't think she's a bad girl. She's a nice girl, incredibly sexy. I don't think she did what a professional performer could do to make the movie better instead of leaving the scene to Dasha. It was a huge disappointment.
"I love PT. He is so much a professional. I am upset that I can't pay them back. I can't pay them back, as much as I did for this movie. I'm living with some frustration."
Siffredi said that Thomas contacted him and asked him to shoot this movie because Lindemulder now is working with men and had a desire to work with him.
"I took this as a big compliment," Siffredi said. "You want the man, you call Rocco. So we decided to do this project and we had so many problems."
Thomas called the Emperor script "fantastic," adding, "we had to bend it to meet the requirements of the big stars."
"The character acting, the changes and resolutions, it's all an incredible demand to put on an erotic film," Thomas said.
As Siffredi turns to his focus to directing, he said he would have to adjust his mindset. In the past, he hardly ever worried about a scene he was shooting because he could always save it in an emergency.
"I knew I could jump in and make the scene," he said. "There are always two scenes with me that sell the movie."
Siffredi prepared for a smooth exit by shooting enough scenes in 2004 to carry him for the next two years.
"I overproduced for 2005 and 2006, so there will be new releases with me in it still," he said. "But by 2007, it's over."
