Nick Manning Stars in Mainstream Film <i>Cherry Bomb</i>

LOS ANGELES—Adult performer Nick Manning recently landed his first lead role in a non-adult movie, starring as a sleazy strip-club owner in the indie film Cherry Bomb.

“I’ve been in a lot of mainstream flicks, but this is the first time I was actually leading man in the movie,” said Manning, who was on location shooting in Austin, Texas for most of March.

Manning said the R-rated horror film is like an updated version of I Spit on Your Grave, the controversial rape and revenge movie released by Cinemagic Pictures in 1980. In Cherry Bomb, the lead character Cherry (Julin Jean) gets gang-raped in the VIP room of a club owned by Ian Benedict (Manning), and then returns to gorily kill all the guys that committed the crime.

“What was interesting was kind of how it all came about. I was in Crank 2 last year and [the Cherry Bomb producers] are big fans and they saw me and told me they were producing an independent film in Austin,” Manning said. “So they called me up and cast me for the lead role. I’m the creep, one of the guys that gang rapes her. By the time I rape her she was knocked out.”

Manning says that his signature porno line “dropping loads” finds its way into the movie when his character gets blown away in dramatic fashion. Cherry says, “I’m going to drop a load on this motherfucker” before Benedict’s demise.

“Even in mainstream we truly are pop culture,” Manning reasoned. “Every movie I do they find a way to get ‘dropping loads’ into it.”

Manning said he came away impressed with the filmmakers, including director Kyle Day and executive producer Jason Latimer.

“These guys have never done a full-length feature before,” Manning said. “We finished on time and it was really well done. The guy knew his shit, even the sound guy was good.”

Manning said at press time the movie was being shopped around for distribution.

“It was fun, I missed having sex for that long, but it was a great experience,” said the AVN Award-winner for Best Male Newcomer in 2003 who has become one of the top performers in adult. “It’s very anticlimactic after you’ve done your dialogue you don’t get rewarded, you just go home. You’re like, ‘there’s something missing here.’”

Manning said he got Vivid Girl A.J. Bailey a cameo appearance as a stripper in Cherry Bomb. He'll be seen later this year as the Dark Knight character in Bluebird Films’ big-budget, action feature Batfucks.

Visit CherryBombFilm.com for more information about the movie.