If a consumer is looking for couples porn, there’s one slam-dunk direction they can go to: Wicked Pictures. And the quintessential “couples director” is Stormy Daniels. In addition to the romance movies she does for the Wicked Passions line, Daniels also brings a comedic touch to her other Wicked movies, adapting the screwball comedy aesthetic for adult entertainment.
AVN was on set for a Stormy Daniels production in December, but it turned out that this driven, hard-working performer/director was actually making two movies that day. But she had time to sit down on her lunch break to talk about her process, offering insight into how she had worked her way up to her seventy-sixth movie and her hundredth script.
One of the movies was a departure: her first all-girl feature in several years. The mansion in which she was shooting was filled with hot A-list performers, including Asa Akira, Chanel Preston, Lexi Belle and Dana DeArmond.
Since Daniels does features, she said, she doesn’t do nearly as many girl/girl scenes—let alone an all-girl movie. “Lesbian sex just doesn’t break out as commonly as hetero sex” in her storylines. For this movie, titled Girls’ Night, the action involves a lesbian couple about to get married. “I thought there were a lot of people out there who could appreciate that and who are probably experiencing that now or know someone who is and who can relate. The movie starts off with me and my fiancée [Alison Tyler] … we’ve been together for a long time and now we can legally be together, so she sends me off for my bachelorette party.”
“We have drinks and we go to a club and there’s another couple and we’re telling stories—how did you and such-and-such meet? So we’re telling stories and the scenes are flashbacks.” The story is told through the eyes of the straight girl in the group, Daniels said. “We do end in the cliched slumber party pillow fight but it doesn’t really happen. … It’s her nightmare/dream. She wakes up and realizes it didn’t really happen.”
She also gave a short synopsis of Getting Cozy, a title for the Wicked Passions line that stars Allie Haze and Michael Vegas. It’s a story of hate at first sight on a blind date: “They’re both miserable so they kinda get forced upon each other,” Daniels explained. “They drink too much and they end up in bed together—we don’t see their sex scene—they wake up and they still hate each other.” But thanks to a turn in the weather, they’re snowed in for the weekend. … So they’re forced to get to know each other … and of course it works out.”
Wicked Pictures contract performer Asa Akira walked into the room and Daniels said, “Asa, tell AVN what you did today.”
“I put something in Stormy’s butt,” Akira replied. “But I’m still thinking about the perfect tweet. It has to be worded perfectly.”
Stormy and Asa’s scene was a flashback; Stormy is at a party being hassled by a guy, and another man comes along to rescue her … and draw her into a threesome with his wife (Akira).
The “something“ turns out to be a black glass dildo … and a thumb. It was payback for the last movie they did together, Pretty Dangerous, an action thriller in which Akira was hung upside down and then tossed about on a speed boat. “I’m scared of everything. Unless there’s a penis in my mouth, I’m scared of everything.”
Daniels, on the other hand, seems scared of very little. “Asa says I’m mean,” Daniels said. “At first she said you’re the meanest director by far. Then she took it back and said, you’re the scariest. I’m going to rewrite her statement. She meant to say that I’m the most intimidating, because I’m the best.”
As the crew was getting ready for the next scene, Daniels switched her focus. “Let’s boom the room for the background sound.” Then she turned her attention back to the interview. “I directed 11 movies this year and 11 movies last year.”
But that output comes at a price. “I never get a break. I write a script, break it down, do the shoot schedule, do the prop list, do the wardrobe list, book everyone myself on my productions—I do it 100 percent myself; I make every phone call. I book all my own locations. I type everything myself, send everything out. Budget, shoot schedule, everything. I star in half of what I shoot. And I do my own stunts. Then I come here and I shoot the movie.”
Then, because husband Brendon Miller edits about half of her movies, “they come home with me. He’s in one room editing it, and guess what? Now it’s time to write my script because in four weeks I’m shooting again and it takes a week to get it approved. It never stops.”
What movies does she like to make best? That would be comedy. “Yelling at naked people is fun, but I consider myself first and foremost to be a writer. … It all starts with that seed. And when I write a movie it plays in my head. I’m pretty confident saying that ninety percent of the time the movie that’s here [pointing to her head] is what I end up with in the end.”
But as a mother, she said, “It’s really hard to write scripts … it’s ‘Mom, Mom,’ so I do most of my writing when I’m feature dancing. I’ve got nothing to do all day but sit there and write in peace and quiet.”
If she’s not shooting comedy, she’s probably shooting a romance. “Even today, because we’re shooting two movies—a regular Wicked Pictures movie and the other’s a Passions movie,” she explained. And before shooting she always reminds her crew—a group of regulars she’s worked with for years—that they’re doing a Passions movie. “It’s not as graphic. We always want to see the full body of the guy; we don’t want to cut the guy’s head off. It’s a different way of shooting and editing; we light it a bit differently.”
But after musing a bit, she admitted that she also loves working on an action movie. “I’m most excited about blowing shit up. They don’t let me do that nearly as often. It’s a special day when I get to punch someone or blow something up.”
Jack Vegas walked by. A performer who also does production work, he’s a regular on Daniels’ sets. “Jack, say something nice about me to AVN,” she joked. They talked about how they plan out stunts, working things out even when they’re both on the road for Daniels’ feature dancing gigs. Vegas did the fight choreography for Pretty Dangerous, and he also put a lot of time into another stunt that didn’t quite come off: a scene where the stars use a zipline to make their escape. But Vegas was the only one who tried it out. “I wanted to see if you could safely do it, and it turns out you couldn’t,” he said wryly.
But for Daniels, it’s all about the written word. “I always want to make sure my scripts are believable—that they’re never cliched porno scripts. … I don’t do parodies because I don’t want to drive away my couples fans.”
And indeed, the fans have stayed. Happily ever after.
