This feature appears in the May issue of AVN magazine.
LAUREL CANYON, Calif.—Despite their importance to the process, male talent are often overlooked compared to their female counterparts. It’s taken 20 years for adult performer-turned-director Seth Gamble to achieve recognizability as a multi-award winning leading male performer, actor and director.
His clean cut, hunky looks lend themselves to lots of roles—horny businessman, hot stepdad, devious boyfriend, and dysfunctional husband. But it wasn’t always like that for Gamble, the 2011 AVN Best Male Newcomer, 2023 AVN Male Performer of the Year and multiple Best Actor winner, who started out in the industry when male talent were sometimes referred to as “meat puppets.”
Gamble’s largest production to date, in collaboration with legacy studio Wicked Pictures, is titled Once Upon a Time in The Valley. In it, Gamble is writing a love letter to the stars of the late ‘90s gonzo era and recalling the experiences of being a new kid in town.
Loosely autobiographical, Gamble said what he envisioned for the movie has elements of PT Anderson’s iconic 1992 porn ensemble epic Boogie Nights and, obviously, is also a nod to Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.
“You know, this industry—this is my nineteenth year in the business. Yeah. I've been doing this since I was eighteen years old. My entire adult life in adult, you know what I mean? So, I wanted to tell a story,” Gamble told AVN.
The location for the last day of the nine-day shoot was a mid-Century ranch style house in Laurel Canyon, not far from the Wonderland Murders house, infamous for a 1981 case involving XXX legend John Holmes that was chronicled in 2003’s Wonderland, when Holmes was portrayed by the late actor Val Kilmer.
“A lot of movies come out about porn and I felt like this was a movie that tells true stories within a fictional world, but is still a very entertaining, exciting movie without it trying to paint a picture of us as good or bad or evil. Right? It's just kind of painting us as human, with comedy and drama and really strong characters.”
“This movie is male-led and female-led as well, but like, very male-led,” Gamble added. “Parker's voiceover in the story playing me—he's been in the business only a few years. It was important to me to be able to take all the experience I had, all the things I did, and [cast] two guys that I really like as human beings... To me, really, it's probably one of the most gratifying things about this feature.”
“It was different time, though. Like when I got in the business, the male performers were a fraternity, you know, and they didn't make it easy on you,” he recalled.
Up-and-coming performer Parker Ambrose plays Steve Jacobs, the role based on a young Gamble. An Air Force veteran, Ambrose studied cinematography at school before getting into adult. He confessed he’d been a fan and familiar with stars like Abella Danger and others, later realizing that Gamble may have appeared in content he’d watched as a teen.
The 27-year old is in the sophomore phase of his career since first appearing in 2023, and has learned how to showcase his scene partners, deliver dialogue convincingly, and to “open up” for the camera, allowing close-up shots of sex action. “So, definitely—like your first year—I was just like star-struck by everything. Nervous for every single shoot,” he laughed. “Like, I still get nervous for shoots, especially when big projects like this come up. But it's definitely gotten a lot easier.”
“I'm very blessed with my work I actually get—not every male talent is in my position. So, I feel very honored and blessed that I got the kind of work and the amount of shoots I got for the first year. It was like the opening scenes of Harry Potter, everything's like all brand-new and so magical and like crazy? That's definitely how the first year is every time you walk on the set. Then, year two and three you start honing your craft really and start bringing it, in learning who you are as a talent,” Ambrose said.
Another newcomer, Ken Feels, plays Jake Python. With two years of scenes under his belt, Feels entered the industry at 40, as a sex education influencer who was creating instructional adult content for his social media platform, “All the Feels.”
“It's been super fulfilling, really rewarding, incredibly fun,” Feels said of his professional experience so far. “I love it. I love it—and the people are incredible. Yeah, it really is like a great community and collection of people. Almost everyone's super-nice and warm and welcoming and fun and cool and hot.”
Another strong male character, Rick Strokes, is played by multi-awarded performer-director Michael Vegas. With his naturally curly hair ironed flat, he was dressed in a monogramed black satin bathrobe, briefs, pink plastic glasses, and cowboy boots, as he paced up and down the driveway of the house for a dialogue scene and yelled, “Boo-yah!” repeatedly, at the end of multiple takes. Sinatra Monroe, who plays Red in the movie, ran up and down the driveway in platforms, walking into the scene to say one line.
Vegas enjoyed bringing a big dose of flamboyant Alpha-male energy to the role of Strokes.
“This character was actually still around when I joined adult films,” Vegas said, “and I did get to meet him in person, and I have worked alongside him. So, like, I definitely know who I am when I'm doing the role. It's so fun. It's so fun to get to be that person. What a character!”
“I love being a performer for a day. I love being a performer for a week,” Vegas continued emphatically. “I absolutely love being in front of camera and performing. It's why I came here. I love showing off on camera. I love doing scenes with partners. I love having sex on camera, and I love making real movies and acting.”
Playing opposite such a strong masculine presence, the movie’s roster of actresses is equally impressive. Jennifer White is the female lead in the role of Lotta, who is based on a mash-up of the ‘90’s top female contract stars. Like in real life for White and Gamble, Lotta is good friends with Steve though they have sex at work.
“It's like an element of us getting closer and closer, over the course of the movie. We do a sex scene together but it's more platonic, and they're focusing more on that aspect,” White described of Lotta and Ambrose’s character. “I think it's more real. I think that's kind of how we are. When we're not on set, we're not sexual like that anymore, so, it touches on that, which I find pretty cool. I think it definitely showcases [the relationships] pretty well, and I like that part of it.”
She and Gamble have known each other since she started in the industry 17 years ago. They bonded over a shared background in theater arts. “He's a very good director. I'm really proud of him. He's super passionate about it, and he's a fun performer, too. Great to watch.”
“Jennifer has just been an incredible addition,” Gamble said. “I'm so excited to have her play this role—the arc of this character who's basically a woman in the industry who's got it all. She's the top of her craft and she's just unhappy, and it's just, it's not enough. It's just not enough. It's finally at that point in her career where there are other girls like Blake’s character who comes in the industry. She likes Blake, [who’s] going to be the next her.”
Blake Blossom plays Paris, the up-and-coming ingénue in Once Upon a Time in the Valley. Blossom also was the lead in Wicked feature Iris, directed by Gamble.
“I definitely think me and Seth, we both view acting as a very integral part of porn because, I mean, granted, you can have someone who's really sexy and do a sexy tease. But, most people who watch porn, they kind of need some lead-up to the story, per se, or they need to know who's who. So, to have that story element there is really, really, really important,” she explained.
“You know, in the age of content, I think it's kind of like junk food. It's not like the fine delicacy that we're making here,” Blossom added.
In the Hollywood Hills on a chilly evening, they’re making movies. White had been on-set since 11:30 a.m. and still had to perform an outdoor sex scene in 60-degree weather. A pile of Lucifer’s Pizza boxes were piled on the kitchen counter with enough pizza for 20-odd cast and crew. Production manager Marc Star processed paperwork at the dining room table. Laughter could be heard from the spare bedroom where the make-up artist was set up, and performers sprawled on couches checked their phones in the break between scenes.
There are, perhaps, more women in roles behind the camera than there would have been in the ‘90s. Gamble’s production partner, cinematographer Siren Obscura, came to adult from the influencer world where she produced content for social media, eventually finding herself on the all-girl production team for adult star and influencer Riley Reid.
“I love this industry. I feel like I ran the gamut for four and a half years, five years here in Los Angeles and never felt that the space that I was in was right and that I could make a difference in the space or make my voice heard, because in big production and mainstream, you're just a cog in a machine,” Obscura said. “And I feel like my ability to bring something different to the space is really important.”
Also behind the scenes, Jessica Jasmin inherited her role at Wicked after years working with director Axel Braun, the Hall of Fame auteur behind the legacy studio’s popular superhero parody titles. It was Braun that took Gamble under his wing as a director, before retiring and entrusting Wicked’s production to the new generation of filmmakers.
“You know, Seth had this idea for the past two years that he wanted to shoot, and for me, it was talking about the ‘90s era of porn. It's like, the beginning of the big stars and the big, big exclusive stars for Wicked as well, so I felt like that was a great story to tell,” Jasmin said.
“What we're trying to do with Wicked is, like, we're very narrative. We're making movies here, so, the sex has to have a reason to exist within the narrative of the movie. But what we try to do is not only that, but to have great sex scene, you know, like, really chemistry between the models, people just having fun through the sex scene.
“I think the way to do it is just to make projects like this one right now. Just have those big projects that people are excited about. You know, like, I think what makes the difference with Wicked is everybody's passionate about the content. Everybody here is happy, excited to be part of it. And that's what I need for Wicked, honestly. I need people that care about the content,” Jasmin added.
Once Upon A Time in The Valley, which will be released in June, also stars Gal Ritchie, Cherry Kiss, Ameena Green, Queenie Sateen, Stella Luxx, Melissa Stratton, Isiah Maxwell, Zac Wild, Nathan Bronson and Christian Clay; and in dialogue roles, Chris Streams, Derrick Pierce, Andi Avalon, Lana Smalls, Alison Rey, Daniel Shar, James Bartholet, Jack Vegas, Marcelo Magnifico, and Tommy Pistol.
Photography by Natasha Inamorata
