One of the first mentions of Dillon Diaz by XBIZ was when he was named “Man of the Month” several years ago by Noir Male, an imprint of Mile High Media. “They used a really great photo of you for that announcement,” I remark.
“Was it the one with the gold puffy jacket?” he inquires.
I decided if I wanted to see people like me writing and directing, I couldn’t wait for someone else to do it. I had to do it myself.
“No, it’s a silver jacket with a black collar, open to show your abs and you’re wearing a little striped bikini.”
He laughs and explains how much he enjoyed that glammed-up photo shoot. Diaz, a performer fervently committed to professional polish, enjoys every opportunity to push his own boundaries.
But unlike many of his colleagues, however, who have pivoted largely to self-produced content during the COVID-19 pandemic, Diaz remains dedicated to studio shoots.
“I really enjoy the creative process of collaborating with a team – a director, a writer, camera people, lighting people. I like having a whole team behind me to make sure I look my best and that everything is going to look beautiful once it’s all done,” he tells XBIZ.
However, he has taken careful note of the ever-growing demand for performer-produced content.
“It just requires a different set of skills and I’ve enjoyed being a collaborator. I’ve enjoyed working with people to make something. I have to get my mind around that,” he muses.
“Also, I hear that it’s not necessarily all about sex,” he continues. “Fans want an inside peek into your life on a daily basis. That would be fun — it’s scary, but also fun. I know I’m in porn and naked and having sex on camera, but I’m still shy and private. So to open myself up even more and grant even more access is a little bit scary, even though I would be in control of it.”
The market-driven push to reveal more of his personal life as he builds a fan base now runs concurrently with Diaz’s understanding that he is already closely observed — by fans and the industry alike — as a member of a quickly growing group of male performers who jump genres.
An XBIZ Awards nominee for Gay Performer of the Year, Diaz has also worked steadily for the past several years in bi, trans and straight adult. And now, with the COVID pandemic and ongoing lockdown forcing everyone into a career reassessment, Diaz has stepped out onto the ledge in a new way with a move into directing for Noir Male.
Besides COVID, Diaz notes the “reckoning” that adult now faces in the wake of ongoing social protests. The move into directing, apart from the personal and creative challenges, offered Diaz a chance to lead by example.
“We want everyone to feel like we’re stepping up to the plate to make it better,” he says.
To chronicle his thoughts and aspirations, XBIZ sat down with Diaz for an exclusive Q&A.
XBIZ: You’re one of a group of performers that XBIZ has been watching because you’re doing something that would have been considered unusual until very recently in that you’re working in a variety of genres. It doesn’t appear to have impacted your popularity or your ability to get cast.
Diaz: I just started out that way. Obviously I started in the industry at a different time, around three years ago. It may have been just a product of the times. But also, when I started, it wasn’t very long before I jumped into doing bi and trans and even a little bit of straight [studio shoots], so I think people didn’t get used to seeing me only do gay [shoots]. I was doing it all at the same time. So it wasn’t like my fan base was suddenly disappointed because they saw me working with women. I was doing that right from the start.
XBIZ: What has been the response?
Diaz: I haven’t really experienced backlash from fans or from studios. Obviously I don’t hide anything that I’m doing. They can see my Twitter and see what work I’ve done. I’m just excited to keep getting the bookings. There might have been someone who said, “That’s not really my thing.” That was fine. That person likes seeing me in the gay genre; there’s plenty of [gay] work for him to enjoy. He doesn’t have to watch the stuff he’s not into.
XBIZ: You’d assume people would just think about it that way. But they don’t; traditionally, it’s been an issue up until very recently, when guys like you, Lance Hart, Wolf Hudson, Dante Colle, Pierce Paris and really only a couple of other guys started appearing in all kinds of genres and you got more popular.
Diaz: Yeah!
XBIZ: It’s been amazing to see so many guys – more all the time – do that. Did you go into this wanting to work in all genres?
Diaz: No. Before working in adult entertainment, I identified as gay and so my first scenes were gay porn. And pretty quickly the opportunity to delve into trans and bi was presented to me. My first time with a trans woman was on camera; my first time with a cis woman was on camera [laughs]. I found that I enjoyed it. Bi work has become my favorite because it’s the best of both worlds; I get both right there. In my personal life, I pretty much identify as gay, but I do enjoy having sex with cis women — and transgender women and transgender men. It’s all about the sensations.
XBIZ: Over the past year, performers have clearly found a lot of freedom and agency in filming their own content during the pandemic lockdowns. They’ve talked about no longer feeling boxed in or forced to present themselves a certain way to get cast.
Diaz: I’ve never felt I had to conform. I’m aware some guys have had problems, especially if they started off as gay and tried to do anything else. They had some backlash and I thought, well, maybe I’ll get some, too. But I didn’t let that stop me. And when it didn’t happen, I thought, “All right. Cool! That’s one less thing I have to deal with!” [Laughs]
XBIZ: That’s great. And it’s a bigger audience for you.
Diaz: Exactly! It’s definitely nice to have that freedom. I also think that it’s part of the times. There’s a lot of fluidity with sexuality these days. People aren’t necessarily conforming to being with one type of person or one type of act. I feel like the kids today, as they come into adulthood and start having sex, have less boundaries. They’re just open to more and it’s being reflected in the porn that we’re putting out.
XBIZ: How has social media become a part of how you conduct your career, especially during the pandemic?
Diaz: I’m still learning how to do that. Instagram was easy; you literally just post a picture, maybe a little description or a little something. Most people don’t even read it anyway. You just post that picture and keep going. Twitter requires a bit more thought. Certain pictures attract more attention; you have to think about how to say what you want to say. Twitter is complicated for me and requires a lot more work. When I first started using it, I would sit there and spend countless hours on my phone until I figured it out. “Okay, I’m going to post something and I’m going to walk away and let people respond to it.” And then I’d come back later and [the tweet] was just sitting there! To keep working it and working it all the time was overwhelming to me.
XBIZ: Counting “likes” and measuring engagements can be exhausting.
Diaz: I see Twitter as more interactive. I post questions and try to pose them in a way so people can react instead of just looking and then scrolling away. I’m still learning how to do that. I’m not one of the more outspoken performers. I’m somewhat reclusive. When I look at guys like Drew Dixon —
XBIZ: Oh, yes.
Diaz: He is like an open book! His life is all out there. I love checking him out and reading his posts, but I’m not like that. I’m trying to find a middle ground where I’m still true to myself, but also let people get to know me better.
XBIZ: Or Pierce Paris. Those clips he makes —
Diaz: Oh, my god! Pierce is so much fun. He puts so much energy into his [clips]. He invited me to do one of them. We had a “butt plug tug-of-war.” We took two ends of a jump rope and stuck one up my ass and one up his ass and had a tug-of-war. The things that he thinks of — it’s amazing.
XBIZ: It requires a special kind of exhibitionism.
Diaz: Yeah. He’s an entertainer, really, not just a sexual performer.
XBIZ: That’s an interesting distinction to draw. So one of the reasons we’re talking today is because you’ve recently moved into directing.
Diaz: I did, yeah.
XBIZ: Talk about that. How was that transition from being part of a team to leading the team?
Diaz: It was an idea that was presented by Jon Blitt, VP of Mile High Media, which owns Noir Male. Earlier last year, when everything went crazy because of the pandemic lockdown, and the #BLM movement was building, it was a time of reckoning everywhere — not just our country, but the entire world. And the porn industry was no exception.
XBIZ: Absolutely.
Diaz: We saw people being called out for racist hiring practices [and] wages. Other performers were being called out for racist comments. Jon got the idea to start having some roundtables with some of the regulars who have worked with Noir Male to discuss these problems and what the studio could be doing better. One of the ideas he came up with was having us do “guest director” spots. I think I was one of the first ones to do it.
XBIZ: How did it go?
Diaz: It was a really interesting experience. I learned a lot from it. I definitely want to do it again. I had the help of Ricky Greenwood. He was amazing with making sure everything stayed on track and that I didn’t make any tremendous mistakes.
XBIZ: He’s also someone who jumps around into different genres.
Diaz: He gave me some good advice right at the start and then he stepped back and let me take control of it. One of the things he said was, “You need to have a very clear vision of what you want and present that to your team and keep them focused on that vision.” Up until then, I was a collaborator. I would speak to the director or the rest of the team and say, “How about we do this? Or what about trying that? Maybe I can —”
XBIZ: You can’t do that as a director.
Diaz: Ricky was like, “No. If you do that, your team is going to walk all over you. You need to walk out there with your vision.” If there’s a problem or something comes up and you can’t stick to your vision and you need to veer away from it —
XBIZ: Then you rely on your team.
Diaz: Yeah, that’s when you get the input from your team. But when you walk through the door, you have to have a clear idea of what you want. I had to put aside my collaborative hat and put on a boss’s hat. That took a minute, but I got there. It was a lot of fun.
XBIZ: How involved were you in directing your actors?
Diaz: The best part — maybe it’s because I’m a performer — was working with the actors. I gave them directions on how I wanted them to present themselves, certain words that should have emphasis. Working one-on-one like that was fun.
XBIZ: Who did you have?
Diaz: Zario Travezz and August Alexander. I also wrote a script that same shooting schedule for me and Nic Sahara; Ricky directed that one. I’m excited to see both.
XBIZ: How did you work with them as both actors and sexual performers and blend them together?
Diaz: I also had the help of [production manager] Nick Fitt and everybody at Noir Male. All of the scenes they do have a little bit of script as a setup before the sex. So anyone who’s worked at Noir Male has to do some acting; Zario has been doing it for awhile and he’s really good at it. August is newer and so it took more work to be comfortable and relaxed. It was a learning process to go through that with them.
XBIZ: Do you enjoy acting?
Diaz: I am completely a behind-the-scenes person. When I first got into this and started getting scripts, it was a strange thing to kind of just — let go.
XBIZ: I understand.
Diaz: I learned quickly! [laughs] I don’t want to mess up. I want everything I do to look good. But acting was completely out of my comfort zone. And I ended up really enjoying the process of doing it. It was an opportunity to see myself in a completely different way.
XBIZ: That’s always worth it.
Diaz: And now I’ve had the opportunity to coach somebody else through it. Zario was very comfortable; he got the script and he was ready to go. He instinctively knew how to make it look and sound natural. August took more warming up, but it was fun to go through that with him.
XBIZ: People don’t realize you can’t behave like you normally do. When you’re on camera, you have to be a little bit bigger than normal, otherwise it just comes across as flat.
Diaz: Sometimes it really feels like you’ve overdone it. But then you look at it on video and you realize, “Oh, that was just enough.” Or, “I could have gone a little bit farther.”
XBIZ: What was the scenario with Zario and August?
Diaz: They’re neighbors. Zario is out there, working in his yard, barely dressed.
XBIZ: Of course.
Diaz: [laughs] Of course. And August is checking him out from his kitchen window. Anyway, August plays a little trick. He puts a package on Zario’s porch and Zario brings it over and one thing leads to another. It turns out Zario is a house flipper and he was going to be in-and-out pretty quickly, so if August wants to make this happen, he needs to do it quickly.
XBIZ: Raise the stakes.
Diaz: And for me, being a person of color and after having certain [problematic] scripts presented to me, I wanted to make sure that I presented them with a script that celebrated Black male sexuality and didn’t stereotype them. I wanted both of these guys to be affluent homeowners. Zario [plays] an entrepreneur; I wanted both of these guys to be in control of their lives and comfortable with their sexuality. I didn’t want it to be a DL situation.
XBIZ: Right.
Diaz: Which is not to say that some of that [DL] stuff isn’t sexy and doesn’t have its place in porn. But for what we’re doing today at Noir Male, I wanted to keep it on a certain level. Jon [Blitt] definitely heard feedback from fans and he’s aware of how some people view the site and their issues with it and he wants to fix those issues. It wasn’t just lip service. He really wanted to make a change and make it better for everyone involved – the people working on it and the people watching it.
Now is definitely the time to make those changes. We thought 2020 was a strange year, but look how 2021 has started [off]. Who knows what’s next? When I started out and I’d go to work, I was usually the only person of color there. I was born and raised in New York, where everything was around me — every nationality, every religion. That was part of my life. So to show up on set and be the only person of color was interesting. I decided if I wanted to see people like me writing and directing, I couldn’t wait for someone else to do it. I had to do it myself. When Jon presented me the opportunity, I thought, “Okay, I might be a little bit scared. I might not really have a whole lot of experience with this, but I’m just going to do it and see what happens.”
