LAS VEGAS — As a director, you can count on Ike Diezel to be prepared.
The night before a shoot, Diezel makes sure his lenses are clean, his batteries are charged, his memory cards are formatted — and that he has enough douches for his performers, having already touched base with their agents the day before. He also checks to make sure that all of his paperwork is organized and that W-9s have been printed out for the cast and crew.
Perhaps most importantly, he makes sure he has the right kind of lube for each performer, as many request specific brands.
"Fortunately, I perform too, so I know what performers want," says Diezel. "It's the directors who have never performed before who have no idea what the performers want. Most want Pjur because they hate cheap lube."
Diezel has indeed been on both sides of the camera, having begun performing about 15 years ago. He enjoyed a steady career in front of the camera for his first five years, before acquiring a taste for directing in 2015 and spending the past decade honing his chops. He still shoots content and performs on occasion, but these days he is more focused on calling "Action!" than getting action.
Focus is important to Diezel. If bills need to be paid or groceries need to be bought, he makes sure to take care of all of that ahead of a shoot so he isn't distracted during production. It also helps that he owns his own equipment, including a Sony camera, sound gear and a lighting package. That way, he rarely has to deal with outside vendors on the day before a shoot, typically a busy one for him.
He also tries to get a good night's sleep, as he knows he'll need his energy the following day. Working out helps with that.
"I'll go to the gym the day before and run a couple miles," he shares.
Diezel typically wakes up early — as in 5:30 a.m. — to check the gold and silver markets, but luckily for his cast, he lets them sleep in a bit.
"A lot of directors will start shooting at 7 or 8 a.m.." he notes. "But I prefer 10 or 10:30 a.m. because in my personal opinion, I don't think girls want to wake up at 7 a.m. and go fuck a stranger."
As a weightlifter, food is important to Diezel, so he tries to be mindful of that on set.
"I let people order whatever they want on set, within reason," he says. "But a lot of the girls just get smoothies. Or they'll order a full meal and then just leave it in the microwave for tomorrow."
The female performers arrive on set around 10:30 a.m. and spend 60-90 minutes getting their hair and makeup done while a PA helps Diezel prep the set. He says it's rare that male talent will spend time in the hair and makeup trailer unless it's a big feature, which might require a bruise or a tattoo to be covered up — though he tends to shy away from features.
"There's too much ego in the features," he confides. "I can't be on sets where people take themselves super serious. It drives me nuts. That's my pet peeve."
Diezel prefers to maintain a looser vibe on set.
"A lot of directors have a real firm schtick, but my method as a director is to try and make it feel like everyone's hanging out with their friends," he says. "Which might sound unprofessional, but it's actually difficult to pull off.
"Usually I'll get a vibe for what kind of music everyone listens to and get some good music going," adds Diezel, who has played guitar since he was 12. "I think it's really weird being on sets where there's no music. It's just silence with a bunch of strangers!
"I like to play metal," he elaborates. "I like a lot of European black metal bands and going to rare metal shows that no one likes to go to. But I try to accommodate everybody. I'll put some smooth electronics on for some background noise. If there are too many different personalities, I'll just put on some mindless synthwave or something."
Once everyone is out of makeup and Diezel has checked his gear, he sits them all down to go over everything once more before showtime.
"I tell them, 'Allow me to direct you,'" he says. "Scripts can get overwhelming sometimes. That's why I try to shoot paint-by-numbers and make it real simple for everybody. When someone has shot with me a lot, they know how I shoot — some people are more scattered, but I'm very meticulous."
Diezel says his shoot days typically last four to five hours, not including makeup time, and his team will edit a 30-minute scene out of that footage.
Diezel prefers to run a small crew — "If you can do everything yourself, why wouldn't you? You make more money that way!" — and works with a few trusted collaborators. He sees a 10-person crew as a luxury that young filmmakers are too eager to rely on.
"When people start directing, they'll have like 10 people on set," he observes. "I don't understand. There's one camera and there are 10 people. It makes no sense. I think it's just hubris. Those filmmakers only last a few years before they get fired or disappear for going over budget."
For Diezel, going over budget is an amateur move, and he definitely counts himself as a professional.
"I don't have any amateurs on set," he affirms. "I hire pros, so they know what they're doing."
In return, Diezel is attentive to his performers, from handing them baby wipes upon completion of a scene to walking them to their cars.
"I don't want a PA doing that," he says. "I want to make sure it's a good experience for all of the performers. I wouldn't have lasted this long if they didn't have a good experience."
Once the shoot is wrapped, and Diezel has packed up all of his gear with the help of the PA, he loads up his car and listens to a podcast on the way home.
"Sometimes I'll listen to a right-wing podcast, but then I'll listen to a left-wing podcast to determine who's full of shit or not," he laughs. "Once I get home, I do my bookkeeping first — my taxes and accounting — and account for what I spent that day. I do my taxes every day that I have a shoot. I go over all the footage before uploading it to a server or to whoever hired me. And then I go to jiu-jitsu."
Diezel has been practicing jiu-jitsu on and off for about 15 years. He says he appreciates the sense of community that the sport provides.
"When people are new to the adult business, they tend to only talk to and hang out with people in that industry, but I've learned how to separate church from state," he says. "I don't mean that in a demeaning way, I just have to unplug from the porn business sometimes, so my community of people is usually the jiu-jitsu community, or fellow musicians, as I go to a lot of shows.
"I have to," he adds. "If you're a producer or a director and you're just doing this 24 hours a day, you'll either burn out or hang yourself.
"Then I usually take my dog on a hike or something," he continues. "Her name is Zoey, and she's an English bull terrier. She's six years old, but I just rescued her two months ago."
Shoot day or not, Diezel typically eats a New York strip steak for lunch every day. You won't catch him in the drive-thru at McDonald's or Burger King, though he does admit to cheat days when he'll wolf down an entire pizza or splurge on a carton of ice cream.
Overall, though, he stays very much on top of his health, getting blood work done once a month to monitor his cholesterol and hormone levels. He also still gets an STD test every two weeks, just like active performers.
"I may be primarily a producer these days, but I'm not a perfect angel," he admits. "Plus, I still shoot content sometimes. I know how to shoot POV really well — probably better than most."
Though Diezel has cut back on performing, he says he still shoots OnlyFans content with performers he has known for a while. He's just more selective these days.
Diezel moved from Los Angeles to Las Vegas for tax purposes. He says it can get lonely sometimes, since his family is spread out across Texas and New York, and most of his friends remain in LA. But he's made friends at metal concerts.
If anyone asks about his day job, Diezel usually tells them he's a photographer.
"If you're at Home Depot, people recognize you," he explains. "If there's a bunch of construction dudes, every now and then, people will be like, 'You're the Pornhub dude!' But if you're at, like, Walgreens, nobody recognizes you."
Diezel has been in the business since he was about 25, and says he's happy with how his career worked out. Still, he plans to wrap it up in the next 5-10 years, as he has other plans he'd like to pursue, and doesn't want to overstay his welcome.
"It just becomes a job after a while," he reflects. "Your first three years in the porn business are very fun. There's a lot of partying. But when you've been doing it as long as I have, people start looking up to you and you've got to set some kind of example, I guess, as lame as that sounds. I never thought I'd be the old guy saying that!"
Diezel says one reason he prefers directing over performing is because it's a lot more work.
"I like that," he says. "I like staying busy. It suits me better because I'm a workaholic, so I feel comfortable having a full plate. When I was performing, there was so much idle time."
In other words, plenty of time to get into trouble.
"When I was performing, I was a fuck-up," he says bluntly.
As a director, Diezel had to accept responsibility for other people and help them reach their full potential. This forced him to clean up his act. Though he still enjoys heading to the bar for a beer now and then, he does so responsibly, having taken back control of his life.
Another turning point came in 2020: the August Complex fire in northern California.
"I was in the middle of that shit because I had a weed farm up there," he explains. "My house burned down. Everything burned. I lost everything, and then I had to restart. It sucked because you couldn't get insurance on cannabis farms at that time."
It was a difficult period in his life, but he feels like he came out the other side stronger.
Today, he shoots roughly 15 days a month, with a day off in between most shoots.
"That way, I don't lose my mind," he says.
With that, it's time to walk Zoey, who looks like she's going to lose her mind if she doesn't get a bathroom break soon.
Of course, Diezel has her leash and a poop bag ready. He's always prepared.
