Jan 01, 2008 | By: Gio
JustUsBoys has the exclusive interview with 2008’s Raging Stallion “Man-of-the-Year”, Steve Cruz. Prepare to redefine what you think of gay porn stars with this captivating look into the life of a man on a noble mission.
Your first two movies were Lords of the Jungle and Mirage for Raging Stallion. Initially, you decided not to sign on as an exclusive with Raging Stallion and you did work for other studios as well. Why did you choose the non-exclusive route at the beginning of your porn career? Politically, I needed to stay independent for the first couple months of getting into the business. One of my very good friends is Brian Mills at Titan Media and he had been trying to get me to do porn for many years. The opportunity with Raging Stallion made sense to me, but I also wanted to work with my good friend Brian Mills because he is a genius director. As soon as I got home from shooting Lords of the Jungle in Hawaii, I called Brian and told him I had finally decided to do porn and I had just shot my first movie for Raging Stallion. Thankfully, he was very happy that I got my feet wet with Raging Stallion so that when I came to Titan I would be better prepared for what it is like to shoot a scene.
What did you film with Titan Media? I got cast in H2O and I was able to fulfill a fantasy of mine because my scene partner was Francois Sagat! At that time, Francois was my ultimate fantasy man. If someone had asked me to pick anyone out of all the male porn stars that I wanted to work with, it would have been him. Thankfully, I had filmed my scenes for Raging Stallion first because I was much less nervous shooting H2O and I was fully prepared to have a totally hot scene with Francois Sagat!
Aside from Titan, you also got to work with the amazing Chi Chi LaRue. Tell me how that came to be. Well, after I filmed my first three films, I approached Collin O’Neal and asked him if he could possibly introduce me to Chi Chi LaRue because I loved her work and really wanted to work with her. I submitted my photos to her and she cast me right away in When Bears Attack. Immediately after wrapping up Mirage for Raging Stallion, I was on a plane to LA to shoot with her. She liked my performance in When Bears Attack and then cast me in LINK, her big film for 2007. I am so happy that she and I hit it off so well and we have established a great friendship.
After working for the other studios independently, how did you end up as a Raging Stallion Exclusive? Lucky for me, the offer for me to come on board at Raging Stallion was still available after I did the work for other studios. At that point, I felt like I needed the stability of a contract. At that time, I was not with an agent that would advocate for me, and I felt I needed more focused attention and going exclusive with Raging Stallion would provide that level of stability I needed. Raging Stallion is a perfect fit for me and I love Chris Ward and Michael Brandon. Shortly after becoming an exclusive, I also signed on with FabScout Entertainment as my agent for live appearances and I love them. Having both Raging Stallion and FabScout behind me has been great!
Speaking of Raging Stallion, I would be remiss if I did not congratulate you on being named the 2008 Raging Stallion Man of the Year! (Big Smile) It was something that I really wanted and worked hard for, so I was thrilled when they honored me with that title. It was beyond my wildest dreams, and I am now getting out on the road more and helping to promote the studio.
I have been to your Website (SteveCruzXXX.com) and your Blog. I must say they are great and it is very generous of you to give your fans free access. Speaking of being generous; please tell me about your current volunteer efforts and your efforts to promote safe sex through your “How I Roll” campaign. Before I started doing porn, I did some work in the public health sector. I am a designer and a lot of my clients were non-profits and the central focus of my work has been STD and HIV awareness and prevention. I am also very focused on crystal meth prevention. I am very passionate about this work. I think the experience of losing a good friend at a relatively young age left an indelible mark on me, and I feel a calling to give back to the community in whatever way I can.
Now that I am doing porn, I feel like I am a living example of sexual politics. I am on the front line and in the high risk group because I am a highly sexually active person both on and off screen. So I want to use my name and image to help raise awareness and hopefully prevent someone from making the wrong decision when it comes to sex. I think this work is very relevant right now because so many gay men are experimenting with bareback sex or doing it exclusively and for some odd reason it has become almost fashionable.
I do not know what came first, the bareback film or the practice of bare-backing in people’s personal lives. Unfortunately, they both seem to fuel each other right now and it seems the sales of bareback films are at an all time high, and I think it is tragic. Now is the time to raise awareness and hopefully turn this dangerous behavior around before we have another epidemic on our hands. I speak to many young men and I am amazed at how ignorant they are when it comes to understanding what we went through at the onset of the AIDS crisis in this country. They do not know what it is like to almost lose an entire generation of people. I do not think they would be taking the risks they currently are, if they had the right history and education of the risk factors associated with bareback sex.
I am creating a website “How I Roll” which launches in January and I have partnered with the Stop Aids Project to provide STD, HIV and Drug information in an effort to give people the right information to make up their own minds. I am not preaching, but rather providing factual information to gay men in an effort to help them make smart decisions. I am hopeful that if you are an HIV negative person and you are given the facts; you are going to want to wrap it up every single time you have sex. The site is not just for negative men, it also has very important information for the positive community as well.
I applaud you for your efforts in promoting safe sex practices and being an advocate for this very important subject. Let’s talk about the big Epic Film by Raging Stallion this year, Grunts. Tell me about your experience on this project. This movie is as close to a Hollywood movie as I will ever get. We went out to central California to a ranch and re-created a boot camp. The movie action was very intense and I play one of the Grunts going through basic training. A few of the guys in the cast were from the military, so they brought a very realistic element to the basic training scenes and we all were put through our paces filming those scenes. During the day, it was 100 plus degrees outside while we were filming the training scenes and at night we would shoot the sex scenes. It was a very grueling filming experience, but also very fun! I have not seen the final edited version yet, but I know that the scenes were very hot and I was at the top of my game for this movie in terms of my sex scenes.
I play one of the Ramirez brothers in this movie. I am the first to enlist and then later my brother enlists. We both become part of an experimental weapon that is used on us as test subjects. The weapon is a gas that makes you incredibly horny. It is actually loosely based on an experiment that our own government was messing around with not too long ago. The US Government was trying to develop a chemical that would turn enemy soldiers gay (Laughs very loud)! As funny as that sounds, it works really well in this film and it would have to in order to get two brothers to have sex with each other.
The central scene in the 2nd movie in the series called Brothers in Arms is about the Ramirez brothers hooking up with each other and having very hot sex.
Hmmm, an incest scene…how interesting. Yeah, it may raise a few eyebrows in the red states (Laughs). However, we are not brothers in real life and the plot line does not really define what type of brothers we are, so that is left to the viewer to decide. The guy who plays my brother is from Europe and he is very hot. His name is Orlando Toro and everyone says we look a little bit like each other. Once we got our hair and mustaches cut the same, it was a little eerie how much we truly resemble each other. However, if it were real life, I think he would be the good brother and I would be the bad brother. He tops me very well in the movie (Big smile).
Will we see more of you being versatile in your films and taking the top role as well? Yes, and Raging Stallion now knows that I can be a top as well. I do my first topping scene in Grunts. I was pretty aggressive as a top in that scene, and I think people were surprised. However, my comfort level is mostly to be a bottom on film.
For the person out there thinking about purchasing Grunts, tell me why they should buy all three movies in the package deal being offered by Raging Stallion? Well they are going to get really slamming hot sex by a very diverse cast of performers. You are also going to get realism in the overall story line. The basic training alone is very real and we got down and dirty shooting it. Also about 1/3 of the cast are actual prior military men who are fucking beautiful!
Last question, what advice do you have for anyone wanting to get into the gay porn industry. My best advice is that if you really want to do this work, do not do anything that you are uncomfortable with and never compromise yourself. If you do compromise yourself in this business you will be very unhappy and have a difficult time. To the young guys out there who are getting into this industry; do not allow anyone to pressure you into doing bareback porn. You need to value your own life above all else because you are more important than the movie you are making. We only get one gift of life and you are the one in charge of it.
Excellent advice! Thank you very much for doing this interview and I wish you continued success in all your future endeavors!
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