NakedSword Originals has pushed the envelope yet again with the release of “Five Brothers,” a two-part, crime-themed family drama featuring studio exclusives Woody Fox, Aaron Savvy and Alam Wernik, alongside Sean Duran, Jay Dymel, JJ Knight, Trevor Northman, Blake Ryder, Nic Sahara, Matt Wingman and trans star Danni Daniels. Filmed on location in Miami and Las Vegas, “Five Brothers” was helmed by mr. Pam, two-time XBIZ Awards winner for Gay Director of the Year (for its part, NakedSword Originals has earned the XBIZ Award as Gay Studio of the Year for three consecutive years).
In an exclusive interview with XBIZ, Pam expressed pride in the final cut of the film. She was particularly pleased with the work of the NakedSword post-production team on the film’s editing and graphic design elements. Tim Valenti, executive producer, and the president of Falcon Studios Group and the NakedSword Network, introduced her to the gritty 2010 drama “Animal Kingdom” and its television spinoff, which inspired "Five Brothers."
The minute she walked in, she ripped off her dress in the kitchen, grabbed a beer and jumped in the pool stark naked. Okay, boys, here’s Danni!
“I loved everything about it,” she said. “Bad boys, fast cars, fight scenes and hot sex? I’m in!”
Pam and NakedSword Originals sent thunderbolts through all-male adult in 2017 by casting transman Viktor Belmont in “The Devil’s Deal and Other Sordid Tales” — with little fuss from fans, a stark contrast to the uproar over the casting of FTM trans pioneer Buck Angel a decade earlier when he joined the cast of “Cirque Noir” for Titan Media. The positioning of trans female performer Danni Daniels in a pivotal role in "Five Brothers" smashes an unspoken cisgender-male barrier in gay adult. “The movie needed a badass bitch as the lead matriarch,” said Pam. “Immediately I thought: Danni Daniels.”
Their first meeting left a lasting impression. “I had met her at a Folsom Street Fair party at [performer-cameraman] Leo Forte’s house, years before. She walked in, naked, with leather boots and a huge hard-on. All the bottoms at the party dropped to their knees and, literally — she dicked-down the entire room. After that afternoon, we kept in touch and I had her on my mind for years, looking for a place for her in a film. ‘Five Brothers’ was absolutely the perfect opportunity to film this legendary trans-superstar. She hadn’t done big studio porn in years, so it took a little convincing, but I could tell that she trusted me and knew she would be taken care of and it was a huge project. She agreed! I was ecstatic!”
Nevertheless, Pam had reservations about directing the performer, whom she describes as having a dominant, alpha personality. Additionally, the cast and crew were all sharing the same rental house in Florida. “She showed up in her big truck,” said Pam. “The minute she walked in, she ripped off her dress in the kitchen, grabbed a beer and jumped in the pool stark naked. Okay, boys, here’s Danni! By the end of that night, the entire cast was in love with her. Perfect!”
With Daniels in place as the matriarch of the wayward family, Pam set her sights on casting her leading man. She needed a young man who could believably portray a tough guy, she said, “but also with a soft, vulnerable side. Nic Sahara was at the top of my list.”
She and Sahara had crossed paths in Las Vegas at a pool party thrown by performer Ne-Yo. “Nic was so sexy and a great dancer — which usually means you can fuck — and also went out of his way to give me a ride home. Just by that show of kindness, I knew he would be perfect for the part,” she recalled.
As filming got underway, Sahara began to share his backstory, which was “eerily similar,” Pam said, to the film’s main storyline. “He lost a parent, had his sister come to the house and rescue him and pull out a strong, smart, wonderful guy. This role was meant for Nic; he rocked it!”
The role was “a mirror” of Sahara’s family, he told XBIZ. “The character that I played lost his father to substance abuse; I lost my mother to substance abuse. My character had family that he never knew; my family is one I am still getting to know,” Sahara said.
The similarities run even deeper. “My grandfather was part of the Cuban Mafia and my great-grandmother was the head of the family, just as my character had ‘Aunt Danni’ as the head of the family in the film! Two very strong women able to get the job done! My grandfather loved his ‘ladies of leisure,’ or sex workers, as he would always put it. He found my grandmother in that fashion, which is how each of his children were born.”
Sahara credits Forte and Pam for guiding him to find the proper balance the role required. “It was fun and exciting! Leo helped channel the fighting and action for me, but Pam really kept me [grounded] as the sweet boy that was [naïve] to what was going on around him.”
He promises “a lot more scandal, for sure,” in the second installment, currently set for wholesale/retail and digital release in June. “There is a lot that he needs to think about as he gets to know his family.”
Pam’s favorite story from the set involved a car chase that wound through town and ended up in the desert outside Sin City — with the actual police on their heels.
The director had scouted costar Jay Dymel from a hookup site. “Jay is relatively new to porn and has all the superstar qualities you need. Can you believe I saw his picture [on the site], asked him if he wanted to do porn and he said ‘yes’!”
The script called for a car chase and a Mustang had been rented for the sequence; Dymel, Pam learned, owns a similar car. “Nic was driving my Honda Element that I lovingly call ‘The Pumpkin.’ Jay was driving the Mustang and he could probably make a good living as a stunt driver. He’s crazy! So I’m in the passenger seat with Jay driving, Leo [Forte] is filming Nic driving my pumpkin and it was a full-on car chase through the streets of Las Vegas. Between trying to hold the camera and hitting my head on the roll bar, I kept yelling to Jay, ‘This car chase is supposed to be simulated!’ No joke, that scene is real!”
The chase concludes, Pam recalled, in “the painted hills of the Vegas hills just as the sun was setting; it was breathtaking.” The actors jumped out of the cars with their prop guns just as the actual sheriff arrived. “He wasn’t pleased about the car chase and the film cameras,” said Pam. “Long story short, I got let go with a warning. Note to self: scout locations in the desert prior to gun-wielding car chases. But, as I always say, ‘Die for art!’”
