LOS ANGELES — Jonathan Morgan and Andre Madness, who have 40-plus years of adult entertainment experience between them, told XBIZ they have joined forces to launch the Nexxxt Level Talent Agency.
The seasoned producer/directors plan to create a boutique-style agency with about 20 girls so they can guide careers with a “personal touch.”
“You can only achieve that personal touch when the numbers are small,” Morgan said. “If you start getting to where there’s too many girls to deal with eventually everything becomes blurred.”
One particular agent who’s made a positive impression on them is Mark Spiegler of Spiegler Girls, according to Madness.
“He’s a personal friend of both of ours,” Madness said. “We love doing business with him. We’d like to expand upon what he does, but do it ourselves and do it our own way.”
Morgan and Madness on Dec. 1 unveiled their agency site, NexxxtLevel.com, after working closely on the venture since January of this year. This isn’t the first time the pair has aligned. Madness has been Morgan’s production manager at Wicked Pictures for the past two-and-a-half years in addition to directing his own movies.
“One of the things that we would find is how a lot of times talent would not come fully prepared for what we would need them to do,” said Morgan, whose directing experience dates back to the mid-90s after he started his career performing in more than 800 titles.
“We used to scream to the heavens, why isn’t there somebody who would take care of the talent and do what an agent should do, kind of like in mainstream Hollywood? Not just sit there and say, ‘Hey, we’ll post your picture and that’s about as much as we’re doing.’
“So we said you know what, instead of just yelling and bitching about it, let’s do something about it. And it was from there that we decided to launch this agency that we’re now calling Nexxxt Level. Because that’s where we’re hoping to take our talent—to the next level; and we’re hoping to take the agency biz to the next level.”
Madness, the soft-spoken shot-caller known for his work with Adam & Eve, New Sensations, Hustler Video and his namesake studio Madness Pictures, has amassed more than 300 credits since the mid-90s.
“We’ve seen a lot of talent turn around and become agents, but I haven’t seen many producers and directors become agents,” Madness said. “So we’ll be able to educate our girls along the way about the movie-making part of the process.”
The duo said a key difference with their agency is they will not charge studios a booking fee.
“I don’t know of any other agencies that currently have that policy of no booking fees,” Morgan said. “Right now I know that booking fees can get quite costly.
“So what we’ve done is this: we never thought it was fair and the last thing we’re going to do, even though we’re starting this business, is do something that we never liked as directors. So that’s why we don’t have booking fees.”
Morgan added that Nexxxt Level would not be entering into lengthy contracts with its talent.
“A lot of the girls that we’ve talked to get caught up. They sign a contract where they’re basically selling away themselves for one, two, or I’ve even heard as high as five years,” according to Morgan. “One of the things that we’re not going to enforce is any type of—here’s a documentation that says you are now stuck with us.
“Of course, legally we have to have some form of an agreement that there’s an understanding of what we’re doing and what the compensation’s going to be. That of course we’re going to do, but at any given time a girl can leave.”
Morgan continued, “I look at it this way, my father used to always say, ‘you have to earn loyalty.’ And if we’re not earning your loyalty—a la, making you a lot of money—then guess what, of course you should leave. We’re obviously not the best fit for you. But I don’t think that’s going to be the case. I think we’re going to be able to open up a lot of doors because of the connections that we’ve had as directors. We can get into a lot of places that not a lot of people can get into.”
Madness agreed.
“We’ve both had wonderful careers going and still have active careers,” Madness said. “But one of the exciting parts for me is passing that knowledge and the connections and all that professionalism along. Whoever wants to receive that in our group here I’ll happily share it.”
Madness noted that Nexxxt Level needed only a couple weeks to become fully licensed and bonded in what generally is a much longer process.
“My history growing up and going through college is I worked at a law firm for seven-and-a-half years, so paperwork became second nature to me,” Madness said. “When it came time to fill out the forms—it was a beast of an application—we actually shined right through it.”
He continued, “I’ve made quite a career on being very organized and solid on the paperwork. ‘Reliable’ is what a lot of the companies would say. They always gave me their contract girls to shoot at New Sensations or Adam & Eve. They’d say, ‘You shoot our contract girls, because we can rely on you.’
“This contract was supposed to take eight to 10 weeks or two to two-and-a-half months. I sent it in the same way I would prepare any legal document or paperwork for a company, and that’s so I will never get it back.
“Jonathan follows up with a phone call just to see how it’s going and they pushed it through in two weeks.”
While the pair is actively scouting to fill the Nexxxt Level roster, they’ve already signed their first model—Texas native Kleio Valentien.
“This is going to be the next big ‘It’ girl for 2015,” Morgan said. “We’re talking a girl who’s probably in the top 10 best actresses I’ve ever met. And her sex scenes, oh my god, those are on a whole different level. Even though she always says to Andre and I, ‘Thank you for representing me.’ I always say, ‘No, no, no, we thank you,’ because we couldn’t have started with a better person. She is the face of Nexxxt Level. She is Nexxxt Level.”
Madness said one of the most frequent conversations he would have with Morgan leading up to the launch was, “What kind of girl do we want to represent?”
“I had met Kleio and heard about Kleio before and she was someone that we wanted to meet,” Madness explained. “It’s been a series of meetings to kind of get to know each other. She’s quite the find. We got really lucky with her.”
Valentien told XBIZ she had been living in New York for three years until relocating this past summer.
“I’m very excited to have finally met two wonderful people who are here to help me grow and learn more about the business, and just bring me to a different place than I’ve been able to do by myself,” said Valentien, who grew up on a farm in Southeast Texas and was home-schooled.
“I’ve actually been in the industry for about five years now, so it’s been a long process of trying to build myself by myself. But when Jonathan and Andre approached me and talked to me about this whole idea, I couldn’t be happier.
“Because I feel like they’re going to be part of my family instead of someone that’s just going to call me and tell me what to show up to.”
Morgan said he cast Valentien in two of his recent Wicked projects, “Roomies,” opposite Samantha Saint, and “Hotel No Tell 2,” where she played a dominatrix pet to Asa Akira.
“I’m not a big fan of girl/girl scenes, but her scene with Asa is probably in the top five of girl/girl scenes that I’ve ever seen,” Morgan said. “It was just a marvelous scene. Not only is she there to shine herself, but to make others around her shine, because she gets it. She really is a joy to have on the set.”
Nexxxt Level at post time also signed Brandi Love, a nominee for MILF Performer of the Year at the 2015 XBIZ Awards as well as Best Supporting Actress for her role in Wicked’s “Aftermath.”
Each model profile on the site includes a one-paragraph bio and exclusive images in an effort to preserve the girls’ “individuality,” according to Nexxxt Level.
Both Madness and Morgan agree that they are looking for girls who are “in the business for the long haul.”
“We’re not just going to be their agents in certain areas, we’re going to help them manage their careers and grow their brand and take as many avenues to making money as possible,” Madness said.
Morgan added, “We want to make sure they are fully aware, fully educated. We tell them we want you to start smart, so you can finish rich. That’s what our main goal is.”
Madness said their approach is also about giving back.
“When we had our conversation that we’re going to change people’s lives, that’s a powerful thing to be responsible for,” he said. “It’s also one of the most rewarding things. I’m really looking forward to guiding people. Not doing the mistakes I’ve made in the past but sharing the successes that we’ve both had and creating these amazing talents, amazing careers and hopefully amazing lives.”
Pictured: Andre Madness, Kleio Valentien and Jonathan Morgan.
