Martiño Rivas and Andrés Velencoso: "Men continue to associate masculinity, ego and self-love with the size of the penis"

Martiño Rivas (Vimianzo, 38 years old) was a teenager when he saw his first porn movie.

The Galician actor began as a spectator of the genre with

(1994), the adult version of the Edgar Rice Burroughs story in which Rocco Siffredi plays the king of the jungle.

Andrés Velencoso (Tossa de Mar, 44 years old) also had his first approach to X cinema at puberty.

The Catalan actor and model does not remember the title with which he was "baptized", but he does not forget the day he went into a room to see the rerun of

, the 1972 cult film starring Harry Reems.

"I thought I had to see it.

There was no one masturbating.

Everyone was very attentive to the plot, ”he clarifies with a laugh.

Rivas and Velencoso are within the Spanish average.

According to a study by the Youth and Inclusion Network and the University of the Balearic Islands published in 2019, 75.8% of men in this country start consuming pornography before the age of 16, while only 35.5% of women do it before that age.

A 2020 Save the Children report shows that 7 out of 10 adolescents consume this content frequently and that the average age of initiation, 14 years, is decreasing thanks to easy access to mobile technology.

“Everyone watches porn movies, or almost everyone.

However, there are still many prejudices about this industry”, says Martiño Rivas, protagonist of

, the biopic series about Nacho Vidal, the most international Spanish porn star.

Andrés Velencoso plays his archrival, Toni Roca, also inspired by a real character.

The fiction, which will premiere in March on Atresplayer Premium, Atresmedia's payment platform, comes at an opportune moment, just when Ignacio Jordà González —this is Vidal's real name— has just completed 25 years of his career in X cinema. According to Pornhub, one of the most trafficked explicit sex websites in the world, the Spanish actor is one of the most searched.

"He's our Mike Tyson, the heavyweight champion in his own right," says Rivas.

“He has a larger-than-life natural talent and has always lived on a razor's edge.

I am very rational.

For this reason, people like him arouse a certain envy in me, ”he continues.

Talking about size in the case of Nacho Vidal is not trivial.

The 25 centimeters of his member allowed him to make the great American trip that all Spanish interpreters dream of: the conquest of Hollywood.

Only that he did it through pornography, a business that generates estimated profits of 14,000 million euros each year and in which he has achieved everything.

He has starred in more than 1,500 films, director, producer and distributor, and has received twenty awards at the main erotic festivals, such as those in Las Vegas, Berlin and Cannes, and now, at 48, he is still active as an actor. porn star on the platform OnlyFans.

But the

, directed by David Pinillos, Beatriz Sanchís and Eduardo Casanova, goes further and delves into how Vidal used his attributes to recover the splendor of his childhood.

He was born into a rich family of textile industrialists from Mataró who prophetically dedicated themselves to producing women's underwear that he would later tear off on filming sets.

The 1973 oil crisis fatally wounded the family business, something that marked him.

At the beginning of 1996, at the age of 21, he began working at Sala Bagdad in Barcelona, ​​the porn sanctuary run by Juani de Lucía since 1975. A year later, he was already shooting adult films in Budapest and California, where the most of the 15,000 tapes of the genre that are produced annually.

“Everyone watches porn movies, or almost everyone.

However, there are still many prejudices about this industry”, says Martiño Rivas.

In the image, the Galician actor and Andrés Velencoso, both in suits and turtleneck sweaters, all by Prada.Pablo Curto

In the 1990s, Nacho Vidal was already a legend of pornographic entertainment.

But he didn't really become popular in Spain until 2004, when journalist David Barba published the actor's memoir,

.

Then television became interested in him.

He appeared several times in

(Telecinco), the longest running and most watched midnight program in the history of Spanish television.

“I remember his interventions.

He became famous overnight, ”says Martiño Rivas, who was 19 years old at the time.

The Galician actor never imagined that he would end up playing him.

“If this was a rigorous biopic, they would not have turned to me, because he and I do not have many similarities.

I was a very counterintuitive choice to play him and I liked that.

Many actors turned down this role, ”he adds.

Teresa Fernández-Valdés, founder of Bambú Producciones and co-creator, producer and screenwriter of

, confirms this.

“The casting was very difficult.

Some actors told me that they didn't even want to read the script”, says the producer.

“When I did the casting for

, the story of Operation Nécora and drug trafficking in Galicia, everyone wanted to play Sito Miñanco.

What a contradiction when portraying ourselves as a society.

He shows that there are still a lot of prejudices regarding the adult film industry ”.

Andrés Velencoso plays a free version of the real Toni, Nacho's antagonist, the prince of porn dethroned after the arrival of a new talent.

The Catalan actor and model used 90s references such as Mickey Rourke in

or the drummer Tommy Lee to build his role.

“Nacho and my character lived in a war of egos to see who was the best.

They held a duel, literally, to see who had the biggest one.

And Nacho won.

The actors had several meetings with the real Vidal to document themselves.

The porn star got so involved in the project that she even offered to double for Martiño Rivas in the nude scenes and, therefore, double for herself.

In the end, the Galician actor used his own body for a large part of the risky scenes.

“My work tools for this role have been a penile prosthesis that doesn't fit in a tumbler glass, a genital sock and a spray to color my ass and erase the sun's marks.

I have spent a lot of time without clothes and at first it was a great mental drain.

The drivers were already telling me: 'Fuck man, I already know your ass better than my wife's.'

Nudity is an element that distances you from others, but then you end up naturalizing it”, he explains.

Martiño Rivas, with a sleeveless printed cotton top and jeans, all by Loewe, and leather shoes by Prada.Pablo Curto

Velencoso, who is more used to being scantily clad from his modeling job, also had a hard time dealing with on-screen nudity.

“On a shoot there are a lot of people.

They try to make it intimate, but it's still very difficult.

At first it is embarrassing, ”he admits.

The protagonists of

did not dare to break with the great taboo of cinema and television: the male frontal nude.

Women have been undressing in front of the cameras since that scene of Hedy Lamarr bathing in a lake in

, the 1933 film by Czech director Gustav Machaty. Men have been avoiding exposure for just as long.

“We still feel very modest when it comes to showing our penis.

There is something very Neanderthal, something very prehistoric, that makes us continue to associate masculinity, ego and self-love with the size of the penis.

I myself am still surprised when I see one in a movie or a magazine.

I couldn't explain why.

Martín, who has read more on the subject, can answer it for you, ”says the actor and model.

"In the case of the series, it may be because we continue to watch television as a family, in the living room at home," reflects Rivas.

Both acknowledge that the preparation for this series was unorthodox to say the least.

They spent months watching vintage porn and movies like

, Paul Thomas Anderson's 1997 film about the X-movie industry in California in the 1970s.

Although they had the hardest training in Sala Bagdad, the Barcelona cabaret that has been offering live erotic shows for 47 years.

There the myth of the true Nacho Vidal was born.

“We saw the brothers Dinio and Rafa García performing like true champions, doing almost Olympic sexual acrobatics.

It seemed funny, bizarre and grotesque to me”, recalls Velencoso.

When they introduced her to Juani, the owner of the room and the largest recruiter of porn actors in Spain, she asked her if she wanted to dedicate herself to adult cinema.

“He didn't know me.

She is always looking for the next star of hers.

She is now designing a Baghdad Room in the metaverse.

She is a pioneer ”.

The nights in that place on Nou de la Rambla street helped Martiño Rivas to realize that the actors in this industry are “extraordinary beings” and at the same time people of “flesh and blood”.

“They do something that we all do, which is part of our vital history and which is one of the engines that make the world go round, but they do it in public.

His work has something performative, staging.

Getting a boner in front of a group of strangers, getting it up at will, multiple times in one night, seems like a feat to me.

From the outside it seems easy, but it is almost impossible, ”he admits.

“They have a totally different conception of sex than most of us have.

It seems to them like a yoga class, a gymnastic act, although no one knows the emotional and psychological price they pay for it.

Andrés Velencoso, with a Polo Ralph Lauren jacket, brown pants with pleats by Hermès, a T-shirt by OnTracks and leather boots by Prada. Pablo Curto

The filming of

was not without difficulties.

Before beginning to record, Nacho Vidal himself warned the producer and the protagonists that they would not have it easy.

“I did not believe him, it seemed to me that he was exaggerating.

Later we verified that it was easier to shoot a Nazi film in Paris than a series about him in Barcelona”, says Martiño Rivas.

"We have had problems on all fronts," corroborates the producer Teresa Fernández-Valdés.

“A lot of people felt morally superior and denied us permission to shoot at certain locations.

We also had many music licenses turned down for the theme of the series.

The Red Hot Chili Peppers wouldn't let us use their songs.

The Red Hot giving a morality class.

Can you believe it?".

Many shadows hang over the porn business: from objectification and the sexual and labor exploitation of women to the normalization of violence and risky practices.

Fernández-Valdés, co-creator of

, wanted to have three scriptwriters —Gema R. Neira, María José Rustarazo and Flora G. Villanueva— so that the series had a feminine point of view.

Working on the story, they discovered that Nacho Vidal became a star thanks to many women.

"From his sister, who was his partner for many years, to his first girlfriend, a porn actress for whom he started working at Sala Bagdad, through Juani de Lucía, who was the first to see his talent...", says the producer.

"We wanted to give visibility to all those intelligent, free and successful women."

María de Nati embodies the film star X Sara Bernat, who was a sentimental partner of Vidal;

Pepa Charro plays Juani and Miriam Giovanelli plays Bellísima, inspired by another actress of the genre.

Martiño Rivas is wearing a polo shirt, underpants and pants, all by Dior Men.

Andrés Velencoso, with a double-breasted Bar coat, polo shirt, boxer shorts, trousers and Tokio mules from Dior by Birkenstock, also from Dior Men.Pablo Curto

“Nacho is aware that without all those women he would not have achieved fame and success.

He always respected and admired the actresses with whom he shared the set.

That is why many of them only wanted to work with him,” says Martiño Rivas.

Both he and Andrés Velencoso hope that the series will serve to redeem the figure of the porn star.

“He has had an epic life: he started from scratch and ended up being a star in Los Angeles.

It's a heroic life, and heroes are never perfect.

Everyone has their lights and shadows”, concludes the Galician actor.

After more than 25 years of experience, Nacho Vidal continues to work in the adult entertainment industry.

He now earns his living on OnlyFans, the platform on which there are more than 2 million content creators and more than 130 million users.

The actor charges $20 for a subscription month, $48 for three, and $120 for a full year.

This

has broken the schemes of cinema X, erasing intermediaries with a stroke of the pen and distributing an average of 200 million euros per month among content creators.

"Now everyone can be a porn star," concludes Velencoso.

"But Nacho there is only one."