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| Thomas Zupko
Do you want me to start at the beginning?
Roger T. Pipe
Unless you want to respond to something I’ve written or said.
Thomas Zupko
Go ahead and ask me some questions, if anything comes up, I’ll throw it in there.
Roger T. Pipe
OK. How did you get started in this industry?
Thomas Zupko
I went to college for three and a half years for journalism, but I didn’t really know what I wanted to do. The problem was, I fell in love with pussy. It became my obsession. I realized that the easiest way to get pussy was to be in the adult entertainment industry. When I got out of college, I actually tired to write mainstream stuff. I could paste the rejection letters all over the wall. Then in 1986, I wrote a piece for Screw magazine. The editor said it was the most brilliant piece on pornography she had ever read. I got a check and that was the most amazing thing to me. Getting a fucking check for something you write. It progressed from there, I wrote pornography for a few years. I was in a heavy metal band, but I was making a really meager living writing pornography. I had always been a porno fan and I realized that I could do it better. I came to Vegas in 1991 to get into pornography, but I was about three hundred miles away from the porn epicenter. I called Bill Margold who had known me as a writer. I asked him who he knew in the X rated business in Vegas. He told me, Ray Pistol. I called him up. He was right in the middle of a political campaign for city council. I told him I was writing pornography and he said "you’re a writer, you can write anything." So I ended up writing on a political campaign which was very interesting. That evolved into managing bookstores. To me, the key to pornography and I know you may disagree, is that pornography evolves. This is something John Stagliano told me. He said that when he started he would use a 35 millimeter with this big fucking rack that you had to carry on your back to shoot. When you look at the old movies, even though the way they were shot and the plot lines were better, the sex is horrible. If you compare sex today to sex in movies twenty years ago, it’s completely different. What happed is that it evolved. John was the first guy to come up with gonzo and get shots that no one was getting. Everyone copied him, then it evolved to a point where anyone who watches porn can pick up a video camera and they already know the shots. In terms of shoot sex, your weakest cameraman today is better than that best ones from twenty years ago. The art of shooting pornography, specifically the sex, has evolved. We didn’t have things like the gaping asshole shot before. It’s constantly evolving.
Roger T. Pipe
How does that fit in with what you try to do?
Thomas Zupko
With Anal Ball, which I know you didn’t like, I had to recognize that things were in a state of evolution. The highest compliment I’ve ever been paid was that people said to me that it’s the first porno they have seen where they didn’t want to fast forward though. My formula is this, sex has to be first and foremost. It has to be something that makes you want to jack off. That’s our primary goal. When I managed bookstores, I would watch these guys come in and rent three and four movies a day, every day and on Tuesdays and Thursdays when the new releases come out, line up at the fucking door to get the new releases. It wasn’t like going to the 7-11 for food, it was almost like going to church. I really studied them and I really think that this stuff filled a spiritual void in their lives. I really started to study them and we had our peep booths and our preview booths and our rental tapes and sale tapes and every customer had his own little nuances. I did that for like four and a half years, learning about them and taking bookstores from sixty thousand dollars a month to a hundred thousand dollars a month just by understanding the needs of the customers. So when people said about Anal Ball that they didn’t want to fast forward, that was just the greatest compliment. These guys get three or four tapes, you know they are looking for the hottest scenes. After they bust a nut, if you have something to hold their interest, that’s something. You can’t plot it out like a mainstream movie, there just isn’t enough time. You don’t have character development and conflict. You have to do things that are quick and grab the viewers’ attention. That’s what I try to do, create great sex to jack off to, then create something interesting enough to hold their interest afterward. All these fucking guys who make movies like they’re punching a clock in a factory. There is nothing there, it’s all the same. I will never do that. I sex scene may take me five or six hours to shoot, but I want everything to be perfect. The controversy that comes, yeah. It’s all a part of my upbringing, it’s part of the demons that I wrestle with. I look at pornography as a legitimate form of artistic expression. I don’t look at it as we’re the bastard child of art. If you really do it right, you can create a little stage to for your ideas. My goal is to make people jack off, think laugh, you know? I want a reaction. Even in the review that you wrote of Anal Ball, I thought it was extremely entertaining. It got highest rating, I was nominated for two awards, but it took you to a point where you hated it. That still, to me, makes it a success. It created something and I don’t care what the emotion is. It could be, wow, that’s brilliant, it could be hatred, whatever. I loved the line where you said "Zupko owes me two hours of my time." It actually elicited some type of emotion. Regardless of whether it’s positive or negative, it will generate interest, unlike the four or five thousand movies that are released and forgotten about. The hardest thing that I have to deal with Arrow and Evil Angel is that you have to cater to their vision. They couldn't just say let you bring a vision to life. So in the process of getting a product from your head to the shelf, it had be distorted and modified. That interferes with the product. The beautiful thing that I have here at Extreme is freedom. With this first movie, they said to me shoot whatever you want. Take your vision where you want to go with it. I’ve never had that type of freedom before. They have total belief in what I do and I think that this movie will be brilliant. In the Days of Whore is very dark and very intense. I was reading where people said I was going for shock value, no. It isn’t about shock value, it’s the whole story line. This microcosm for life with really intense sex going on. I think when people look at this, they are just going to say "My God, I’ve never seen anything like that before." Like with Luis (Cypher), I respect him as a director. I think he’s very good. But it’s more than just the moment of what you’re doing. It’s very easy to say "I’m going to let the girl go with what she wants to do." I think it has to be more, so if I have to be difficult with a performer, if I have to take them that little extra mile to a place where they may hate me, I’ll do it. Everyone I’ve ever worked with has said they would work for me again. Now, in the process of making the movie, they hated me. In the end, when they see the results, they are all willing to come back. You can never lose sight of that man who puts his fucking money on the counter, whose whole life revolves around porn. He knows every performer in the business, and every scene they’ve done. I know Luis sometimes has this attitude of fuck the fans, but for me, I always try to give the fan what he wants. I want to provide them with something they’ve never seen before. I think "In the Days of Whore" is by far, the greatest movie that’s ever been shot, bar none. I think it will redefine pornography when we’re done.
Roger T. Pipe
Why?
Thomas Zupko
We’ve got Taylor St. Claire, a glamour girl who has never done anything remotely nasty. She worked with her boyfriend and did girl/girl shit. She is just fucking defiled in this movie. She gets fucked in the ass six times, in four different DP positions. She gets dropped off a ladder, chased by Vikings and has this leper shove her head on his cock. It’s fabulous stuff. I’ve got Kristi Myst who is a contract girl, I have to have that. Then I have Taylor St. Claire, who has never done anything like this. That gives me an edge in promotion as well. You take all these different elements and you have something huge. The acting is brilliant, everything is in place. François Clousot shot it with Tommy Byron on second camera. It just blew my mind.
Roger T. Pipe
You wrote a number of screenplays, but was Anal Ball the first movie you directed?
Thomas Zupko
I did write a number of screenplays. I don’t want to mention any names here, but I worked for Arrow for two and a half years on thirteen different sets with a director with no vision. I was horrified. I was told to watch him and learn. What I learned was how not to direct a movie. It came to the point where I saw these scripts just desecrated and he was just there to collect his paycheck. That is not the way to do this. There has to be this intense passion to do this. That’s why I started Apocalypse. I shot Anal Ball, which was originally going to be distributed by Arrow, but the salesman looked at it and said ‘no fucking way.’ They wouldn’t take the movie after I was promised that it would be distributed. That’s another story. I took the movie to John and he called me up one morning and said ‘this is the greatest porno movie I’ve ever seen." He wanted it, but then by the second movie, he went from Jeckle to Hyde. John went ballistic on me. Then I went back to Arrow and did a movie there. "Pussy Crimes" got fairly good reviews. I wasn’t satisfied with it. We did Pool Party was a fucking nightmare. The cameraman wouldn’t listen to a word I said. The editor fucking sucked. It blew. I said fuck it, give me all the masters, all twenty six hours. I cut it with Jose at Art Attack and it got five stars in Video World, AVN and everything. I didn’t have all the elements that I need there to make the movie. At Extreme, it’s the first time I’ve had everything I need. I’ve always said that if you give me all those elements I will do something that is going to blow people away with every movie. Just real quick, a note to my friend Ramsey, I appreciate your support dude and you will be very impressed by this movie. I’ve been making movies with two hands tied behind my back and now not only are my two hands free, but I’ve got other people’s hands to work with me. I’m so grateful for that.
Roger T. Pipe
I read that Pool Party was banned. Were distributors not taking that movie?
Thomas Zupko
If you just take Pool Party for a level of controversy, it doesn’t compare to Days of Whore. There was the pissing in the pool scene that disturbed distributors.
Roger T. Pipe
The same distributors who had no problem with Anal Ball were upset by someone pissing in a pool?
Thomas Zupko
I think Evil Angel said ‘you take Anal Ball or you’re not getting the new John Stagliano product.’ Arrow, and I love the owner to death, just doesn’t have that kind of pull with the distributors.
Roger T. Pipe
I watched Pool Party and I couldn’t imagine anyone having a problem with what went on in that movie.
Thomas Zupko
I think Pool Party is a pretty good movie. Tim Connelly at Adam Film World said it best, he gave it three and half stars and called it "violently uneven, with moments of inspired brilliance." That’s the way I look at it. I was not happy with it at all, but I do think there are some good moments in there. I had two days to prepare. I am actually proud that I can take something that I considered an absolute abortion and turn it into something that is actually worth watching. Now, I’ve got everything I need. I have a scene with Monica, this French girl, that just made me wide eyed. I’ve watched maybe ten thousand pornos and I was just blown away.
(Rob Black pokes his head in the door.)
Rob Black
Are you recording?
Roger T. Pipe
Yes.
Rob Black
Thomas Zupko is a big, fat bastard.
Thomas Zupko
Come on, don’t put that in.
Rob Black
Make him tell you about the dead fish in his cubicle.
(He slams the door and leaves.)
Roger T. Pipe
That’s actually perfect timing. When Anal Ball came out, you took shots directly at Rob Black. How much of that was the ‘show’ and how much was genuine hostility and disrespect?
Thomas Zupko
I’ll be totally honest with you. Rob did what I wanted to do, he made movies that made people uncomfortable. He got kicked out of VCA, he had a vision. He followed that vision regardless of what people said. People slammed Rob Black, they hated him, he was the Anti-Christ. He stuck by that vision and I respect that immensely. To be completely honest, I wanted to shoot that kind of movie. Not exactly what Rob was doing, I have my own vision, but in that same vein. I felt that I was a small company starting out. What was the most effective way of getting our name out there? It was to attack somebody similar to my style, in a position of power. Rob Black. That’s why I attacked him. They understood that. It was never anything personal. I didn’t even know Rob or Tommy then. I’ve worked with them now and they’re great people. I’ll say this for record, in spite of what Rob just said, Rob Black is, in spite his exterior, one of the nicest human beings I have ever met in my entire life. He has a heart of gold and that was unexpected. Everything I did was to get noticed and obviously it worked. I aspired to be where Rob Black is, doing things on my own terms without being told why I can’t do this or that. It took getting kicked out of a couple of companies, when all I had to do was tone it down and I could have been very comfortable financially. I wasn’t willing to do that.
Roger T. Pipe
Other than the fish in the cubicle, do you think that some of the things you said have made your reception here a little cold?
Thomas Zupko
No. This is like boot camp. Everyone who has ever been here has been through a little initiation. That’s nothing. The bottom line here is results. They gave me a budget that is bigger than any director here, they have gone out of the way to make sure I have everything I need. Rob just talks like that. He calls everyone a fag or a fat fuck. That’s Rob. When you don’t hear that, when he doesn’t give you the time of day, that’s when you know that he doesn’t like you. At first I wasn’t used to it, but I’ve figured out the reality. Rob has talked with me for hours, sharing his knowledge and shit. Practical jokes happen here all the time, but that’s the atmosphere. Where else can you sit at your computer and drink a beer? I think the people who work here just want to keep me grounded so all this doesn’t go to my head.
Roger T. Pipe
One of the themes that you hit very hard in Anal Ball was religion. Are you working out issues in scenes like that or just pushing buttons.
Thomas Zupko
Working out issues, don’t think I missed that line in the review either. Here’s how I look at it. We’re all on this little ball. We all think that we’re something, we’re butterflies that flap our wings for a second and we think it’s eternity, we’re nothing. We’re here, we die. We’re transitory, insignificant creatures so we create all these reasons why our existence has purpose. I was forced to be born a Roman Catholic. I went through everything, first Holy Communion, Confirmation the whole fucking thing. I’ll never forget, one day, I was about ten years old. I was sitting there during the priest’s homily. He went into a rage, an utter tirade about how all these potential seminary students were writing to him and spelling his name wrong on the envelope. That was his whole homily, about how they spelled his name wrong. Believe it or not, I do believe in Christ on my own level. I don’t believe in the perversion of the Roman Catholic Church. If you ever read Dostoevsky’s ‘Grand Inquisitor’ or "The Brothers Karamazov’ it’s how Christ comes back and the Arch Bishop, the second in charge next to the pope comes to Christ and says we’re going to kill you because the message has changed. It’s not the goodness. I always say to people who don’t know, who have no direction in their life, read Christ’s Sermon on the Mount. Everything is there. So, I believe in my own way. I look at cinema as a reflection of society. What I do is not an attack on Jesus Christ per say, it’s an attack on the perversion of the Catholic Church. It has become a big business. It’s no longer about giving your last penny to your fellow man. So yes, I do exorcise those feelings in what I do. In the movie ‘Pussy Crimes’ I did a thing where a Jewish Rabbi was eating a bagel and Phyllisa Ann sticks a beer bottle up her ass and says "This Bud’s for Jew." That got cut out of the movie and I got some heat for that. But I’m half Jewish myself, so I’m not picking on someone. It’s not that I’m offending Jews. I’m taking what we have, the stereotype of everything that we believe in, rather than the pure foundation and the beauty of the Juedo-Christian religion. If you take a black guy and have him going nuts for watermelon, it’s not that you’re making fun of blacks, you’re making fun of this whole stupid stereotype that we’ve created. That’s what I’ll attack. A lot of people take it the other way.
Roger T. Pipe
Are there any subjects that you would consider untouchable?
Thomas Zupko
Me, no. I will shoot fucking anything. There is the problem of people who have gone through personal events so disturbing that it becomes a personal offense when you attack certain areas. That’s something I have learned. If I were to attack the holocaust, it would only be to question, how this could fucking happen. It wasn’t just one man, Hitler, it was a whole fucking society that turned a blind I eye to this. I would attack it, but I think that people who went through it and suffered the real pain wouldn’t understand that that’s what I was trying to do. So I wouldn’t do a holocaust film.
Roger T. Pipe
Not in porn anyway. You could do it as a mainstream piece.
Thomas Zupko
But I will always see everything within the context of a porn film. Because of the stigma that porn carries with it, nothing I do would be taken seriously enough to be seen as what it is. Porn totally exploits whatever you’re targeting and that’s all anyone would see. If I were to do the same thing as an Independent film, it would be considered genius.
Roger T. Pipe
Do you have time to watch other porn these days?
Thomas Zupko
I watch some.
Roger T. Pipe
Anyone who impresses you?
Thomas Zupko
I know that Luis said some things about me in the interview prior, but I’ll be honest. I’ve seen his stuff and I think he’s very good. I think he makes his mistake when he loses contact with the porn fan. He says I’m going to do my stuff my way, I don’t give a fuck about the porn fan. I’m the complete opposite of that. Even though people might not think that, I’m all about the fans. I am going to throw a big promo party for porn fans across the country. I know Luis accuses me of being an egotist and arrogant and only going for shock value. What I don’t do is shock value. My primary focus is to make people jack off and create these things around it. Maybe that’s because he’s not competent enough to do it on the same level I do, I don't know. I think a lot of times, he uses his reasoning, his I don’t give a fuck, as a cover for his fear. He’s afraid to take the time that’s necessary to really take it to a higher level.
Roger T. Pipe
You’ve recently made some postings to some internet newsgroups. Have you been following these sorts of things for a while?
Thomas Zupko
Let me clear something up about that. I read a couple of responses in the newsgroups about this. ‘How convenient. There are a few press releases from Extreme and now we do an interview.’ That’s not the way this stuff happens. Tommy saw your posting, saw top ten interview subjects, saw Rob Black and Thomas Zupko and that was that. Tommy said ‘let’s call Rog up, make it happen.’ This wasn’t some pre-planned thing. That gives us way more credit than we deserve. Like it was some pre-meditated thing where we put out these press releases, then you come in. It was a total coincidence.
Roger T. Pipe
Something that Tom has always understood, that I don’t think some people get is that talking to me, isn’t talking to Rog, it’s talking to the people who read the sites, who read the newsgroups. I don’t think I matter. When Tom calls me and says that Black and Zupko want to do interviews, it tells me that they want to talk to the fans and the people who read my site, not that you want to sit down with me. The people who read my site, like me or fucking hate me, want to hear you talk to me, in part because of some of the things I’ve said about your movies. Same thing with Rob, or Max.
Thomas Zupko
I’ll say this to everyone out there who is going to read this interview. I’m very confident. I’m not insecure in any fucking way about what I do. Sometimes I play the game of being angry, but come on. I read your review of Anal Ball and I actually laughed. I thought it was great. That’s your job. I want reviewers to look at what do objectively. I don’t want someone to like the movie because they have met me and think I’m a great guy. You do what you do, I do what I do. I am very secure in what I do and nothing anyone can say is going to change that. I find your stuff very entertaining and in a way I took it as an indirect compliment. It didn’t bother me at all. If someone makes a movie, porn or mainstream that everyone likes, there is something wrong, someone has rigged something along the way. I appreciate that there are people out there who defend it enough to respond to you. I appreciate and respect talent and you’re a good writer. I would much rather have a negative review that is written as cleverly as yours was, than a positive review that is just some generic piece of vanilla horse shit. Not that I don’t want positive reviews Rog, don’t get the idea that you have to hate everything I do. I respect anyone who takes what he does seriously and doesn’t just look at it as a nine to five job. So, back to your question. To be honest, I just got into reading the newsgroups. I think it’s a very viable format for people to exchange their ideas about pornography honestly on a direct level. Most people will never have the chance to interact with the people in the business this directly except at a trade show when people don’t have time to communicate. So I think it’s a great thing.
Roger T. Pipe
Are you a better director that Rob Black?
Thomas Zupko
No. It’s going to sound like I just don’t want to answer that honestly, but I’m being truthful. I only watched a few of Rob’s movies before I did my own stuff. Now I’ve watched more and Rob is an extremely creative guy. He is brilliant and I have a lot that I can learn from him. I think our styles are somewhat different and it’s like comparing apples to oranges, but if I was forced, with a gun to my head to pick the better director, I would say that Rob is better. I swear on my late grandmother’s heart, who I love more than anyone, that I’m not just saying that because I’m here now.
Roger T. Pipe
Anything more you would like to say.
Thomas Zupko
I want to say this to every other fucking director in this business, can fucking blow me. Every other director out there is a fucking cancer. Get out of this fucking business because everyone here is going to blow away the putrid garbage you spill out. You are done. Say whatever you want on the newsgroups or web sites or fucking magazines, but you are done. The new regime is about to take over. There is a new sheriff in town and his name is Tom Zupko. Thank you very much Rog.
Roger T. Pipe
Thanks.
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