Adult movie actor Kei Ikeda makes a reasonable living doing a job that’s the dream of many young men, but he’s got to be careful he doesn’t blow it all at once, according to Friday (11/23).
Ikeda has been working as a porno star for the past three years and has appeared in over 1,000 adult movies.
“I get paid 30,000 yen a movie. A veteran actor might get paid 50,000 yen for each film, while the biggest names in the business will get 70,000 yen per flick,” Ikeda tells Friday, noting that male actors are paid on a scale well under what goes to their female colleagues and the only way to make a decent living is through quantity. “At busy times, I’ll do three movies a day — one in the morning, another in the afternoon and then the last one at night. Normally, though, I average about 30 movies a month.”
Ikeda got his start in the industry as a “soup actor,” the Japanese term for men who provide adult movies’ money shots. It’s the job of soup men to stand around an actress and wait for the climactic scene when they are expected to add some juice to the action, so to speak, Soup men never appear on camera.
Ikeda became involved after seeing a movie maker’s Internet ad seeking soup actors. He became what is known as Net soup, as opposed to Actual Soup. Net soup actors get their name because they have responded to an online ad seeking their services and are paid just 1,000 yen per shoot. Actual Soup actors come into the job for a living and get 5,000 yen a movie.
“After I was only paid 1,000 yen for my first movie, I was going to go home and never do it again, but one of the producers grabbed me and said, ‘Hey buddy, you shot some pretty good stuff today. How about coming to another shoot?’ He offered me an Actual Soup job paying 5,000 yen, so I figured, ‘Why not?’” he tells Friday. “After I’d been working as an Actual Soup for a while, one of the directors said he needed some young actors to get in on the action and asked if I was interested, so that’s how I became an actor on-screen.”
Ikeda tells the weekly that being a male porno star is harder than it seems.
“When you’re working on a film that has no script, you’ve really got to take notice of the actress’s body. If you notice she’s the buxom type, you have to know the director is going to want to emphasize the size of her tits, so the way you make love has got to take this into account,” he says. “Acting for men is all about making a bit of a fool of yourself, but that doesn’t mean any old fool can do it.”
And being in demand means the 23-year-old actor must always be ready to perform, with the industry unforgiving when it comes to those who misfire.
“I eat loads of veal because it contains plenty of zinc,” he says, noting the mineral he needs to continuing rising to the occasion. “I’m always taking zinc supplements. Basically, I take one every time I finish a shoot.”
The job has its perils, though. Aware that he will be needed to perform on location has tended to eat into Ikeda’s private love life. And, despite what goes on in front of the cameras, a workplace relationship is strictly prohibited.
“I have never,” Ikeda tells Friday, “asked an actress for her phone number or e-mail address.” (By Ryann Connell)
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zinc huh?
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