Mike Quasar has been working in the adult industry for 34 years. The highly respected veteran director admits to feeling a little astonished by this fact.
“I never planned on any of this,” says Quasar. “You’ve heard of the 10,000 hours theory as it pertains to being good at something? Well, I’m probably closer to 100,000 hours now. I directed my first movie in 1994 — and it was terrible!
“But the great thing about porn is that the bar of entry is so incredibly low, you don’t really have to have a skill of any kind,” he jokes. “As I like to say, it’s just porn.
“Don’t get me wrong,” he adds. “Some people do it better than others.”
Quasar, who dropped out of high school in ninth grade, broke into the business around the age of 20 or 21, and quickly found himself subbing in for a director when the older man’s back went out on him the morning of a shoot.
“Only in porn can the guy who hands out the baby wipes be promoted to director,” he marvels. “That’s literally how it happened for me.
The downside: Quasar quickly found himself with a lot of leeway to be irresponsible. As his drinking intensified, he recalls, he grew resentful of feeling “stuck” doing porn, and would sometimes come to work still hungover from the night before.
“I’m not proud of that,” he notes. “But my drinking never really interfered with my job. It interfered more with my life as a human being.”
Now two years sober, Quasar currently lives a calmer lifestyle with his 14-year-old dog, Molly, and two things he inherited from his father: a mighty hairline and an acerbic sense of humor that serves him well in the adult industry. These days, his main vice is sushi — he frequents Q Sushi in Westlake Village — so he no longer has to worry about waking up shaking with anxiety and desperate for a Bloody Mary, once his preferred morning beverage.
“Now, I get up at 6:30 a.m. and make about 14 cups of coffee before I load up my car with a lot of equipment — including a printer, in case the talent hasn’t signed their paperwork yet,” he says. “Then I drive to one of the six porn houses where I’m shooting that day, and somebody I hired unloads the car for me. We typically do two scenes a day.”
Quasar says he doesn’t mind his reputation for being the fastest shooter in the business.
“People like to work for me because I don’t keep them there any longer than I have to,” he laughs. “I’ve worked for lots of people over the years who have made me wait around on set until 4 in the morning for no reason. Every performer in the industry will tell you a horror story like that. My attitude is: ‘Let’s get this done and get out of here!’ That’s been my production strategy since day one.”
Quasar prefers to start shooting his first scene at 10 a.m., wrap by 1 p.m., then begin filming the next scene, which wraps around 4 p.m. As his own editor, he only shoots what he expects to use, making him more time-efficient.
“I still do all the writing, editing, still photography and videography myself,” he says. “On a regular day with two scenes, I do all the lighting myself too. You’d think that doing everything yourself would take longer, but it actually takes less time because I’m not waiting on anybody else.”
Nevertheless, Quasar appreciates his frequent collaborators: right-hand man Shawn Alff, whom he calls “the world’s greatest production assistant, as well as a very skillful content creator in his own right,” Shaun Rivera, whom Quasar hails as “the No. 1 lighting guy in the entire industry” and Eddie Powell, who helps out with sound when Quasar directs bigger features.
Quasar typically arrives on set about 30 minutes before the talent’s call time, to start setting up with his PA for the day.
“If the talent is more than 15 minutes late in the morning, I start to panic and text people,” he says. “If they’re more than 30 minutes late, I cancel. I’d rather cancel a scene than push the whole schedule back. I mean, if you’re more than a half hour late, you’re just being an asshole. You knew what your call time was, so unless something tragic happened, there’s really no excuse to be that late.”
Once talent is on the set, Quasar takes stills. He also prefers to bang out the dialogue before shooting sex scenes.
“That’s if the actors have read the script, which sometimes they haven’t,” he notes. “But hopefully, by 5 p.m. I’m home, walking Molly. That’s basically my day. No lunch break.”
On set, Quasar says, he assures everyone that they’ll be too busy to get hungry.
Quasar is staying quite busy himself these days, shooting for Mile High Media’s four main sites, including Reality Junkies, as well as for Gamma and Throated.com. He also serves as cameraman for Cherry Kiss when she directs for SexArt, and for Jacky St. James when she directs for Bellesa. He regularly works on weekends.
“I’d like to have some more time off,” he muses. “But when I do have time off, I typically don’t know what to do with myself. So it’s better that I’m on set.
“Besides, I never turn down work because I’m always convinced that soon, I won’t have a job,” he laughs. “I’ve been saying that for about 25 years, but I still believe that the next job might be my last. I’m just paranoid for some reason.
“Of course, man cannot live by porn alone,” he adds, before opening up about his true passion: playing music.
When not on set, Quasar loves being on stage. He plays the drums in a punk band called The Cocks — which he acknowledges is a bit ironic, given his day job. He also plays in a heavy metal covers band. He recently saw AC/DC in concert, and plans to see Pantera in August.
“I love live music, and a lot of the bands I grew up on are getting very old,” he says wistfully. “So this might be my last time to see them.”
Back in the work world, Quasar also watches plenty of porn — mainly to see what cameras and lenses the competition is using. Quasar says he’s always been a Canon man, and currently uses a Canon C80, but he admits that these days, content creators are able to shoot amazingly good material with an iPhone.
With 34 years in the adult industry under his belt, Quasar’s main advice for those aspiring to work behind the camera is to check their motivations first.
“If you just want to be around hot chicks all day long, that wears off,” he cautions. “I mean, if you work at an amusement park, eventually Space Mountain gets boring. It’s the same thing every day. That isn’t to say that it’s unpleasant. It’s just that working in porn is different from what most people imagine. A lot of it is watching some naked dude stare at his phone while stroking his dick with one hand as he tries to stay hard, and eating a sandwich with his other hand. That’s the reality of it.”
The key to longevity in the adult business, Quasar adds, is being someone who can be trusted with two things: money and talent.
“If you get a reputation for going over budget, or getting too close to the talent, you won’t last long,” says Quasar, who prides himself on delivering product on time and on budget, and being respectful of performers.
Once or twice a year, he says, he might develop a crush on someone in the business. But he never acts on it because he has “no game whatsoever” and doesn’t want anyone to think he’s a creep.
“I’m content to snuggle up in front of the TV with Molly,” he says. “She’s enough for me.”
Quasar was married for more than 20 years, and credits his ex-wife with keeping him well-behaved and sane, thereby enabling him to have a normal life outside of porn. Since then, he says, he has never ventured onto a dating app, largely because “civilians” don’t necessarily understand his job.
Looking back, Quasar is appreciative of everything the adult industry has given him.
“I was very disgruntled at first, because I was disappointed that I didn’t become a rock star or a stand-up comedian,” he reflects. “But while those things may not have worked out, porn did work out. Now that I’m 55 years old, I know it could have been way worse for me.
“I’m actually very grateful that I’ve been a part of this business as long as I have been, and that I’m still here,” he affirms. “It’s been a long time, but I just want to keep working for as long as possible. They say that 80% of success is just showing up.
He smiles. “Well, I’ve been showing up for a long time.”
