Ramon Nomar has ascended those royal stairs at last, taking the throne as XBIZ Male Performer of the Year.
After more than 20 years in the industry, starring in nearly 3,000 scenes with more legendary co-stars, directors and studios than you can imagine, from the U.S. to Europe, he is as elite as male talent gets.
He has longevity and he stays ultra-relevant, serving up clean-cut good looks, stylish fashion sense and a manly muscled physique. Dress him in a tux at a fine restaurant, garb him in animal furs wielding a broadsword or give him the silky robe of a playboy; he’ll pull off all three looks with aplomb.
Few men can project the visceral strength of a tiger and also command the room like a peacock, yet he does so with punch.
And year after year, he has consistently ranked among the most-shot performers, only taking a break during the pandemic lockdowns last year to dive headlong into independent content.
Now, he is taking a bold step into the newly-inclusive beyond, embracing his desire to shoot with gay and trans performers, stigma be damned.
As a high-profile man about town making such a move, Nomar is helping to pave the way for others who may have felt shy about doing so.
The water is warm, and he plans to make it very, very hot with upcoming projects like a new trans series for Evil Angel. In fact, his first trans scene just debuted in late February, starring the award-winning Aubrey Kate.
Gather ’round the digital campfire, friends, as Nomar tells all in this exclusive interview with a real king.
XBIZ: Tell us about your background in the adult industry, from your earliest days in Europe.
Nomar: I was born in Caracas in Venezuela, where I spent the first years of my life, but my story really begins in Spain. There, I was serving in the military in the Canary Islands, due to nine months of mandatory service. After it concluded, I was looking for work. An opportunity came along to do live sex shows, so I went to the Barcelona International Erotic Film Festival the year after, because the owners of the sex shop where I was performing wanted me to; and I performed in front of 2,000 people.
I was lucky enough that in the fifth row of that crowd were the top producers of the world. They were promoting their new productions at the show, which offered a rare opportunity for talent performing live to network. Soon after, I started starring in many top movies for studios like IFG, who hired me to do “Showgirls en Madrid,” where Nina Hartley was the lead actress. There is an interesting anecdote for the production of that movie as well.
They had trouble with unreliable male talent, and back then it wasn’t like today where you can call an agency to quickly find a replacement. You would exchange numbers and people would call you; we didn’t even have email, as it had just started to be used then. So we still had street phones, or I had to have a landline phone at home for people to call me. When pagers and cell phones started coming along, that made it easy.
So when they ran into an issue for “Showgirls en Madrid,” even though I was the new guy, I had to perform in five scenes. And Salvador Diago, the owner of the studio, was very thankful about it. Basically, during my first shoot, I was saving the entire production. Another early title for me was “Cindy” — it was the first international movie I did, and I performed with Selene, who was a big porn star in Europe in the 90s.
Ramon Nomar
XBIZ: How long were you based in Europe, before coming to the U.S. more permanently?
Nomar: After working in Europe for 12 years, in December 2010, I came to the U.S. Keep in mind, I was working very comfortably in Europe in the early 2000s, but companies didn’t want to invest too much in online porn; they just wanted to just sell DVDs. So when they got caught off-guard by the new trend towards digital, production budgets started to get pushed down; I went from getting paid 800 euros back in 2006, to getting cut back to 400-500 euros.
I believe in paying for quality performances, and while some may think the most important part of the scene is brought by the female performer … yeah, you can have a huge star, but it’s not going to be the same type of scene if there’s no chemistry, or a male talent is on a female’s “no list.”
That’s why only top male performers can bring reliability, and why we are so few. So if you’re not able to pay for that caliber, I don’t think budgeting against males is wise. Because they weren’t able to understand that at the time, I wanted to try my luck in the U.S., where I had already visited a few times from 1998 to 2002, working for Suze Randall, Andrew Blake, Michael Ninn and John Stagliano as well. I knew the market for me was here in the U.S., and I believed Europe wasn’t going to improve their budgets.
In the American system, I feel like they believe in the value of the male performer, so I felt really embraced. I went straight to L.A. and then it was just a question of which agency to pick, so I signed up with LA Direct Models. Derek Hay, who knew my line of work given his background as talent, booked me for the next 1.5 to two years. I discovered that male performers can pretty easily rep themselves, since they usually work with the same producers consistently. So while I had a good experience with Derek, ever since then, I have booked myself.
Those first days living in the U.S., I had a special contract with Reality Kings that was exclusive for 1.5 years, and I was doing 20 scenes a month; nine were with Greg Lansky before he was involved with Tushy, Blacked and Vixen. Then I went back to shooting for DVD movies in 2012 and 2013, working more generally for companies like New Sensations, Evil Angel, Elegant Angel, Hard X, Wicked Pictures, Digital Playground, Penthouse and Cherry Pimps.
XBIZ: During the first half of the 2010s, what was the studio side of the biz like, given your longevity and multi-era perspective in adult?
Nomar: For me, it’s easy to remember who the top stars were back then. Girls like Asa Akira, who was doing incredibly passionate scenes, DPs and gang-bangs, plus Bonnie Rotten, who came into the industry and became huge in just a few years … they were super hardcore performers who were comfortable working with multiple people, having orgasms and having a great time.
It’s very interesting for a performer of my experience to see how fast a star can go to the top in just two years. I believe it’s the kind of sexuality they bring; they are not afraid of anything and open to trying just about everything. I think Adriana Chechik and Angela White are also amazing; White grew fast also because she was involved in directing/producing at the same time as performing. Right now, the bar is higher than ever.
Photo by New Sensations
XBIZ: Which male performers and directors do you most admire?
Nomar: Sooner than later, male stars come to understand each other, even if at the beginning you might have some difficulties with one performer or another. But I always feel profound admiration for stars like Rocco Siffredi, who is a legend, Nacho Vidal, Manuel Ferrara, Mick Blue, James Deen and Small Hands, who has gone way to the top in a good manner. Some performers who are maybe underappreciated are Xander Corvus and Chris Diamond. I also love my Evil Angel family, like Jonni Darkko, Joey Silvera, Dana Vespoli and Aiden Starr; I have worked with most of the directors who have their own movie lines.
XBIZ: From studio shoots to independent content platforms, how have you seen the industry change over the past five years?
Nomar: Right now, we have this huge spread of content creation, thanks to platforms like OnlyFans. Even if I had created my page four years ago, the independent market wasn’t what it is back then. I really started focusing on it in March 2020, when we stopped shooting due to the pandemic. I finally had time to dedicate to my OnlyFans and I started to do some clips, like masturbation videos, because I saw others selling them.
I was surprised I was able to sell them so fast. They were easy to shoot, more organic and more amateur, which people like to see nowadays. They like to see reality, how we’re doing in our private lives and they’re curious about our inner sexuality. Audiences are open to seeing more of the male than the female, with sites like EyeOnTheGuy, Reaming and SeeHimFuck, because right now with this new type of indie platform, we are jumping past the middleman; we are talking directly with the people on the other side of the screen, the viewers. A lot would like to see more of us.
Some may think it’s only gay or bi guys who do, but I am discovering (thanks to this fan feedback), that even women like to see guys jerking off or another woman rimming another man. They would like to learn more about different ways to please men, and the types of sites I mentioned focus on the pleasure of the man.
And there are some people making hundreds of thousands of dollars a month, too; never in history have performers made that much. Right now, it’s the best moment to jump in, if you know how to be creative, market yourself and use social media. That said, it’s also important if you are a porn star, to keep working with production companies, who put money into promo and the scenes we are shooting, because it helps our social media following grow and from there we can get our subs.
Photo by New Sensations
XBIZ: With all this expanded revenue and inclusivity, you opened up on Twitter about wanting to explore trans and gay content. Discuss your vision.
Nomar: I have started to do a trans line for Evil Angel, directing, producing and performing in it. This year I want to go through my whole sexuality. I tweeted that post a few weeks ago, asking my subs and pro partners about me doing TS or gay scenes, and I was very surprised by the public’s embrace. At least 95% of the people were loving it in the comments and DMs I got, so that brings me to my trans project.
I shot a scene with Aubrey Kate, Daisy Taylor and Alexis Scout, and the overall concept of my movie is I’m traveling around the country to different cities, looking for and meeting trans individuals that live in those cities. Places like L.A., S.F., N.Y., Vegas and Miami. With my performance, I’m going to bring my usual passionate energy to these scenes, which I think will be surprising for some people; I believe they will understand I want to show support and love for everyone I work with, regardless of gender or orientation.
Keep in mind, between those positive comments on Twitter, I also received complaints from people who still have a stigma about it. People who love to work with trans or gay partners are afraid of what other people are going to say. So I am making a big statement by directing, producing and performing in these movies; I don’t know many who are doing all three, so I am making a big step here. And this is just one of the steps I want to do this year, because I’m truly going to explore all of my sexuality. We need to be united and keep the love flowing; it’s about respecting people for who they are and not for what type of sexuality they have.
XBIZ: Tell us more about your plans for Evil Angel movies this year.
Nomar: With Evil Angel, we have a long relationship, where I produce and direct for them. Stagliano was one of the first people who saw me performing in Barcelona, long ago. It was very unusual for Americans to see such a show, because they are illegal here but not in Europe, so many of my relationships came from that.
So I feel very comfortable with them, and they have a good understanding of what I’m looking to do with my trans DVDs. They see the vision of what I’m doing, especially the big movie I want to make later this year. It’s something far greater than the average step porn. Unfortunately, while this biz is great, sometimes we find a trend that sells and everyone does it the same. And yes, I do it too; I’m the professional and will do anything you like, but we get burned out doing the same kind of content.
Now with Evil Angel, I have a company who will let me do whatever I want to do creativity-wise. Everything I’m doing this year is for Evil Angel, so I’m very excited about that. We’re going to put a lot of energy in this project.
