Like a coin, RJ Danvers has two sides. He's the type of guy who'd bend over backwards for his grandmother, picking her up and driving her to the Apple Store, like he plans to do after our interview. And on the flipside, he'd do the same – just not backwards – to make a living.
As the youngest guy ever signed to major adult film San Francisco-based distributor Raging Stallion Studios, the 20 year old is level-headed enough to know that his sudden success as a gay porn star probably won't last more than a few years. For now though, the Wayne State University student, who lives in Dearborn Heights, is beaming over what he's made of himself. And a dream that came to fruition after wanting it so badly, and working so hard – losing 70 pounds, and wrestling with his chest hair – to get there.
Sipping his trademark iced white mocha (non-fat, no whipped cream), Danvers is seated outside a Northville Starbucks, a clump of his soft chest hair peeking out of his dipping shirt, as he explains why his career path all makes sense: "I liked sex right away," he says, referencing when he lost his virginity (at age 17 – with a girl). "And, I mean, why not get paid to do something you're doing anyways?"
And good at, apparently. Before completing his 10-scene contract with Raging Stallion, they asked him to sign another. His most recent film, "The Drifter," was released late last month, and "power bottom" Danvers shares the lead scene with Luke Hass, and even exercises lines beyond the typical "Oh, yeah!" and "Harder!"
Says his manager, Howard Andrew of FabScout Entertainment: "He's one of the easy boys." He wasn't always, though.
"He walked in my office right after his 18th birthday and he was a chubby, not-ready kid and I kind of gave him a few suggestions and a few pointers, and he took it seriously and stepped up to the plate."
He's 70 pounds less than the 230 he weighed just after graduating from Livonia's Stevenson High School in 2006, and now he's comfortable with his body rug – which pre-porn he'd always try, like most young gay men, to find excuses to get rid of it.
He joined Stevenson's swim team, even though he hated it – "but at least I got to shave my hair and nobody would ask a damn question," he says. When he shot his first movie, which was Falcon Studios "Road Trip: Russian River," he was given another excuse to manscape. They wanted him to be smooth, muscley and pretty. He did it, much to the regret of his manager ("That won't happen again"), but he's now comfortable looking like, as he says – blaming the Lebanese blood – a "furry little animal."
"I let it grow and I really like it. It makes me different than other guys my age," he says, adding that he's a rarity at Raging Stallion: He's young and slim and furry.
He was in the fifth grade when he shaved his face for the first time, and then shortly after came the chest hair debut. Not longer after that: He popped in his first porno. He snatched it from his father, who Danvers says told him so nonchalantly: "Oh, if I was your age again …"
"I support him completely and have nothing against it. Good for him," says his 18-year-old sister, Rachel. Sure, she'd prefer her gay friends not rave about his scenes to her, and she definitely doesn't want to see any more of him than she already has. "He used to have (an online) journal and we were friends on it so I would read it and he would be like, 'I did some modeling. Click here to look at my pictures.'" So she did.
"They were naked (shots)," she recalls, horrified, "and I yelled at him and I was like, 'You need to put a warning on that next time, ya know!'"
Never had Danvers imagined his on-a-whim career would take off by just sending a few photos to FabScout – or that he'd get his throat slit. In "To the Last Man," a slasher-themed porn that Raging Stallion is hoping will be this year's "Grunt," a top-grosser which also starred Danvers, the teenager was the victim of a bloody Michael Myers trick: "It's like, what reference point do I have on how to get my throat slit?" he laughs. "How do I react to that? I've never had my throat slit before – obviously."
It was shot outside of Phoenix, in the boonies. There was no hospital close by, and his parents worried. Just one of their many concerns, which also include HIV.
Their fears are rightly justified. Recently new stats showed infection rates rising among young gay men. Plus, his uncle succumbed to AIDS. Danvers witnessed what it was like living with the virus, and though it hasn't stopped him from doing porn, he takes every precaution he can.
"I figure I'm as careful as I can possibly be," he says, noting during the interview that he had to pick up his recent results. "I use condoms all the time, I practice safe sex, I get tested … and if for some reason I still manage, after all that work and trouble and being careful, to still get it, then there's nothing I can do. I'm not gonna limit my sex life because I'm afraid."
The traveling, the parties, the guys, the money – it's all worth it for him. For now, at least. While paying his way through marketing/advertising school at Wayne State, where he enrolled to escape the piggish frat boys he was rooming with for his short stay at Grand Valley State University, he can shoot porn on the weekends (Raging Stallion gladly works around his schedule) and manage his self-run blog (rjdanversxxx.blogspot.com) any time.
"I'm totally blessed," he says. "I made the right decisions. I met the right people. I was at the right place at the right time. And this is what I created for myself. I'm happy."
As he should be. Though he's been doing this since days after turning 18, he's breaking out as a prominent porn fixture, which he says is a plus: "I'm still considered fairly fresh. I'm kinda new, so hopefully that will allow my career to go on a little longer, 'cause I've never really been featured in the forefront. People aren't sick of me yet."
He's got a good couple of years left, at least according to Raging Stallion, who told him a typical porn star's longevity is one to three years. And then, like that coin, they – or their audience – are spent.
"I know it can't last forever," he says, "but I love it."
