'Murdered Heart' Director Marc MacNamara Delivers a Vital Message

Above, a still from A Murdered Heart (NakedSword). From left, Jessy Ares, Ty Mitchell, director Marc MacNamara, Cade Maddox; foreground, Angel Rivera and Colton Reece. Marc MacNamara is no stranger to award-winning films, with a filmography that stretches back to his days at Lucas Entertainment and continues at Men.com, where he remains one of the marquee directors. But with the recent release of A Murdered Heart as a guest director for NakedSword, he has crafted his most important work yet—and his most controversial. “I've been writing and directing in the adult industry for over a decade now. 2020 is a very important year for the world, and obviously the start of a new decade. I wanted to go beyond having sex next to a salad and tackle the topics I feel have been left unsaid in this industry,” he said. “We have the reach and the ability to make an impact. Yes, we are entertainment, but so was Schindler's List. Not all entertainment needs to be comfortable and light—if it sparks a conversation, a change and new perspective, then take it and do your best to showcase your point of view. That's the inspiration I took in writing A Murdered Heart.” The film chronicles the experiences of three young men sent to a conversion therapy camp, and it happens to star some of the biggest names—past and present—in the business. “For the past decade, I've seen [NakedSword CEO] Tim Valenti at all the award shows and conferences, but we never had the chance to sit down and talk about collaborating because I was always under the label of another studio. When I decided to branch out and have my production company, Nasty Boy Productions, make movies outside of Men.com, Tim and I had a video conference where I pitched three movies—and the ball started rolling rather quickly on A Murdered Heart. Everyone at NakedSword/Falcon has been a dream to work with. It is an environment where they completely embrace the artist and allowed, without censorship, my vision of bringing a controversial subject matter like conversion therapy to light.” MacNamara credits Valenti and VP of Production Adam Q. Robinson with helping him in the pre-production phase—and letting him have his pick of the cast. “After I wrote the script and the cast was in place, we started looking for locations. Adam and Tim had a perfect location near San Fran—they toured the property, and as soon as I landed, I did the same. We were set. Well, on day two we were kicked out of the location. We were on a minute-by-minute schedule on this production in order to get all 27 story scenes and four sex scenes filmed in a five-day period. So at that moment we had a choice—to scrap the movie and just make some scenes with the cast, or to buckle in and find a new camp within the hour. We did it, and it was never an option not to—I mean, Jessy flew in from Puerto Rico for this role. I wasn't going to throw our plans away.” The project allowed fans to see another side of MacNamara—and not just because he makes a (clothed) appearance on camera as an angry father. It’s one of his most emotional projects ever, and it was a long time in the making for the ambitious filmmaker. “I've always filmed, wrote and directed movies and skits as I was growing up. When I was 17 years old in high school, I directed a music video for ‘Love Don't Cost a Thing’ by JLo. I sent it to MTV, and they aired it. That started my concept of this evolving from being a hobby and obsession to becoming a career.” He went to school and worked in mainstream TV and movies. Eventually, he moved to the adult industry with Lucas Entertainment, where he wrote and directed hit after hit like Assassin, The Last Day and Kings of New York. When he left the studio in 2013, MacNamara decided to start his own production company (“named after the Janet song, of course”). “My goal was to eventually take on 10 projects or scenes a month—somewhere five years down the line when we grew enough to handle it. Well, a few weeks after I started the company, I got the call from Men.com to shoot 10 scenes that month. At that point, the only equipment I owned was my camera—so we hustled to rent everything and pulled it off like we were a well-oiled machine from the jump. I'm happy to say we have been booked solid since that first month. My goal now with Nasty Boy would be to open a site with our content, whether it be under the umbrella of a larger studio or on our own.” And with Heart under his belt, MacNamara is sure to garner even more opportunities to grow. The film has been a hit and prompted conversations—aided by a dream cast that includes reigning GayVN Performer of the Year Cade Maddox along with fellow Falcon exclusive Colton Reece; superstars Ty Mitchell and Angel Rivera; and newcomer Alexander Savage. Oh yeah, it also has the return of two gay porn icons in Johnny Hazzard and Jessy Ares, whose highly anticipated scene together was released this month. It would have been major news to land just one of them, but MacNamara got both—thanks to the relationships he’s built over the years. Johnny Hazzard in A Murdered Heart (NakedSword) “I first met Johnny when we were filming Kings of New York. The series revolved around stunt casting of a popular media personality in the story parts with the models. Johnny was paired with Liam Magnuson—and the effervescent beauty and talent of ‘Tan Mom.’ Just to set the stage for the day, Mrs. Mom showed up plastered. She had a Gatorade bottle she was chugging from. My assistant Rusty questioned ‘What flavor is that Gatorade?’ to which she replied, ‘White wine.’ It sounds all fun and games, but the charm of Tan Mom wears off quickly—and Johnny dealt with it like a pro. He never once complained, he never once stumbled on his lines that he kept having to repeat due to Tan Mom missing cues.” MacNamara later worked with Hazzard at Men.com—and when he was writing A Murdered Heart, he knew he needed the performer back. (“He is the first and only model I have worked with at all three studios I've directed for.”) Hazzard—who joined the industry in 2003 and was an immediate Channel 1 superstar—performed sparingly starting in 2016, and his last two scenes were released in 2017. “I don’t think he worked much in years!” shares MacNamara, adding it didn’t take much to get him back in front of the camera. “It was one text. He was in from the start. I think he knew it was going to be a special project.” And while the Tan Mom experience takes the cake, the two were able to forge new (and less stressful) memories on the Heart shoot. “It was just watching him act when I'd say ‘Action!’ We never did a real heavy script together before, and to see him perform was beautiful. He really is a thoughtful and seasoned actor. His eyes, his mannerisms, his reactions are always on point even in the slightest form. There is a line that Angel Rivera says when Cade Maddox pulls out his ‘Sis’ T-shirt—it wasn't in the script, but Angel ad libs and says, ‘That's my favorite shirt.’ Johnny doesn't miss a beat and just snaps his head around and gives his ‘son’ this look. It was so perfect I had to put it in the trailer.” Jessy Ares in A Murdered Heart (NakedSword) MacNamara also has a long history with Ares, another hugely popular and award-winning performer. He entered the industry in 2010, and—like Hazzard—has performed sparingly since 2017. It’s been a year since he last appeared in front of the camera (in two scenes for Men.com). “I first met Jessy in Mykonos filming Awake. We originally cast another model to play the lead role, but by time I landed in Greece, that model had caused some major issues with his cast mates and we had to replace him,” MacNamara recalls. “I was sitting in the car with Jessy on the way from the airport; I had just met him, but I had this feeling he was going to be able to nail the very long script as the lead. So I put him in. He truly is a gift to work with. He studies his character and takes it way beyond a role in an adult film—he gives it the treatment of such perfection and grace. There is nothing this man can't do. We've remained very close over the years, keeping in contact over the time we didn't have a chance to work together. But when this opportunity to give him the very difficult role of a pastor in A Murdered Heart came along, I would accept no one else to play the character.” Meanwhile, MacNamara also landed Maddox—the man of the moment who has also expressed an interest in improving his acting skills. “I had never met Cade before working on this movie. I just assumed he was going to be an arrogant douche who thought he invented gay porn,” shares MacNamara, having lived that experience far too many times before in his directing career. “Well, he certainly proved how wrong I was. Cade is a perfect gentleman. He is kind, he is gracious, he is adaptable and he is a joy to work with. He was nervous about his lines—he had a lot of them. I really do hope he surprised himself, because he delivered a solid and nuanced performance that really was special. And that's how I'd describe Cade—special. A beautiful man, with a huge heart and the talent to knock ’em dead.” Cade Maddox in A Murdered Heart (NakedSword) All helped MacNamara pull off the tricky balance of a message movie that still manages to arouse. “I definitely put a lot of thought into delivering this story on an adult platform. Many people might find it off-putting to deal with such a serious topic and then jerk off to it. For me, it's about telling the story of sexuality. No one in A Murdered Heart is having sex gratuitously—there is purpose and reason to every scene. So once your mind and body are brought into the story, I feel it's a heightened level of desire you are watching the characters explore.” The director notes he has two other stories in the pipeline that he wants to work with NakedSword on, “each with their own heart and purpose to deliver in such an important year. I don't want to give too much away—but maybe by saying the subject matter, it won't tell too much. I have something that involves climate change, and a story about mind control and the government that I want to tell.” In the meantime, he hopes that conversion therapy camps will soon be a thing of the past. “It is insane, horrific, terrifying and shocking that only 19 states have bans against these camps. I think awareness is the first step. For example, until I started researching for the script, I assumed many more states would have banned this ‘therapy.’ In fact, I probably thought it was federally banned across the U.S. It is not. I know many people might think A Murdered Heart is taking advantage of such an important issue that has affected over 700,000 LGBT individuals by making it into a porn. That is not what we did here. I wanted to take this platform that I have been given and start saying something to get to the masses. This topic specifically targets LGBT sexuality—this is the perfect place to have a discussion, to open the eyes of the fortunate members of the community and showcase that some of our brothers and sisters are battling for their sexual freedom. They are being oppressed. They are being abused. Let's catch fire on this issue and make a change.”