Velvet Moon

Walter Moore wasn't quite what he had gotten himself into.

It had only been a few months since he had won the male lead in "Velvet Moon," and a part of him wished he had turned the role down. The film had been conceived by writer-director Zach Levin as a throwback to the erotic thrillers of the 1980s and 1990s, and Walter, who at 28 had no living memory of such movies, thought the idea was more than a little silly. It was an honor to work with a two-time Oscar winner, he thought, but for this?

Walter wasn't the first choice for the role by any means; in fact, a number of A-listers had rejected the role because Levin's script called for full-frontal male nudity. The Atlanta native was not afraid of being naked onscreen; he was just concerned that the film would be a failure, and he would be humiliated.

Walter was simultaneously proud and ashamed of his penis, which stood ten inches when fully erect. At the outset of his career, when he struggled to find roles in which he wouldn't have to play young criminals or victims of police brutality, friends who knew of his endowment encouraged him to consider a porn career. They said it would not only pay the bills, but in this day and age, he might be able to leverage his porn celebrity into a mainstream acting career. Walter wouldn't hear of it. He wanted to be the next Denzel Washington, not the next Lexington Steele.

As he read the script, he wondered if this movie was going to be considered too scandalous, too outrageous, too much. He wondered if audiences would even believe it was his real penis they were seeing onscreen. He wondered if he was going to make an utter fool of himself.

Those fears didn't fade until he finally met Elle O'Donovan, who had been cast as the female lead after over a dozen higher-profile actresses had turned down the role. Elle was an energetic 26-year-old from Exmouth, Western Australia who had been a child star on "Peta!", a hit TV show in her home country as well as the UK. Long after "Peta!" had been canceled, she was still associated with that role, and couldn't convince Australian casting directors to view her as a grown woman; frustration drove her to the States, and to seek roles in which she'd be seen as anything but the naive, smiling girl she once played.

Walter was immediately fascinated and aroused by Elle the moment he saw her. She had bright blue eyes, long straight orange-red hair, blinding white skin, cute dimples and the slightest brush of freckles across her face. She was also very curvy, and it was all he could do not to fixate on her ass. As he shook her hand and marveled at its softness, he smiled slightly. This, he thought, could get interesting.

--

In "Velvet Moon," Walter would play Stephan Brooke, a Los Angeles prosecutor trying to convict Priscilla Moloney (played by O'Donovan), a wealthy widow accused of murdering her older husband...even though Stephan had secretly been romantically involved with Priscilla. The film would mainly focus on Priscilla's trial, intercut with flashbacks of her intimate encounters with Stephan.

Zach wanted the love scenes to be as raw as possible, and Walter and Elle held nothing back. Before their first such scene, Elle lightened the mood with a joke about the size of his erect manhood: "Doesn't that hurt your back a bit when you get really excited?"

Walter laughed. He was legitimately turned on by her, and she knew it.

He remained professional during the filming of the scenes, but a part of him was willing to sell his soul to spend an actual night with her. He had never met someone so beautifully pale that they could illuminate a room; the contrast of her white body against his dark skin had him swooning. He completely understood why so many actors and actresses became real-life partners after shooting intimate and intense scenes with each other.

Elle was finding the scenes to be just as much of a real turn-on, though she also remained professional. As she writhed next to him, she felt a tinge of jealousy towards Walter's past girlfriends, and the absolute pleasure he must have given them. It was like his body was specially engineered to satisfy, she thought; what I wouldn't give to really feel that sexy, massive thing of his, so firm and so full, inside my mouth, my pussy, my ass...

After they filmed their final love scene, a half-dizzy Walter quickly dressed and headed to his trailer. There, he thought of his co-star and her beautiful, fair body until he came.

Elle waited several minutes to catch her breath before she dressed and left the set. Before she put on her pants, she looked down past her waist and jokingly told Zach: "Anybody got a mop?"

--

"Velvet Moon" proved to be highly controversial upon release, with several theater chains in the United States refusing to show the film, arguing that it was, for all intents and purposes, pornography. The twist ending--in which Priscilla's trial ends with a deadlocked jury, only for Stephan to announce that he would not retry the case because he, not Priscilla, murdered her husband--was trashed by critics as ludicrous and offensive. Numerous op-eds and cable news segments were devoted to the film, some defending its artistic ambition, others denouncing it as smut.

The movie did turn a modest profit, and Zach soon announced that his next film would be a throwback to '80s buddy-cop films, with Walter as one of the leads. Weeks later, Elle signed to star in an adaptation of Kate Chopin's novel "The Awakening." In an interview with Variety about the upcoming film, Elle said that she enjoyed working with Walter, and couldn't wait to make another movie with him--"one with a whole lot more fucking. Maybe a movie with no plot at all, just the two of us doing nothing but fucking for two hours. I'd be up for that...and I'm sure he would be, too!"

The day the Variety article was released, a TMZ reporter caught up with Walter as he headed to catch a flight at LAX. When he was told about Elle's remarks, he smiled and told the reporter, "Elle is amazing. I would work with her again on anything. As for her idea...well...let me ask you a question. If we made a movie like that...you'd watch, wouldn't you?"