How I pick collaborators (and what I look for in a co-star)

A working performer gets collab requests constantly. Some are from people I'd love to work with. Some are from people I'd never work with. The vast middle is people I don't know yet, and a real chunk of this job is figuring out, fairly quickly, which group a new face belongs in.

The checklist below is the one I actually run, mostly in my head, before saying yes to a scene with someone new. If you're a creator wondering how to make yourself an obvious yes — or if you're a fan curious how the sausage gets made — this is it.

The non-negotiables

Before any of the soft stuff, there are five things that are not optional. If any one of them is missing, the answer is no, full stop:

1. Government-issued ID and an in-date STI test. No exceptions, no "I'll get one this week," no "I had one last month, that's basically the same." This is the lowest bar in the industry and it weeds out maybe 20% of cold inquiries on its own.
2. Real, verifiable identity. I want to know who I'm working with — their professional name, their socials, the platforms they're on, the work they've already shipped. People who can't or won't show me that are people I'm not shooting with.
3. No coercion of anyone else in the picture. If a partner, manager, or "agency" is doing the talking, I want to talk directly to the performer. If that can't happen, the scene can't happen.
4. Clean paperwork on both sides. Releases, content licensing terms, age verification records — for both of us, every time. (And if either side's paperwork has an AI clause buried in it, that's its own conversation before we shoot.) The day you start cutting corners is the day a court somewhere will care.
5. A clear "no" on something. This sounds backwards. It isn't. The performers who say "I'll do anything" are the ones who haven't thought about it. I want to work with people who know exactly where their lines are.

If those five are all green, we move to the next layer.

Green flags I look for

• They have a body of work I can actually watch. Three years of shipped scenes, even short ones, tells me more than any portfolio. I can see how they handle pacing, how they handle co-stars, and whether the work matches what they say it does. (The scene catalogue on this site is what I'd point a prospective collaborator at when they ask me the same question in reverse.)
• Their socials are alive. Replying to fans, replying to other creators, posting consistently. Not viral — alive.
• They have a SFW landing page (or at least a real Linktree). If there's no public-facing way to share their work without it being blocked by every social network, they haven't built the basics yet, and the collab will inherit that problem.
• They name a specific kind of scene they want to do. "I really want to try a POV shoot in this specific format" beats "let's collab" by a lot.
• They ask about money before the scene. Sounds harsh. It's actually the right move — collabs with unclear splits get ugly fast, and the performers who handle this directly up front are the ones who handle the rest of the work that way too.
• They have someone else they've worked with twice. Repeat collabs are the strongest possible signal in this industry. If two performers shoot with each other a second time, both of them like working with each other. That's a cleaner reference than any reel.

Red flags that end the conversation

• They want to shoot "today" or "this weekend." Real collaborations don't materialize that fast. The scenes that do are almost always going to be a problem.
• They don't want a contract because "we're friends." I've signed paperwork with friends. So has every other working performer.
• Their content history doesn't match their socials. Different name, different look, different platforms — and a story about why that doesn't quite add up. Walk.
• They're rude to anyone who isn't me. How they talk to platforms, fans, and editors is how they'll talk to my editor. Take the data.
• The financial split is "we'll figure it out after." No. We figure it out now or we don't shoot.
• They want to shoot at their place with no third party knowing where I am. Industry safety norms exist for a reason. If you've been around long enough, you don't push back on them.

The taste layer

If the non-negotiables are clean and the green/red flag check is solid, there's a third filter that's more about taste:

• Do we have any idea for a scene, or are we just trying to be in the same shot?
• Does our existing audience overlap enough to make the scene worth the work, but not so much that we're just reshuffling the same fans?
• Does the tone match? A performer who works mostly in a soft, intimate register and one who works mostly in a hard, energetic register can collab beautifully or can clash badly. We talk this through before any shoot date.
• Does the timing make sense for the platforms involved? Some of my best collabs have been delayed three months because we wanted to drop them in a specific window.

If the chemistry is there in conversation, it's almost always there on camera. If the chemistry is forced in conversation, no editing in the world fixes it.

What I look for in a long-term creative partner

The deeper question is: who do I want to come back to a year later?

• Someone who shows up on time, prepared, and follows their own scene plan as well as I follow mine.
• Someone who flags problems early instead of stewing on them and bringing them up after the scene is shot.
• Someone whose work is improving, not coasting. I don't need them to be where I am; I need them to care about the craft.
• Someone who says no when something isn't right for them, and trusts me to do the same. Mutual no's are how trust gets built.

The best collaborators in my work history all have those four. None of them have all five Instagram-ready aesthetics. None of them have the biggest platform numbers. They're just professional, alive, and easy to work with.

How to make yourself an obvious yes

If you're a creator looking to land collabs (with me or with anyone working at a similar level), three pieces of advice:

1. Build the boring infrastructure first. Site, socials, releases, tested professional name. The people you want to work with have all of that already, and they don't want to build it for you.
2. Ship a body of work that demonstrates how you handle co-stars. Not just solo. Even a few short collabs with other small creators tell me how you operate.
3. Approach the conversation like a business meeting, not a fan interaction. I read every DM. The ones that read like a brief and a pitch get a real reply.

And once you're in: be the easiest person on the call sheet. The actual ranking inside the industry — the people who get repeat work — is mostly sorted by reliability and judgement, not by metrics. The metrics follow.

When co-creator pages launch on this site (an early version is at /models), the creators featured there will be people who cleared all of the above. That's the entire bar. No commissions, no exclusivity, no quid pro quo — just people I trust enough to send my fans toward.

— Sly