How I prep for a shoot: stamina on set as a male performer

Up front: I'm not a doctor, and nothing here is medical advice. This is what I do before and during a shoot. Anything involving medication is a conversation for you and a doctor, not a blog.

Shooting a scene is hard physical work, and I prep for it like a workout. The day before, I eat clean, sleep a lot and stay hydrated. On the day, I'm good for two to four scenes, and four is pushing it. Most of staying power on set is decided before I walk in.

How physically demanding is shooting a scene?

More than people expect. Most scenes are around 30 minutes of hard exertion, and some film for 45 minutes or close to an hour. That's before the warm-up, the positioning and getting everything set up, which is a lot of moving around too. As a male performer you're usually doing a lot of the moving, because that's what viewers want to see. It depends on the scene, but that's the usual shape of it.

Each scene takes about two hours once you count the paperwork, the photos before and after, and any marketing material we make. Across two to four scenes, that's two to three hours of physical work in a day. A multi-day shoot can stack several of those days back to back, and by the end of each one I'm thoroughly exhausted.

What do I do the day before a shoot?

Eat clean, sleep, hydrate, and rest. I keep the food bland: nothing fatty, nothing salty, nothing I think could push my blood pressure or sodium up. I drink a lot of water. And I skip any hard gym session, because I don't want to walk in already tired.

None of that is exciting. That's the point. On the day, I want nothing about how I ate or slept to be a variable.

What do I avoid?

Alcohol, completely. And anything heavy, greasy or salty, for the reasons above. The goal is to show up with nothing working against me.

There's already enough going on in a shoot: the nerves of working with someone new, or trying something I haven't done before and hoping it lands. I don't want my body adding to that list.

Do male performers use Viagra or Cialis?

Yes, some performers do. I take Viagra or Cialis for some scenes, depending on the scene, along with supplements for erection support. Performers use them whether or not they have erectile dysfunction, because a scene asks a lot of your body for a long time.

They help the body, not the head, though. I wrote about that in staying hard on camera: if your head isn't in it, no pill fixes it. And again, I'm not a doctor. These are prescription medications, so whether they're right for you is a question for a doctor.

How do I pace myself during a scene?

Breaks, position changes, and letting my partner take over. Water breaks matter more as the day goes on, because you get more dehydrated with each scene. Changing position gives me a breather.

And it doesn't have to be me doing all the work. When my partner gets on top and takes over for a while, I get a breather and the scene gets a change of pace.

Does any of this get easier?

The prep becomes routine, which helps. The exhaustion doesn't go away. That's why I treat the day before as part of the job. If you want the wider picture of what a scene involves, what goes into a scene covers the rest. And if you're wondering what a job like this does to No Nut November, I sit it out.

— Sly