Ethan James Green Thought He Had Given Up Modeling. Then He Thought Again

Ethan James Green slid into a booth at the Montague Diner in Brooklyn Heights, finally back home in New York after a few days in London. He was in the UK to launch his 2025 Pirelli calendar to much fanfare at London’s Natural History Museum. (You can read my colleague Leah Faye Cooper’s story of the calendar—with its terrific images of Hunter Schafer, Martine Gutierrez, Padma Lakshmi, John Boyega, and Jodie Turner-Smith, among others, here.)

Someone else also turns up in the Pirelli mix, stripped down (quite literally): Ethan James Green himself. A black-and-white nude of him from the calendar showed up on my Instagram Stories last week, with a brief accompanying line from Green noting that he had signed with the modeling agency IMG. (Though, just to be clear, he is very much continuing with his photographic career as well.)

For those of you more familiar with his work behind the camera—his October 2024 Vogue cover shoot with Lady Gaga, say, or his excellent book Bombshell, which came out over the summer, well: Green had a whole earlier life in fashion in front of the camera, including a 2014 cover of Italian Vogue photographed by Steven Meisel and an advertising campaign for Calvin Klein.

I had texted Green to ask if he’d like to chat about why he wanted to model again, which is why we’re here on an early Monday evening—he with a burger, me with a grain bowl—talking about where it all started for him, where he is now, and where it all might go next. All of this has come at a time that Green calls, with a rueful laugh, “the hardest year of my life.” In some ways, he tells me, modeling is a response to that; a way to reconnect with some joy.

MH: Ethan, a very obvious place to start, but what made you want to go back to modeling?

EJG: The whole process of doing the Pirelli project…. I had to get out of my comfort zone. I had to work and exist in a bigger way. Part of that was just being visible, and I enjoyed it. I had been resisting it for years, because when I transitioned to photography, it was the moment of the model-slash-whatever, and I was fearful I wouldn’t be taken seriously. [But now] it feels like a full circle moment for me. Jumping back into it feels really good, because I am so much more confident, and I know that I am able to be a much better model than I was before. I don’t know if you know much of my journey to here….

A little, but let’s retrace the steps!

Modeling was my tool to get here. It was my vehicle into the industry, to be exposed to the people I got to work with—that’s a huge thing; having exposure to that is how you get to the bigger opportunities. You’re exposed to so many things that you can’t learn about if you don’t see them.

I wanted to be a photographer, and then I found out I could model and started doing self-portraits and photo shoots with friends—with kids in my art class, and after school we would go to orchards or empty fields or abandoned buildings and we would take pictures. I arrived in New York at 17 [from Caledonia, Michigan] with a family photo album of Walgreens prints! I showed those to model agencies. Everyone thought I was crazy, but I got signed [by Ford Models].

Were you being told back home by people, ‘Oh, you should model?’

It would happen when I would go to the mall, at Macy’s…. But when I was growing up, I would ask girls to go to the prom, or to dances, and they’d be like, “Oh—you’ll be my backup” [laughs]. I wasn’t necessarily the hot kid at school. That’s a different kind of beauty, I guess. I didn’t know I could model. Then I found models.com when it was a blog, and there were skinny emo boys, and I was like, “Oh, I kind of look like that.” So modeling was a huge part of how I got here, but I am also a different person to who I was back then—even to the person I was when I was modeling.

You mentioned earlier about being taken seriously as a photographer if you were still modeling. Obviously these days you’re taken very seriously as a photographer, so how does modeling fit with that now?

I think if I hadn’t followed my gut [back then] I wouldn’t have been taken as seriously if I had done both. Whereas now, the way the industry has changed so much, I’m realizing the more I throw myself in and am visible, the better it is for my career. I’ve been just leaning in to taking really good pictures and that being the thing you get hired for, but that’s not the way the industry works. I am really lucky, and I am living my dream, but at the same time I wanted to shake things up a bit. And with being more front-facing, maybe it’s not just modeling. I am thinking of getting an acting coach in January—I had wanted to be an actor way before I wanted to be a photographer. Also, being a model, being directed by other photographers when I shoot with them—maybe that’s a good way to learn how to be a director. It’s about allowing myself to have a bit more possibility. I limited myself in the past. And I am ready to do that, to be in front—I’ve finally gotten the confidence to do that.

What brought you that confidence?

It’s been an ongoing thing for the last two years. I had a breakup, and it was that moment of self-improvement when you’re on your own: “Okay—these are all the things I’m not so happy about with myself.” Not in a self-hating way or anything—it was just more, I could really improve in these areas of my life. Once I started doing that, things got better.

Can you tell me a bit more about the Pirelli shoot?

We got to a point that we wanted to do three guys. We already had two [John Boyega and Vincent Cassel], and I was thinking, We have to have a gay guy in it. Also, John and Vincent didn’t want to be nude, and there were a lot of girls who were going nude, and I didn’t want to ask, “Will you do the calendar? But you have to do it nude.” That would go against our whole approach, which was wanting people to feel super comfortable. And then, at that moment, I thought, Why not? I feel really good; it’s a big opportunity to be a Pirelli model, and I’ve been doing the lighting tests for the shoots for a year, standing in for people, so I’ll just do both: shoot the calendar and be a model. I did it, and then I woke up one morning and was thinking [laughs] I don’t want to be having to talk to people in my DMs about this.

Instead, like me, they just text you. How did you shoot the image?

James Sakalian is my lighting tech, and when I have done self-portraits in the past—and this goes back to before I was modeling officially and putting my book together—I would have someone stand in, and I’ll frame the image up, photograph them, and then they’ll switch spots with me. So I did that with James. And then there’s the computer screen, too, so I can see where to go higher, or lower.

So, Ethan, are you going to be one of those models—I have always loved this phrase from those model headshot cards—“By Special Arrangement”?

Well, I am on the talent books, so basically, yes! It’s good, because…a male model is at the bottom of the totem pole in this industry. Some male models go through a lot of bullshit…I had crappy things happen to me. I tell a lot of models, male or female: You really have to look at modeling as a stepping stone, because the industry can be so quick to love you and then forget you. So you have to make the leaps and jumps when it’s time—and it’s a very quick moment.

Are you open to editorial, advertising, all of it?

Yeah, I think it just depends on what it is, but I am excited to show up, sit in the chair, get in front of the camera, eat lunch, get in front of the camera again, sit in the chair, and go home.

What about walking a show? Would you do that?

I think I might!

You’ve signed with IMG. Were they initially surprised you wanted to model again?

Dean [Rodgers] from the agency had asked me, because he has come to a lot of the shows at New York Life [Green’s gallery on Canal Street], and when he brought it up two years ago, my response was absolutely not. So then I reached out to him, and he was like, “Oh my god, please come in to see us!” When I saw him, he told me he thought that I was so not into it. And I said, “I guess feelings change.” I was happy—they were like, let’s do this. (Imagine reaching out and they were like, ahhhh…trying to nicely say no.)

You’d already, I know, done a modeling job for Calvin Klein in 2021, so I guess you’d already dipped your toe into the waters….

Those were all self-portraits I did during COVID—and I had modeled for Calvin Klein before: My last proper modeling job was actually a campaign for Calvin Klein. It was me and another male model, and we had a gay scene, and that was the first gay billboard on Houston Street ever. I ended my career with that. I finally had the big campaign, and my agents were like, “Everyone’s calling!” and I told them I had just shaved my head. Their response was, “No one will want to work with you if you have no hair” [laughs]. So that’s how my career ended.

But I was so ready to be done. It’s funny, though, because now we are in a moment when a lot of the guys from my generation [who modeled] are starting to come back. Everyone who hasn’t lost their hair is popping back up. It’s crazy how I have been in the fashion industry for half my life. [And the return to modeling] is really this idea of me moving forward, and I want to do it—and if it doesn’t work, that’s okay.

While you still have the hair.

While I still have the hair [laughs]. And I will knock on wood real fast.