JAMES GREEN

I am finally returning back to the States to the heart of LA and back to Hollywood in just 3 weeks now. I have been back in the UK for 5 months and it is time I return to continue the adventure across the pond, to pursue my ambitions of succeeding over there and to also continue my relationship there too. I have worked a lot back here, which has definitely stood me in good stead for what the future holds, building my confidence up to tackle the tough LA market and also has helped strengthen my wallet too!!! Something that should never be underestimated, as it costs a lot of money to make a success in new countries and markets, as you have to build yourself up from level 1 all over again. I hope that I can hit the ball running as soon as I get out there. I will hope to get back to some football coaching and also hope to get back playing at some point too when my strength in my knee is back. I will never be able to play to the extent I was playing at the start of this year in the states,

It's always very important to keep your portfolio updated with recent pictures and to add some variety where possible to it as well. Also, as we get older we do start to change a bit as well (I know nobody likes to ever admit to this! Me included). Just to refresh your book can often change how you feel yourself about your book too. I am someone who always needs a boost in confidence every now and then to make me realise that I am doing the right thing in the industry. Also, its great when you can get some new images in your book to make you feel more confident showing your book to clients. The first picture is an updated body shot, something that is needed in my portfolio to show that my body and conditioning has improved which is obviously better for me. And before anyone says it, no air brushing at all ha ha. I have worked hard the past couple of months, watching what I eat and cutting down the carbs. Lunch for me always used to consist of a sandwich, without fail. Every single

In today's economic climate, work is at a premium and that especially applies for the entertainment industry and for actors and models. That is why so many people have to take on another job to be able to survive. I've done Roofing that earned me just £50 a day to try and help me keep up in a very competitive industry like modeling. The first 2 years especially in the industry are simply about survival. This is because you need to build your reputation up, your image, your client base and also build your portfolio too. It is not as simple as many make out to get in the industry and to very importantly sustain the work to continue being in the industry. It takes time, money and a lot of sacrifices to achieve this and also another job to support yourself. I landed on my feet with my presenting job at Smartlive, but it becomes very difficult sometimes trying to juggle both modeling and presenting. The presenting is pretty settled and in a shift format each and every month, but wit

Today has been one of the hardest days of my life, having to put my cat down. He was 14 years old and we had him for over 13 and a half years. A cat or any pet for that matter becomes part of your family and something that is always around every single day. Pets are a comfort blanket for people. They give you the company that often you don't have else where. You become so close to them and look after them, are affectionate towards them and they return that pleasure. Our family got Sprite from a rescue home when he was a kitten along with his sister (Pepsi) and their mum (Natasha) almost 14 years ago. Unfortunately Pepsi passed away when she was very young and a couple of years later Natasha went missing and never returned. So we were left with Sprite, the cat then when we first got him was scared of everyone and used to run away. But without the competition of the other cats, he became the main focus of our attention of course and soon came out of his shell and his fantastic person

This week I have continued my busy period with a shoot for Fitness First down in Christchurch, Dorset. It is the second time in a couple of months that I have worked for this client, but this time was different to no other. The shoot is for the walls in the fitness centers and if you have ever been into gyms, they have pictures of people doing the activities on the walls. These range from various exercises with weights, balance boards, press ups, running, jumping etc. It meant that for 4 hours I would be working up a sweat! (which is what the client wanted). Normally I have no problem with the exercises and it wouldn't trouble me one bit. However, with my knee still no where near recovered, this was going to be a very tricky shoot for me. Now of course I didn't have to do the job and could have turned it down for not being in the right fitness for it, but works work and I need all that I can get my hands on. Time to take some pain killers and to just get on with it, whilst bein

I am writing, which is a good sign that I managed to survive one of the most tiring days of my life. Monday I was on the casino channel from 10pm until 6am Tuesday morning. I set up camp on the sofa in the Green Room and slept for about an hour, until my horrific alarm woke me up telling me its time for my next job. That feeling when you have very little sleep, the heavy eyes, the aches and the pains were all apparent in the morning. It became even worse knowing that I have a 9 hour shoot ahead of me with new clients who I want to impress. I just felt absolutely horrific. But I had to just suck it up and get on with it, as we all do when times get tough. I focused my mind on the fact it was one day of my life and to just forget about being tired (the mental approach is not usually the route I go for, but for this instance it was needed, and worked) Arriving at the studio in North London, straight away the client saw me walking outside and was very friendly and smiley and chatty (a very

First post for a couple of weeks and have no excuse for it as it has been extremely quiet throughout this month. Modeling wise there has been very few castings, which has left a lot of people struggling in the industry ad not just the models. Casting directors have also struggled, as have make up artists, stylists and photographers. The industry is in a big slump unfortunately, due to the state of the economy, where as discussed previously, companies reduce their spending on advertising, which has a big affect on my industry as you can imagine. But I have been working on the casino channel a lot, which has included a lot of late nights, to keep me ticking over. Then all of a sudden the storm started brewing and I found myself trapped in the busiest week of my life. After a lovely trip to Leeds to catch up with some friends last weekend, I arrived to start a hectic week of presenting and modeling, with very little time in between to sleep. A couple of days presenting Sunday night and Mo

It's been a very quiet couple of days of work, so it gave me a chance to finally drag my lazy ass down to the gym and start getting myself back into shape. It also gave me the opportunity to give my knee some TLC (well some painful TLC anyways) and to start pushing forward the recovery period on it. After extensive physio this morning, I have been told that I am making progress with my rehabilitation, which is positive, but there is still a long long way to go. It is amazing how quickly you can lose muscle in your body, I just wish you gain it as quick! (don't we all!!!) The next stage is continuing the gym work, which includes some cycling, cross trainer, constant stretches for my leg muscles and some leg work on the weights too. I need to give my knee the support it needs from the surrounding muscles. This will also be important at the 6 week mark when I have a review of my recovery and to see if the stability is good enough to not require an operation to fix my cruciate liga

I wanted to give you an insight into what options are in the modeling industry and the often frustration of them. Options are extremely common and often are used by clients to delay a decision over which talent they want to use for jobs. It is simply a shortlist. Like with any jobs, this is often the case when going through the process of employment, but imagine that on often a weekly basis? The waiting, the anticipation, the nerves, all those emotions you have when your waiting to hear about a job. This is something that I go through literally every week. In my previous post I wrote in detail about the "Remington" casting I had and that it was for a lot of money, which for me can make the difference with so much in my life, especially with my intention to go back to Los Angeles. I was put on option for this job, and asked if I was willing to cut my hair short for the job too, which I took as a very promising sign. Then comes the waiting and trying desperately hard to put the

To be this guy above....aaahhhhhhhhh I can only dream and hope. Well this guy previously worked for Remington, one of the UK's leading shaving companies, and I just had a casting for them today. Now, normally I don't write about individual castings on a regular basis, but this one was special for so many ways. First of all, it was the first casting I have had for a long while, like over 2 weeks. Sounds ridiculous right? Well luckily it is not just me in this position and after over hearing a few guys at the casting, I realised that pretty much everybody was in the same boat. (made me feel slightly better about myself as you can imagine) Secondly this casting is for a job worth an extremely good amount of money. Now, as seen previously in my blog, you would of read that money has dropped dramatically in the past 2 years and is getting worse and worse. So, you can understand my happiness at having a casting for a good amount of money. That thing we love to have so much, that when

Its been a week since I wrote anything and in all honesty it's because there hasn't been much going on in my life at all. Time is just ticking along at the moment and not much is going on. After a while of not knowing whether your coming or going, it becomes very difficult to motivate myself to start looking ahead to the future. I have been saving money to ensure I give myself the best chance to last longer when I get to LA, so I have not been going out as much either. I guess when your used to that lifestyle of going out, spending money, being extravagant, it can become hard to adapt to a different lifestyle. But that's life, and no one said it was suppose to be easy. Anyways...importantly I had my operation on Thursday, a successful arthroscopy that helped fix my torn cartilage on both sides of my knee. It also showed that I have still got damage to my cruciate ligament, though it is still intact and theres a potential that I can help rebuild it through physio sessions. T

To brighten up this blog a bit and to brighten up my life to, I booked a small job that turned out to be one of the most fun jobs I have ever done. It was for Red Magazine and it was their Xmas edition of the magazine. Now I have to admit that before going for the job I wasn't too keen on it due to the small amount it was worth and it clashed with other work I had on. But I was extremely glad I did it. I turned up to a studio/house in Shoreditch and the whole crew were so lovely. Very friendly from the off, which 99% of the time is the perfect sign of a relaxed day ahead. I also found out that working on the job with me was a guy I had worked with on one of my first shoots over 4 years ago. And what a great guy he is as well, the perks of my job when you get to meet and work with some very nice people. (quick note about this guy, Matt Bailey - check out the link to his new comedy pilot called The Buffy Diaries! It is absolutely brilliant. You may need to copy and paste it, but I re

Yesterday I had my consultation with a knee specialist to finally get the ball rolling and start the proceedings. This has been holding me back from so much in my life, from work to the move back to Los Angeles, to working out properly in the gym. I was very optimistic about it all, but I know that I had seriously injured my knee 10 weeks ago. When reviewing the MRI scan it was clearly revealed that I had torn my cartilage on both sides of my knee, something that I didn't believe I had done. Also, and the main problem, is the damage to my ACL (Anterior Cruciate Ligament), which again showed up on the scan. This to anyone who doesn't know about knee problems, is a very severe injury. After reviewing my previous problems with my other knee, that is all fine now, the specialist tells me in no uncertain terms that i shouldn't ever play contact sport again. My heart sunk completely. I have played football competitively since I was 4 years old. 23 years in the game. I had this ne

Every week I meet someone new who asks me what I do for a living. I openly tell them that I do TV presenting and Modeling. Their reaction is always the same to the modeling, "wow, check you out! You must have an easy life". If this were true, this blog would be a completely different read and would probably make readers feel jealous of all the greatness going on in my working life. The truth is in the title of this blog piece, "being at the bottom of the food chain". Life in the modeling industry has changed dramatically over the last 2 or 3 years. Gone are the days of huge payments for very little work. Gone are the days of constantly travelling to exotic locations. It is a completely changing industry. When the financial market took a massive turn for the worse 2 years ago, businesses had to cut their out goings to survive, which meant reducing their spend on advertising (where models come into play). I've spoke before about this, but it is not goin

Being back in England has been nice at times when catching up with friends and family, and back working on a regular basis, something that I greatly needed in order to improve my self esteem, which had become very low after a frustrating time on the work front in the US. However, it's still not an easy run of things in this country. Castings are few and far between for modeling and I have been missing out on quite a few castings because of my knee situation, which is still no closer to being operated on. Speedo casting (need to swim), Mizuno casting (need to run)and others just seem a bit typical for my fortune right now. But I have not been dwelling on this and I am starting to do all I can to increase my opportunities to gain more work away from modelling. I am trying to get representation from a talent agency to help gain me some presenting work, something I firmly believe I am good at and could do very well if I get my opportunity to show people my talents. Now, I ho

This wasn't exactly the kind of news in my life that I thought I would want to be writing in my blog. I didn't realise how overcome with emotion and anger from watching what has been happening these past few days that I have become. I have been unable to keep my eyes off of the news reports, the live videos and the constant interviews with people across society over the matter. It has completely taken over my life, my thoughts and my mind and distracted me from all that I need to start doing to kick start my working life again. The behaviour of every single person involved in these riots is absolutely disgusting. Some of them are showing violence, some are showing vandalism, some are showing thieving, some are arsonists and some are now even murderers. So many of these people are pure and simply opportunists, taking advantage of a very difficult situation that started with the death of Mark Duggen in North London. Worryingly, you could ask so many of these rioters who he

It is amazing and very strange how in one country you can get hardly any work, and you move back to another and its non stop. But as my strange life continues, it brings about little surprise that this is the case, as it add's more confusion to my already complicated life. After taking 5 days to rest up from my jet lag, I was straight back in the swing of things back at live casino channel Smartlive Casino. I am so grateful for everybody at Smartlive for giving me the opportunity to come back to the show after being away for over 7 months. In today's extremely difficult society, I feel very fortunate to be able to get some work as soon as I get back with Smartlive. Also, the advantages of smartlive is that it is Live TV and that you can often get the opportunity to talk about just life. This helps me get much needed practice for any potential presenting work that could come. I have set my sights on really achieving as a presenter and practice, like in any industry, is essential

I have described a lot about life in LA, the differences with regards castings and work, but haven't necessarily talked about how I'm personally getting on. I believe the time is now for that and to explain why I have returned to the UK. In LA I was doing some football coaching to keep me busy and to get some money to simply enough be able to live out there. I was greatly appreciated to be able to do this as it kept me busy, kept me motivated, but more importantly enabled me to be able to put food on my table. Sound dramatic? Well its not. Having the responsibility of being in an adult relationship and living with someone requires you to be committed and sensible with everything. The coaching wasn't earning me a lot of money, but it was a necessity. With modeling work and presenting work not really happening over there, I needed to ensure I was earning enough to survive. This was very different to how I was living my life previously and how I have lived my life in the past.

This section is to let you know what castings are like in LA and how they differ to anywhere I've been in the world. The main difference is the fact that you very rarely get an opportunity to meet the clients for the jobs you cast for. There are a lot of casting directors and casting agencies in this town that are employed by companies to cast potential talent for jobs. What this also means is that it add's an extra stage to the casting process, which for the client it makes it easier to cast someone. For the talent however, it is a completely different story and one I have become increasingly frustrated by since arriving in LA. It means that for practically every single job available, whether a modeling job or an acting job, there are a minimum of 2 stages of castings. That means 2 trips to the casting studios on two different days, a lot of time commitment and more money spent on travel. Now you can imagine that if your casting every single day and if you get fortunate enough

Tinseltown was upon me and I arrived in January on a 3 year working visa ready to take on Hollywood and all that it had in store for me. I was extremely fortunate and lucky to have the amazing support of my girlfriend who has been living in this city for 4 years. It was tough at first, as LA is a city where you have no choice but to have access to transport, a car to be precise. The metro system is not great and the buses aren't the best either. I quickly learnt that castings were all over the city, and LA is one big big city too! From Hollywood to Santa Monica, to Downtown LA to Studio City, you name it and the traffic around the city is insanely bad. But hey that's part of my new life in a new city across the other side of the world. It was time to get out and about as much as possible, to start exploring my new home. I was straight into my agency, Wilhelmina and it felt great to start cracking the modeling industry out in LA. Castings were happening straight away, and I was

Hi everybody, A question that has been asked to me so much since I made the decision to come over to the states. "how did you get a visa?" This is where I became very very fortunate, just. When I arrived at the end of August, I got my modeling portfolio sent out to me. The reason I did this was because I first arrived on a tourist visa, which literally anyone can get, lasting 90 days. So, if my bags were searched, which does happen in the US, and they found my portfolio, they would think I am here to work illegally. I couldn't take this risk as I was moving here for someone and to follow my heart. Through my agency back in the UK, they helped set up some open call's with agencies in LA. This simply means anyone who wants to model here goes to an open call in hope of becoming a model. I went round to LA Models first, they said no. I then went to a smaller agency called Q Models. They showed a lot of enthusiasm for me and said they would give me an answer very soon (som

Hi Everyone, Apologies for going very quiet on the blog front! It's been a strange, crazy 10 months I have to admit. I wish I was blogging all the way through because so much has happened since my last update. I hope you enjoy. What a year its been! From South Africa to LA, back to London and back to LA! I have so many friends who have been and done the whole LA thing as a holiday, but theres me in love and moving to the other side of the world. That is her in the picture with me outside the famous Staples Center in LA, home of my new team the LA Lakers. Yes I am now a huge basketball fan, one of many changes in my life whilst I've been living in LA, Hollywood to be precise, tinseltown as they say!!! My year has been so crazy including celebrating in the craziest parade ever for Halloween! I have never seen anything like it in my life! The costumes were absolutely crazy! (check out my facebook for more pictures) - http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=505970401 House parties g