Words Tim Heap Photography Stephen Maycock Styling Joseph Kocharian
Let’s start by stating the obvious: Zander Hodgson is a pretty boy. No, he’s a very pretty boy — just ask his 141,000 Instagram followers. Almost 6ft of lean, sun-kissed muscle, a face with enviably good bone structure and a swathe of tousled, blond hair. He encapsulates perfectly the all-American high school jock aesthetic, with a bit of Cali surfer dude thrown in for good measure.
But, despite his straight-out-of-America boyish looks, 27-year-old Zander actually hails from Shropshire, in the West Midlands, and moved to Los Angeles in 2014 to pursue his dreams of modelling and acting. It paid off: he’s shot campaigns and editorials for Hollister, Swatch and Vogue Japan, working with celebrated photographers including Douglas Kirkland, Ellen von Unwerth and Steven Klein. The acting side’s been a little slower to take off, but last year Zander set tongues wagging and pulses racing when he appeared in an episode of Ray Donovan — the drama starring Liev Schreiber — as a chainedup “BDSM angel” engaging in gay sex.