After being filmed in 2019, The Other Me is finally getting released in the United States and Canada. The movie stars Jim Sturgess, Andreja Pejic, Antonia Campbell-Hughes, and Invasion's Billy Barratt. Directed by Giga Agladze, the slow-moving drama tells the story of Irakli (Jim Sturgess), an aspiring architect, and his battle with a deteriorating eye disease. As he begins to lose his vision, he finds himself being pulled into another world — whether that's his new reality or an alternate world is anybody's guess. In this seemingly-transient space, he meets Nino, a peculiar artist played by Pejić.

Over the years between shooting The Other Me and its release, Pejić has found herself traveling the world. During our conversation, she shared that recently returned to Australia, following a trip to New Mexico. The model-actor was visiting the rocky state for six months and during her time there, she worked as a waitress. Pejić shared, "I just got a job as a waitress, and I was working in this restaurant called El Nido in Santa Fe. I just wanted to ground myself a little bit and explore human beings. Since 18, I was working as a model and traveling the world and I was like, this is a good opportunity to do something normal."

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Pejić went on to share that, while in Santa Fe, she enjoyed people-watching and interacting with her coworkers. As she continued, the actor expressed that wearing a mask while on the job made her feel "kind of mysterious," much like her movie character. It was also a prime opportunity for her to practice her ability to speak Spanish which she first explored as a child living in a refugee camp in Serbia. She recalled watching telenovelas for entertainment, notably one called Cassandra which follows a young woman who grew up in a circus. She would reenact scenes from the show with her friends — which Pejić noted was when she "first took interest in acting."

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Game Rant had the opportunity to chat with Andreja Pejić about the release of The Other Me, her connection with her character Nino, and her documentary project in the making.

Game Rant: What drew you to The Other Me? And how did you react to its distribution being acquired?

Andreja Pejić: What really attracted me was the sweetness and the warmth of the movie, and the experimental nature. It's poetic, and it's not literal or clear-cut. You could leave with different interpretations of it. It was a struggle, as it is with those kinds of movies. It is a struggle for them to get distribution and for people to understand them.

GR: Tell me a bit about your character Nino. What was your favorite part about playing her? And how did you connect to her as an actor?

Pejić: Well, I thought she was quite magical. I couldn't tell if she was real. There was a mix between her being a magical creature and a real character. She's also this idea that could just be in his [Irakli's] head, or she's just his other half. But we were trying to get to the bottom of it when I was preparing the character and working with a coach in London. We were having conversations with Giga [director], who was being very mysterious about it. We were trying to get something to anchor my performance. We got to the conclusion that they are the same person. That is how I tried to play her, like his other half and his feminine ideal, and something he wants to live up to but can't.

It could say a lot about gender identity, it could say a lot about us having both masculine and feminine energies within ourselves, and everyone having a need to balance them in some way. I like the poetic nature of it and I really worked very hard. When you're coming in from modeling, people don't take you seriously in the world of acting, and so I was really trying to put my heart and soul into the performance.

GR: Did you look towards any movies or television shows for inspiration?

Pejić: I felt that there was an element of Andrei Tarkowski in The Mirror, which is like a really poetic movie that I really love. It's sort of like a philosophical experience. You don't really associate with the character. It's memory, and it's an exploration of how our brain remembers a life. It's not in chronological order, things just come up and come up. I thought they were elements of that.

GR: You live this amazing life as an activist, a model, and an actor — what are you currently working on?

Pejić: I'm trying to finish my documentary, which I've been filming over the past seven years, and I've decided to take control of it and tell my own story and direct it myself. I've always felt, from the beginning of my career, the media didn't really understand me and interviews made me quite uncomfortable. Things have progressed a lot more in, say, the past five years, in terms of how we approach gender. In this modern time, I guess I broke the ice in an immediate sense, and I felt like so much of my story was misunderstood and sensationalized. I want to do this, and I want to humanize this experience, and I want to make it poetic and beautiful and really do something unique.

And then I have another movie coming out. It's a biopic about Salvador Dalí. I play Amanda Lear, who was his muse. And she's a real-life person, so that was really interesting. Probably the most challenging roles so far. We'll see what else comes up in that world. I'm just on my creative journey in one wanting to study and educate myself, and read classics, and experience life, and learn about human beings. I'm just trying to absorb as much as possible.

GR: Have you seen any reactions to The Other Me?

Pejić: Yeah, the reviews have been mixed. It's a sensitive thing for me because it is a new job for me. But I just have to understand that the critics don't know me and the packaging is obscure. I think it's important, for creative people, to critique the criticism, and to take the elements from it that are useful, and to see what is what doesn't really serve us.

The Other Me is now playing in select theaters and on digital platforms.

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