Andreja Pejić Australian Actor From Tuzla

Early life

Andreja Pejić was born on 28 August 1991 in Tuzla, then part of Yugoslavia and now in Bosnia and Herzegovina. During the Bosnian War the family left for Serbia and lived for a time in a refugee camp near Belgrade, before settling in a village near Svilajnac. In 2000 they moved to Melbourne, Australia, as political refugees. Pejić attended University High School in Melbourne and later became an Australian national.

Career

Pejić was scouted as a model shortly before turning seventeen. The early part of the career was marked by work in both menswear and womenswear. At the Paris shows in January 2011, Pejić walked in the men's and women's presentations for Jean-Paul Gaultier and in the men's shows for Marc Jacobs. A May 2011 cover of the New York magazine Dossier Journal drew attention when two American bookstore chains covered it with an opaque sleeve. Later that year Pejić appeared in both masculine and feminine looks at a Michalsky show, and the following year modelled bridal designs by Rosa Clara at Barcelona's bridal week.

Pejić ranked 18th on the Models.com Top 50 list in 2011 and was named one of Out magazine's most compelling people. Covers followed on international editions of Elle, Marie Claire, Harper's Bazaar, L'Officiel and GQ, along with editorial work for publications such as Vogue, i-D, Dazed and Numéro. In August 2012 Pejić appeared as a guest judge on Britain & Ireland's Next Top Model. In 2013 Pejić publicly came out as a trans woman, and in May 2015 became the first openly transgender model profiled by Vogue. Pejić was also described as the first trans woman to sign a cosmetics contract.

From 2013 Pejić turned increasingly to acting. The first screen appearances were in the video for David Bowie's single "The Stars (Are Out Tonight)", alongside Tilda Swinton, and in the Turkish television series Fatih, in which Pejić played Radu the Beautiful. The feature film debut came with The Girl in the Spider's Web in 2018. Pejić has since appeared in the 2021 film Habit, in The Other Me in 2022 as the supporting character Nino, and in Dalíland, also in 2022, playing the singer and artist Amanda Lear in a film about the later life of Salvador Dalí. Pejić has said that after filming The Other Me, a half-year was spent working as a waitress in Santa Fe as a way of staying grounded after years of travelling for modelling work.

Pejić has also been working on an autobiographical documentary, filmed over about seven years, and said in a 2022 interview that the plan was to direct it personally.

Recognition

In 2016 Pejić was named Best International Female Model by GQ Portugal, and in 2017 became the first transgender woman to appear on the cover of GQ. The Models.com ranking and the Out magazine listing from 2011 are among the earlier distinctions of the modelling career.

Personal life

Pejić has spoken in interviews about how the media treated gender at the start of the modelling career, saying that early press coverage often misunderstood the subject and that attitudes shifted over the following years.