Andreja Pejic

Andreja Pejić is an Australian actress and former model who gained international recognition for modeling both masculine and feminine clothing before coming out as a trans woman in 2013.

Pejić was born in Tuzla, Yugoslavia (now part of Bosnia and Herzegovina), to a Serb mother and a Bosnian Croat father. Following her parents' divorce shortly after her birth, Pejić fled to Serbia with her family during the Bosnian War and lived in a refugee camp near Belgrade before settling in Vojska. After the 1999 NATO bombing of Yugoslavia, her family immigrated to Australia in 2000 as political refugees when she was eight years old. She later attended University High in Melbourne, where she was described as academically brilliant.

Pejić was scouted as a model just before her 17th birthday while working at McDonald's, though she has also noted being scouted at a swimming pool while in high school. Her career broke through in January 2011 when she walked both the men's and women's shows for Jean-Paul Gaultier and the men's show for Marc Jacobs in Paris. That same year, a cover image for Dossier Journal featuring Pejić was covered with an opaque sleeve by US bookstores due to concerns over how her image would be perceived. In July 2011, she modeled both masculine and feminine clothes for Michalsky at Stylenite, and she later walked in bridal creations by Rosa Clara at Barcelona's Bridal Week 2013.

Throughout her modeling career, Pejić appeared on international covers of Elle, Marie Claire, Harper's Bazaar, L'Officiel, Fashion, and GQ, as well as editorials in Vogue, I-D, Dazed and Confused, Love, Allure, Purple, and Numéro. In 2011, she ranked number 18 on Models.com's Top 50 Models list and was named one of Out's Most Compelling People. In 2015, she became the first openly transgender model profiled by Vogue and the first trans woman to sign a cosmetics contract. GQ Portugal named her Best International Female Model in 2016, and in 2017 she became the first transgender woman to appear on the cover of GQ.

Pejić shifted her focus to acting starting in 2013, appearing in David Bowie's music video for "The Stars (Are Out Tonight)" and making her television debut as Radu the Beautiful in the Turkish series Fatih. She made her major feature film debut in the 2018 crime thriller The Girl in the Spider's Web. She later played the supporting role of Nino in the 2022 film The Other Me, after which she spent six months working as a waitress at a restaurant in Santa Fe. That same year, she portrayed French artist Amanda Lear in the biographical film Dalíland.

In addition to her acting work, Pejić has served as a guest judge on Britain & Ireland's Next Top Model in 2012. She has also spent several years working on a forthcoming autobiographical documentary about her life, taking on direct control as director to tell her own story.