“Being able to not rely on anybody else – whether it’s for attention, comfort, money… that is probably the time where I was like, ‘wow, I feel really proud of myself.’”

Jessie Andrews’ story is anything but ordinary, but spending just half an hour talking to her, it’s clear why: she herself is anything but ordinary. From leaving high school for a Los Angeles-based career in the adult entertainment industry to breaking into the highest echelons of film (Timothée Chalamet-led Hot Summer Nights, HBO’s Euphoria Season 2) and fashion, she has built her own path brick by brick, arriving confidently today as a successful actor, model, designer, and business owner, with future plans to write and direct. (It is, quite frankly, challenging to sum up her career trajectory without writing a run-on sentence.) On top of all that, her priorities sit firmly in her friendships, learning from others, and finding time for creative exploration and play in her now home city of New York.

Sitting down to talk with Wonderland about her first leading role, the multi-dimensional Anna in LOVE BOMB, she explains that each of her many creative ventures stems from the same place. “I’m not making things or filming things that don’t feel authentic… If it doesn’t feel like me, I won’t do it. If I can’t figure out a way to make it me, I won’t do it.”

For LOVE BOMB, the decision was easy. Telling the story of a mysterious kink-based dating app and the mastermind behind it all, the David Guglielmo-directed erotic thriller is a sensationalised version of online dating gone wrong, the perfect blend of drama and reality that entices Andrews. “I read the script and I was like, ‘this is kind of amazing.’ This story is really unique but it’s so relevant to our generation of online dating and kink apps and ‘doing it for the plot,’ if you know what I mean… I play this woman who seems like the victim in the beginning, but then ends up being the one behind it all. I’m luring men in on this app that I created and playing them against each other.”

Anna is, in ways, three characters at once. In one 90-minute-long film, Andrews plays a cheating wife, a cheated on wife, and a “femme fatale” CEO, who she describes as “a little bit dark” and who “likes seeing men squirm.” “It only took me my second read of that script to really understand how many different people she was,” she explains.

“I did a lot of work with my acting coach when I prepared for it, so she really got me in the mindset of how to switch characters.” A lot of that preparation was finding each character’s tone of voice and individual quirks. “Where the cheated on wife is very coy, the femme fatale would be very strong and deep voiced and confident.”

The latter is perhaps the most markedly similar to Andrews herself, who, in addition to acting and modeling has founded three companies: the ethical jewellery line Bagatiba, the Bella Hadid-approved swimwear brand Basic Swim, and Tase Gallery, an interior design-slash-art retail space with an emphasis on community. But as much as the polymath brought her own background in business to Anna, she also took pieces of the character home with her.

“I feel like she opened my eyes to different parts of myself that I didn’t know that I could be or wanted to be. It’s kind of fun to take things from different characters but I think they just help you understand yourself a little bit more and what you’re comfortable with,” she explains, noting how the octave of her voice changed since learning to speak from her chest, a practice she mastered in order to achieve a seductive, lower register voice for the femme fatale. “It feels like me.” And there is no doubt that Andrews knows herself.

“When I take roles now, I want them to be on par with how I’m presenting myself or how I want to be presented. I really try to focus on picking the right projects.” This is why, perhaps, the star is looking to write and direct her own films – bringing her unique point-of-view and endless backlog of personal experiences to the screen.

But talking about future goals, I wonder if, looking back, there is something she is most proud of to date. “Coming from somewhere that seemed like it’s one of the lowest jobs in the world… to being where I am now,” she answers definitively. “I feel like I’m at the top.”

Read the full interview below…

Tell us about Love Bomb and your character, Anna!
It’s about a kink dating app and I play this woman who seems like the victim in the beginning, but then ends up being the one behind it all. I’m luring men in on this app that I created and playing them against each other and it’s kind of this fun femme fatale role. I read the script and I was like, ‘this is kind of amazing.’ This story is really unique but it’s so relevant to our generation of online dating and kink apps and ‘doing it for the plot,’ if you know what I mean. The role I play is three different people. I play three different versions of my character. To one person, I’m being cheated on and to another person I’m cheating on them. And to myself, I am the boss.

What character preparation did you do?
The director kind of gave me free reign to build the character, which I really appreciated, so I did a lot of work with my acting coach. She really got me in the mindset of how to switch characters. She was like, “You have to analyse the script and decide what fits where and how you change characters.” Because that’s acting. I couldn’t just be the same character the whole time and just, like, change my voice. We built the character over a couple months when I prepared for it. It was interesting, I’d never done a role like that before — for the whole 90-minute movie, I’m kind of switching, which is fun. They have their own tics and quirks — where the cheated on wife is very coy, the femme fatale is very strong and deep voiced and confident. And when I’m talking to certain people together, I’m kind of in a weird in between where I’m playing them off of each other and saying the right kind of things to not give away who I am to each of them. It’s a really interesting role and dynamic.

What parts of the character resonated with you?
It’s an interesting question because the older I get, the more I feel like she is kind of me in a weird way. Maybe because I worked to become her, she’s made me more me. I’m definitely a different person now, as time goes on and age progresses, but she kind of opened my eyes up to doing things for the plot and saying things to see how people react and I feel like I took that into my normal life. I was a CEO before and I had a lot of confidence and I knew myself as a person — I don’t think she changed me in that way, but I feel like she opened my eyes to different parts of myself that I didn’t know that I could be or wanted to be. I don’t know if I became her or she became me, you know? She was a fictional character and then I built her in my head from parts of me.

I think a lot of people do that in acting, you see a lot of people weirdly take things from their characters. I think my voice is actually much deeper now because I learned to speak more from my chest and my stomach. This feels very much like myself. It’s kind of fun to take things from different characters but I think they just help you understand yourself a little bit more and what you’re comfortable with and what you like about those characters when you build them.

What did you learn from your previous work that helped prepare you to lead this project?
I’d always done guest star roles. When I did the movie with Timothée Chalamet, I didn’t really have any lines. I was acting in it, but it wasn’t a really vocal scene. And it was an indie — it was before [Chalamet] did Call Me By Your Name, so it was really in the beginning [of his career]. And then when I did the Euphoria episode, it kind of got me warmed up to a bigger production. Seeing really great, trained actors and also people that were striving to be real actors… I got really lucky. Just being so close to some of the best actors of our generation and seeing firsthand how they would lead a film really helped me prepare. Leading a film is obviously the director and the producer, and the cast is really important, but the person who’s in every scene brings the energy and commands the aura of everyone there. It’s an interesting feeling, but I like it.

What other types of projects or characters do you want to try your hand at?
I think in the future, I’d really love to direct and act. I’ve been writing scripts and pilots. I’m not a trained writer, but I have a really strong attention to detail and creative vision, and I feel like my point of view is so unique. I’ve experienced a lot of the things that I write about and I know how to portray them — you can’t make up the energy of being with Kate Moss in Lenny Kravitz’ basement doing a line of coke.

I’ve actually been writing a lot of things that I think I could see myself in. I kind of write storylines around the kinds of characters I would want to play. I think my goal this year, for 2025, is to make things with friends and figure out if I could shoot a short film around a character I want to play… just to be able to have role play and self-expression exploration.

Do you approach your work with your brands similarly?
In terms of branding and building a brand from A to Z, I love the process, so I think that I bring that into projects and writing. Whether it’s a brand or a film or a tech company or whatever, they kind of all have the same processes in a weird way. You find your niche in the market, you create the idea, you create the product, do the shoot, market the product, give it to the world. It feels really natural and it feels similar. I think that’s why I find it fun.

It’s all just inherently me at the end of the day and that’s what the throughline is. It’s my taste. I’m not making things or filming things that don’t feel authentic to my brand, because I have a choice to say, “I don’t want to work with this brand or on this movie.” If it doesn’t feel like me, I won’t do it. If I can’t figure out a way to make it me, I won’t do it. And that’s how I feel about making jewellery or swim or furniture.

Did you have any role models who showed you the kind of career you wanted?
I don’t think I did. Maybe if I really think about it, probably my oldest sister. When I was younger, she was kind of like my second mom. She was really independent, always working, and really confident in who she was. And she was always like, ‘if you need anything, ask me, don’t ask mom,’ because she didn’t want to put pressure on our mom. She’s 12 years older than me; she didn’t need to take care of me or give me money for school books. But she did. And I feel like that’s probably a good reference for a role model.

Out of all aspects of your career, is there something you’re most proud of?
I think I’m most proud of the overarching idea of coming from somewhere that seemed like it’s one of the lowest jobs in the world, doing porn and, to be weirdly frank, sucking dick for a living, to being where I am now. I feel like I’m at the top. I feel like I’m at the pinnacle of cool and fashionable and respectable. It was a full 180.

I don’t think there was [one] moment in my career, but maybe a moment in life was when I felt I was fully independent. Being able to not rely on anybody else – whether it’s for attention, comfort, money… that is probably the time where I was like, “wow, I feel really proud of myself.”