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‘UnREAL’ Star Kassandra Clementi Reveals The Moment She Landed Her Breakout Role

The Australian actress has come a long way since her Summer Bay days – 12,493 kilometres, to be exact

Kassandra Clementi was fast asleep when she got the call saying she’d landed a role on UnREAL – the hit American drama that goes behind the scenes of a fictional reality dating show. The actress, 27, had just made it to her apartment in Los Angeles after a long-haul flight from Australia and was so jet-lagged she fell asleep with her shoes on. “I thought I was dreaming,” says Clementi, who flew to Vancouver three days after the call to start filming. Jetlag – what of it?

Clementi, who was cast as 24-year-old swimsuit model Crystal in the series, says that while she was attracted to the show’s strong female characters, it didn’t faze her to be playing the eye candy. “Crystal is the opposite end of the spectrum – she’s a bubbly, enthusiastic midlife crisis girlfriend – but that was really fun to play.”

Kassandra Clementi
(Credit: Stan)

Having grown up in Adelaide and spent three years on Home and Away, Clementi was grateful that her character never actually made it into a swimsuit in the cold Canadian winter. “It was snowing in Vancouver, so I didn’t actually have to wear a bikini,” she says. “We did have some really late nights though. When you’re on set at midnight, you start to go a little crazy. Whenever we were shooting inside, we’d run outside and have a dance party in the snow to wake us up.”

After wrapping up UnREAL in Vancouver and shooting a film in Utah last year, Clementi spoke to marie claire from the side of a Western Australian highway, where she was treating herself to a post-wrap getaway. “I’m on my way to Margaret River,” she said chattily. “I’ve spent years dreaming of this road trip.” Bonus: no jet lag.

UnREAL season three premieres on Stan on February 27.

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