Actress Sasha Pieterse (“Pretty Little Liars”) chatted about starring in the new thriller “The Image of You.”
Pieterse stars alongside Parker Young, Nestor Carbonell, and Oscar winner Mira Sorvino, among others. “The Image of You” is a twisted tale of deception and desire based on the bestselling thriller by Adele Parks, MBE.
“I want people to have fun watching this movie,” she said. “It’s a very fun ride. It’s an adaptation from the book by Adele Parks; Adele is incredible and her writing is so wonderful. I wanted to do it justice, and I just want people to be entertained.”
‘The Image of You’
The synopsis is: Identical twins Anna and Zoe (played by Sasha Pieterse) find their bond tested over Anna’s new love, Nick. While the trusting Anna is head over heels, her skeptical sister Zoe senses a web of deceit. But as Zoe digs for the truth, they’re all pulled into a dangerous game where honesty could prove fatal.
“The Image of You” will be released in select theatres and on Digital on May 10, 2024.
“It was so much fun,” she admitted. “This was such a fun movie to film, especially getting to play two characters that are very different from each other. It was a lot of fun as an actress to create two people and having them be side by side. Overall, it was a great experience.”
Pieterse was drawn to playing twins for several reasons. “I liked establishing two different people with two different personalities… two different walks and two different styles. There is a lot that goes into it.”
“You should have seen my script,” she said. “I had all of these different post-it notes everywhere with notes (especially to help me differentiate what scenes I was two people in and what scenes I wasn’t),” she said with a sweet laugh.
“It was a lot, but it was a great challenge that I just thoroughly enjoyed… It involved me playing both the nice side and the bad side,” she added.
Lessons learned from this movie
On the lessons learned from the film “The Image of You,” she revealed, “It taught me confidence both physically and mentally, and I thrive on that. I feel like I learned a lot.”
“I am thankful to get back in the game and get my head in the right place,” she added.
Parker Young
On working with Parker Young (who plays Nick in the film), Pieterse said, “Parker is so great! I think we have a lot of synergies, even in our relationships. We both have kids, and we are both married. I think we had a lot of fun creating these characters.”
“The poor guy had to be around somebody nice, and somebody mean. We figured it out… One day, I was controlling him and another day, he was controlling me,” she added.
‘Pretty Little Liars’
She recalled that her experience in “Pretty Little Liars” was “incredible.” “That consisted of eight years of my life, and I thoroughly enjoyed filming that. Our crew was incredible and so was our cast. I mean… I grew up on that show, I would never take it back.”
Dialogue-heavy
When asked how she handled being dialogue-heavy (learning many pages of scripts_ in her career, she said, “I’ve been acting for 24 years so to me, acting is just muscle memory. It gets to the point where if you understand the scene, it comes naturally.”
The digital age
On being a part of the digital age, Pieterse said, “With ‘Pretty Little Liars,’ it was such a unique time, and Twitter was getting popular during that time, and all of a sudden, we had access to people all over the world, and it was so great to connect with those people, and I think it’s so important.”
“Also, with our show, we had so much representation that necessarily wasn’t on TV yet, and of course, that just carries on over. I think streaming platforms are awesome, and they are personally how I like to consume content so, I have no complaints,” she elaborated.
“Streaming has definitely leveled the playing field for TV and movies,” she added.
Stage of her life
On the title of the current chapter of her life, Pieterse said, “Mom Life.” “It’s mom life in a lot of ways,” she said. “I’m a mom and an entrepreneur. I have a new beverage brand coming out, and I would love to do another cookbook.”
“I have my hands in a lot of things. I am writing scripts and creating projects as well as acting. I am constantly evolving, and my son is 3.5 years old, and he is just the best thing ever. Motherhood first, absolutely.”
Superpower of choice
Her superpower of choice would be “teleportation.” “I know it’s overused but honestly, it would be so convenient to not have to travel from place to place on a plane or in a car. I would love to just be where I need to be,” she said.
Favorite motto to live by
On her favorite mottos to live by, Pieterse shared, “Where you invest your love. You invest your life.” “To me, that essentially means where you are putting your effort, your mindset and priorities, is what you get out of it,” she said.
“So, you need to be careful what you put into existence,” she added.
Success
Regarding her definition of success, Pieterse said, “In a lot of ways, success means finding your happiness.”
“Success means a lot of different things to a lot of different people. It doesn’t matter what walk of life or what career you have, if you are not happy, none of it matters. Success to me is happiness,” she added.
Message for her fans and supporters
For her dedicated fans that have been with her on her journey, Pieterse said, “I am so thankful to them. It does take a village. The fans have also taught me a lot about myself. I am so excited that we are in this together.”
“I’ve grown up on the screen and that’s a very special thing; it’s an experience not a lot of people get to have, so I am just thankful,” she acknowledged.
To learn more about Sasha Pieterse, follow her on Instagram.
