“It’s about you should know me better”: Know About Nico Robin of One Piece Lera Abova’s Personal Life Like Never

The veritable and multi-talented model-turned-actress Lera Abova was a rebel and then some. The influential figurehead who campaigned for some of the most reputed luxury fashion brands in the world, from Dior to Givenchy, has now turned toward spreading her aura to the film industry as she catches the eye of filmmakers like Luc Besson, Yannick Müller, and Elizabeth Banks.

With the stylistic appeal of models on the runway not adding to their IMDb credits, Lera Abova has remained severely underappreciated in mainstream media despite her numerous screen appearances in notable Hollywood films. After all this time, however, the Russian-born celebrity finally earns a role that will inevitably make her a household name: Nico Robin/Miss All Sunday in Netflix’s live-action adaptation of the Eiichiro Oda manga, One Piece.

Lera Abova Gives a Glimpse Into Her Personal Life

In light of her character-appropriate casting as Nico Robin in One Piece, Lera Abova quickly rises in the public forum as a hot topic of discussion and deconstruction as fans engage in sleuthing their way into the model-cum-actress’s personal life. As a result, the various discoveries from Abova’s past have surfaced on social media platforms for fan consumption.

Of her many interesting career choices is a screen-grabbing performance as the unwitting girlfriend of a KGB spy in Luc Besson’s 2017 thriller Anna and a quirky role as DJ Das Boot in the Peacock comedy series Pitch Perfect: Bumper in Berlin, a spin-off of the wildly popular Pitch Perfect film trilogy.

However, Abova truly exploited her acting skills and impressive range in the 2020 documentary short Unfamous as Yannick Müller’s fourth subject. The 150-second video spans from hotel rooms to the streets of Berlin to dimly lit hallways to brightly lit parks as Müller’s lens follows her around as her emotionally charged voiceover narrates a deeply personal story that gives an introspective understanding of the person lying beyond the façade of the famous model.

Sometimes you have people in your life who are so important to you. And at some point, the phone rings and you understand that the person is gone. So when I found out that my grandmother [who] I grew up with died, I jumped on my bike and I drove to school, and I was driving through the wind and I was driving through the rain and I knew that now she’s never gonna be alone, far away in Russia…

I knew that now we’re gonna be together forever because she’s gonna be the rain and she’s gonna be the wind. She’s gonna be every tree. She’s gonna be the most open window. She’s gonna be freedom. She’s gonna be everywhere.

As the camera rushes to capture the sensational beauty and madness of Lera Abova, she simply proclaims: “Unfamous is not that you don’t know me, it’s about you should know me better!”

Unfamous Breaks Down the Façade of Lera Abova

The mystery of Lera Abova begins from the moment of her birth as she points out that the Siberian village where she comes from is “so small they don’t have it on the map.” 19 years later, she dropped out of school on principle alone, saying: “They didn’t understand my soul.” Soon after, Abova began her rise in the fashion industry as the muse of photographer David Sims and the subject of luxury brands like Chanel and Versace.

But none of those glowing accomplishments on paper could pierce the depth of her creative eccentricity and an overwhelming attachment to her roots. Yannick Müller captured the untapped and hidden element of her identity in his Unfamous episode, where Abova revealed:

My emotions are the purest gift I can give to somebody. My mood can change from super hyperactive to super tragic in a second and a lot of people cannot handle it. I can hate but I also know that I can love somebody in a way like nobody else can. I cannot define craziness. Just like I cannot define love and I also cannot define who I am. But in a good way.

I think we should never know who we are. We should not give a sh*t because as soon as we know who we are, it’s not that we get more confidence. It’s just about that we try to be the role that we put ourselves in. If right now, I’d go on the street and a car [drove] over me, I would know one thing: I made my brother happy, I made my mom proud.

I feel, I live, doesn’t matter what happens in this life, I can f**king tell you that I lived. I loved and I lived like no one before.

In September 2024, Lera Abova was announced as the newest addition to Netflix’s One Piece cast in the role of Miss All Sunday/Nico Robin who later goes on to join the Straw Hat Pirates. Season 2 of the live-action anime is set to premiere on Netflix in 2025.

Meanwhile, Abova has also been cast in Ethan Coen’s upcoming detective comedy film Honey Don’t! alongside a star-studded cast comprising Aubrey Plaza, Chris Evans, and Margaret Qualley.