Camila Mendes is Veronica Lodge, at least for Riverdale fans. But there's more to Mendes
than just her teen character. The actress is only getting started, but already there's
a lot more to the starlet than what meets the eye. This is the untold truth of Camila
Mendes.
Before she would go on to play Veronica in Riverdale, Camila Mendes got a taste for acting
early on. As the actress told Los Angeles Confidential in an interview, in the third
grade, she was cast in a production of The Turkeys Go on Strike, acting in the role of
a fruit.
"I was a cranberry and I had my own solo song. Actually... no. I had a duet. It was a duet.
I'm getting carried away."
Even back then, the burgeoning performer was eager to be taken seriously. She admitted,
"I was really committed to the choice and to the emotion, and to being a really sad
cranberry. The audience was laughing, and I started to get a kick out of it, realizing,
'People enjoy this.'"
According to the actress, her mother noticed her keen sense of playing to an eager crowd
and quickly enrolled her in a private school with a strong arts program. By senior year,
Mendes was headed for New York City.
It's hard to imagine a more exciting first role right out of college for an up-and-coming
actor or actress than Riverdale, even without knowing how the show would take off. But the
part of Veronica Lodge didn't come easily to Mendes. In fact, as she revealed to W,
getting it was kind of a nightmare.
"I had the most harrowing audition process. They were like, 'You're our top choice, but
we want to open up a new search, and we want someone that can compete with you."
Mendes knew how much the part would mean for her, revealing,
"I lost sleep, I was crying every night because it felt like I was so close to something that
could be big, and like my life and career changing."
Thankfully, it seems to have all worked out in the end.
"Well, I don't follow rules. I make them, and when necessary, I break them."
Mendes has been open about her eating disorder struggles, telling Marie Claire Malaysia that
it took her years to realize she even had a problem.
"Because I was never that skinny, I never thought that I did [have a disorder]."
She acknowledged there weren't many body positive champions at the time to set her straight
but, thankfully nowadays, there are.
"Now, we see models like Ashley Graham who are encouraging women to embrace being unique,
and that made me let go of the standard that was established so long ago - that thin is
the only type of beautiful."
These days, Mendes is also committed to working with Project Heal, an organization that raises
awareness and funds for the treatment of eating disorders.
Even with the evolving discussion surrounding "acceptable" body types, Mendes needed professional
help to curb her addiction to yo-yo dieting. As she revealed to Shape in 2018, it wasn't
too long ago that the actress was stuck in a dangerous cycle.
"About a year ago, I got to a point when I realized I needed to see someone. So I went
to a therapist, and she recommended a nutritionist as well, and seeing both of them changed my
life."
With their help, the Riverdale star began to embrace eating properly and working out,
focusing on being strong, fit, and healthy.
It only took a few episodes for Riverdale to reveal that the powerful Lodge family is
proudly Latino. As Mendes gushed to W, the decision to make them Latino really touched
her heart.
"I'm so happy...and it's not just Veronica, it's the whole Lodge family being all Latino...portraying
Latinos as a strong, powerful, intelligent family. We do well, we're go-getters."
However, on the other hand, Mendes is also wary of being typecast as a Latina actress,
noting,
"Being Latina, everyone is always going to want to be like 'Fierce, sexy, strong, confident!'
- which is great, [...] but Latinas can be the goofy, nerdy, quirky, vulnerable women
that I think is usually associated with white girls."
The actress finds it fascinating that certain fans continue to ship her and co-star KJ Apa,
who plays Archie, in real life, following their steamy onscreen relationship. Mendes
said in an interview with Refinery29,
"I think it's funny that these people, who don't know me, [care about my love life.]
... It's funny the amount of people who got upset when it was announced that I wasn't
dating K.J. You don't know K.J. personally! If we were supposed to, we would be in love
right now. If we were supposed to date, we would be dating. But we're not, for a reason."
She did, however, admit to how attractive they are as a couple, saying,
"Yeah, we have chemistry - we're friends, we get along! - but that doesn't mean we should
date!"
In direct contrast to many other young superstars, Camila Mendes isn't keen on the idea of capitalizing
on her newfound fame for anything other than job opportunities. As the Riverdale star succinctly
put it in a conversation with Teen Vogue,
"[Social media] feeds into questions of 'Who am I? What's my brand?' I don't feel the need
to brand myself. In fact, I feel the need to purposely not brand myself."
Although she's part of one of the hottest shows on TV, Mendes is focused first and foremost
on the work itself, choosing interesting indie movies while on breaks from Riverdale, such
as Coyote Lake. The movie follows Mendes as the daughter and accomplice of a woman who
drowns drug runners and human traffickers in the titular lake. Her character is totally
different from Veronica Lodge, but that's exactly the point.
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