Cami Mendes just opened up about her new movie role and she shot to fame for her role as the iconic Veronica Lodge on Riverdale, Camila is 26 in real life, she’s playing a high schooler on Riverdale.
Recently, she took on a whole new role in the new movie Palm Springs and played someone her age. Cami talked to Nylon about being cast as ‘Tala’ in the Hulu Original film and how she is often “pigeonholed” into certain roles because of Riverdale.
In an interview, she said about how she heard about the role but didn’t think she would land it saying, “I just got the audition in my inbox, read the script, and fell in love with it. I didn’t think I was going to get the role because I wasn’t sure, playing a high school character on Riverdale and all, they were going to be able to see me as an older character — or bride, at least.”
Then, she went on to talk about how with her role on Riverdale, it’s inevitable and inherent to be pigeonholed a bit when you’ve played the same character for years. She explained, “If you’re on a teen show, yeah, there’s an inherent pigeonhole that comes with that. But I’ve watched a bunch of people before I deal with that. I do think it takes some time after coming off a show to shake it off a little bit and reset to have people perceive you differently, but I do think that’s changing a lot.”
Later, she added “I don’t know if it’s because of social media and being able to control your image or if it’s this new wave of TV that people seem to find equally entertaining and as high-quality as a film. I think people are now more open to perceiving TV actors as serious actors, period. It’s changing, but I do find that it’s kind of inevitable to be pigeonholed a little bit when you’re playing the same character for years.”
Luckily Cami did land the role in Palm Springs and she dished on what it was like to play someone so different from Veronica, she said “I loved it. It just felt like such a different role for me. Just even being able to play something a little bit more comedic in tone, it was very liberating.”
Furthermore, she went on to talk about the differences between being on an indie film set like this one and being on a big set like Riverdale’s.
Cami explained that quote, “There’s a lot more freedom on an indie set, simply because you’re figuring out the movie as you go — especially with a comedy. I think there’s always more room for improvisation and everyone’s just feeling it out as they go. It feels way more like a collaboration. Not to say that Riverdale isn’t collaborative, but I just think Riverdale is very choreographed. It’s very specific and stylized, so there’s a lot of choreography that comes with that if that makes sense. You land on your mark at a specific moment and you look up towards the light and you say the line.”
She went on comparing the two work environments saying “With indie sets, on top of them having a more improvisational feel, they also don’t have as much time, so it feels a little bit more scrambled sometimes. Whereas Riverdale is way more of a well-oiled machine, an indie set will feel like, Okay, we’ve got to get this. If you could just keep on going, say the line…okay, now look. That’s good. Move on. It’s got this whole vibe to it where you just really don’t have time to waste, so you’re winging it constantly.”
