Camila Carraro Mendes is a Brazillian American actress and singer best known for her role as Veronica Lodge on the teen drama series Riverdale.
Who is Camila Mendes?
The Brazillian American actress Camila Mendes won the Teen Choice Award for Choice Scene Stealer in 2017 after portraying Veronica Lodge on The CW teen drama series Riverdale. She has appeared in many other films, including The New Romantic (2018), The Perfect Date (2019), Dangerous Lies (2020), and sci-fi comedy Palm Springs (2020).
Early Life
Camila Mendes was born on June 29, 1994, in Charlottesville, Virginia, to Brazillian parents Victor Mendes, a business executive, and Gisele Carraro, a flight attendant. She has an older sister called Vivian Mendes. Mendes moved to Atlanta shortly after birth, back to Virginia, and then to Orlando, Florida. In total, she moved 16 times growing up, mainly due to her father’s nature of work and later due to her parent’s divorce. Mendes lived for a year in Brazil when she was ten years old. The actress claimed that her brief time living in Brazil gave her the opportunity to be with her extended family.
“I do really get sad because my entire extended family is in Brazil, and they’re all hanging out with each other every day, and they have such a sense of family and community,” Mendes told W magazine. “When I was living there, that was nice. Brazilians value family so much.”
Mendes finally settled in Florida and attended the Fine Arts program at the American Heritage School in Plantation, Florida. She graduated in 2012.
Mendes later joined New York University Tisch School of the Arts, where she graduated in May 2016.
Career
Mendes began her acting career with a commercial for IKEA. In 2016, she was cast as “silver-tongued high school sophomore” Veronica Lodge in the teen drama series Riverdale. In December 2017, Mendes appeared on the cover of Women’s Health, and in February 2018, she was featured in Cosmopolitan. She also played Morgan in The New Romantic, which premiered at SXSW Festival in March 2018.
In the same month, Mendes, alongside Laura Marano and Matt Walsh, appeared in the romantic comedy The Perfect Date, which was released on Netflix on April 12, 2019. She also played a lead role in the film Coyote Lake during the same year.
In 2020, Mendes was cast in the critically acclaimed sci-fi/comedy Palm Springs, released on Hulu the same July. Afterward, she headlined the Netflix thriller Dangerous Lies, released in 2020.
Personal Life
Mendes speaks Portuguese. She is Brazilian American and identifies herself as Latin American. She claims she has faced discrimination in Hollywood, stating that she has been told things like “You don’t look Latina enough” when auditioning for characters of Latin American background.
“I really appreciate how these two cultures created who I am. I am a Brazillian of blood, with all the extended family of Brazilians, but I was born and raised in the United States. When I go to Brazil, I feel like an American, and in the United States, I always realize the traits that make me Brazillian,” Mendes said in an interview with People Magazine.
In 2013, Mendes dated photographer and director Ian Wallace whom they broke up in 2017. In October 2018, she dated her Riverdale co-star Charles Melton and broke up in December 2019. In June 2021, she got back with Charles and broke up sometime later.