Camila Mendes

Camila Carraro Mendes (born June 29, 1994) is an American actress. She made her acting debut portraying Veronica Lodge on The CW teen drama series Riverdale (2017–2023), for which she won a Teen Choice Award in 2017. Mendes transitioned her career to film, taking on supporting roles in The New Romantic (2018), The Perfect Date (2019), and Palm Springs (2020). She has since played leading roles in the black comedy film Do Revenge (2022), and the romantic comedies Upgraded (2024) and Música (2024), also serving as an executive producer for the later two.

Early life
Mendes was born on June 29, 1994, in Charlottesville, Virginia, to Brazilian parents. Her father, Victor Mendes, is a business executive and her mother, Gisele Carraro, is a flight attendant. She has an older sister. Shortly after her birth, she moved to Atlanta, Georgia, then back to Virginia, and then to Orlando, Florida. Due to her father's job and later her parents' divorce, she moved 16 times growing up, but mainly lived in Florida. At the age of 10, she lived in Brazil for a year. Mendes attended the Fine Arts program at the American Heritage School in Plantation, Florida, graduating in 2012. In May 2016, Mendes graduated from New York University Tisch School of the Arts.

Career
Mendes' first acting job was a commercial for IKEA. In 2016, Mendes was cast as "silver-tongued high school sophomore" Veronica Lodge in The CW's teen drama series Riverdale (2017–2023), a subversive take on the Archie Comics. For her performance she won the Teen Choice Award for Choice Scene Stealer in 2017. Mendes was represented by the Carson Kolker Organization, later changing to CAA.

Mendes made her feature film debut as Morgan in The New Romantic, which premiered at the SXSW Festival in March 2018. In the same month, Mendes joined the cast of the romantic comedy The Perfect Date. The film was released on Netflix on April 12, 2019. In 2019, the film Coyote Lake premiered, in which Mendes is the lead. In 2020 she appeared in the critically acclaimed sci-fi/comedy Palm Springs, which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival and was released that July on Hulu. She subsequently headlined the Netflix thriller film Dangerous Lies, released that same year.

In 2022 she co-starred opposite Maya Hawke in the teen black comedy Do Revenge for Netflix earning critical acclaim. Mendes played Drea a popular student at an elite high school trying to get revenge on her ex-boyfriend. Adrian Horton of The Guardian praised her performance writing, "In particular, Mendes’s six years on Riverdale have refined her performance of a popular bitch with secret vulnerability to a fine, relishable point." In February 2024, Mendes starred as Ana Santos, an ambitious art world intern in the Amazon Prime romantic comedy film, Upgraded. The film also starred Archie Renaux, Lena Olin, and Marisa Tomei. The film earned positive reviews with Courtney Howard of Variety describing this film as a "clever and charming romantic comedy" adding "Mendes and Renaux make for a lovely on-screen duo, teasing out lighthearted tenderness within the witty banter." That same year she starred in another Amazon romantic comedy, Mùsica (2024) which premiered at the SXSW Festival. Rafael Motamyer of IndieWire praised the film for its "subversion of the musical comedy", adding the film is "charming" while also praising the chemistry of the two leads.

In June 2024, Mendes co-founded production company Honor Role with Rachel Matthews.

Personal life
When auditioning for characters of Latin American background, she has been told, "You don't look Latina enough." Mendes is Brazilian American and identifies as Latin American. She speaks Portuguese.

"'I really appreciate how these two cultures created who I am. I am a Brazilian 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 Brazilian.'" Mendes was roofied and sexually assaulted during her time at NYU, which inspired her to get a tattoo that says "to build a home" in cursive lettering above her rib, representing her commitment to build stability and safety for herself.

Mendes dated photographer and director Ian Wallace from 2013 to 2017. Mendes had begun dating Riverdale co-star Charles Melton by October 2018; they broke up by December 2019. In 2023, she revealed that she was dating actor and internet personality Rudy Mancuso.