Riverdale star Camila Mendes plays the and strong-willed and confident Veronica Lodge on the CW hit series, but the 26-year-old actress has been open about how real life is far from TV fiction. Like all of us, the young star has felt weight of the last year and is finding new ways to navigate through a changing world and work environment during the pandemic. Here, she takes a minute to catch up with NewBeauty and shares her best tips for coping with anxiety and staying sweat-free on and off set.
NewBeauty: You’ve been open about your anxiety over the last year. How are you coping with your anxiety now?
Camila Mendes: We’re getting right into it! Yeah, I’ve been having more anxiety this year than I ever have had in the past. My solution as of late has been trying to meditate more consistently, or whenever I do kind of feel something coming on or I feel like I’m very scattered and my heart rate is all over the place, I’ll try to take 10 minutes in my trailer to just do some breathing exercises and recenter my focus. So, that’s kind of been the best tool for my anxiety. I was doing it in response to my heart rate going up, but now I’m trying to do it more as a preventative measure.
NB: The reason I ask is because I feel like that really resonates with so many people right now. We’re all kind of going through a similar experience.
CM: Yeah, I think for all the control freaks out there, there’s a lot that’s out of our control right now and there’s a lot happening in the world that’s it’s really scary. Yeah, I think it makes us kind of lose our ground.
NB: You had to stop filming during season four of Riverdale last year and came back to film season five during COVID. How did that change your filming routine?
CM: There’s a lot that’s different, the whole mood on set is different. You know, crew members are like family to us and now we kind of all have to be in our own bubbles and are not really supposed to interact with people on set and keep our distance. So that’s kind of changed the vibe, but we do our best with what we’re given and we kind of understand that that’s just the way it has to be for a while until things go back to normal.
NB: Looking back from March 2020 to today, has your beauty routine changed at all? Is there anything you’re doing now or not doing now?
CM: I take more baths now. That’s something that’s pretty new in my routine. That’s something I do at night a lot before going to bed. I have a hard time going to sleep early, not because I have a hard time falling asleep, but because I have a hard time accepting the day is over. I have been doing this thing where I downloaded this app on my phone called Forest, that sort of helps you get off your phone like whenever you feel like you’re a little too glued to your phone. You set a timer on this app, and it also grows a tree, not in real life but it grows a tree in the app to represent the time that you took for yourself. So, it’s nice to disconnect. I’ll set that for like 20 minutes and then I’ll run a bath. And that’s been really good for me before bed to start winding down and getting ready to sleep.
NB: What are your desert island skin-care picks? What can’t you live without?
CM: If I were on a desert island, I feel like I’d really need like some sunscreen, but I don’t want to choose sunscreen because that’s the boring answer. I’m really obsessed with Sunday Riley’s C.E.O Cream. It’s got a great like orangey scent and it’s a rich, thick cream. That’s a great nighttime moisturizer.
NB: You’re also working with Secret Deodorant. How does it help you stay cool when you’re on set?
CM: It helps a lot. I definitely sweat in response to stress and obviously being on set is a really stressful environment in the sense that everyone’s moving a mile a minute, and there’s really not a lot of downtime when you’re on set. I love Secret because it’s aluminum-free and it’s got 48-hour odor protection so I can just put it on and feel good for the day knowing that I’m not going to break a sweat and start smelling terrible when I’m really close to my castmates.
NB: Last question. Do you ever get influenced by TikTok or other social media to want to try a beauty trend?
CM: Oh, yeah, for sure. I’m always saving things in my phone on Instagram or sending myself TikToks to remember to try something, but I never actually get around to it. I like to believe that I will eventually, so I just keep sending them to myself. I have a ton of stuff saved.
