\u201cWe\u2019re off to a great start,\u201d Camila Mendes<\/a> croons from the other side of her screen, her eyes wide with amusement and her sharp, chin-grazing bob almost perking up at the sound of my voice. Within minutes of logging on to our Zoom call, my Miami-laced<\/a> tone tips her off to our similar backgrounds. We both grew up in South Florida suburbia, a humid, heatwave-filled swampland that\u2019s both increasingly chaotic and painfully claustrophobic at the same time. She puts it best when she states that our hometown, and the bubble it occupies in our origin stories, is like another world.<\/p>\n Maybe that\u2019s why our hour-long interview feels strangely familiar, much more akin to a reality-television confessional than a prim-and-proper affair. She talks about her fitness routine and starring in a Mr. Fantasy (rumored to be her former Riverdale<\/em> costar KJ Apa) music video. When Mendes learns we graduated from the same high school, only a few years apart, our conversation derails into a trauma-bonding session uniquely reserved for those of us who survived South Florida adolescence. By the end, talking to Mendes feels much less like interviewing a celebrity and more like catching up with a cool upperclassman I would have passed in the hallway all those years ago.<\/p>\n The ease and flow of our conversation almost distracts me from how, unlike the hazy, slow life most people live in Miami, Mendes is in the middle of one of the biggest years in her career so far. In the first half of 2026 alone, she\u2019s been attached to three separate upcoming projects; her cofounded production company, Honor Role, just released its second feature film, Idiotka<\/em>; and somewhere in the middle of it all, she\u2019s planning a wedding to longtime partner and former M\u00fasica<\/em> costar Rudy Mancuso.<\/p>\n And then, of course, there\u2019s the small matter of starring in a major summer blockbuster<\/a>. This month, Mendes steps into the sprawling, nostalgia-drenched world of Masters of the Universe<\/em>, the live-action reimagining of the beloved \u201980s He-Man franchise starring Nicholas Galitzine, Idris Elba, and Jared Leto. In it, Mendes plays the sword-slinging Teela, who teams up with Prince Adam, played by Galitzine, to defend their home planet of Eternia from the evil wrath of Skeletor. It\u2019s the kind of studio summer spectacle built for oversize budgets, Comic Con hysteria, and inevitable internet discourse. Masters <\/em>is the <\/em>largest stage Mendes has occupied since her breakout years as Riverdale<\/em>\u2019s resident mean girl, Veronica Lodge. No big deal or anything.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ve never been a part of something of this scale. I\u2019ve never been a part of a proper press tour before, and I hear it\u2019s really chaotic in a fun way but also really exhausting,\u201d Mendes admits, nodding to the high-intensity demands of the cast\u2019s global premieres rolling out over the next several weeks. It\u2019s a whirlwind of red carpets, international red-eye flights<\/a>, and press-tour obligations with no educational crash course to help one prepare. But Mendes is used to it. She stays busy. Her life in this era, she jokes, is not unlike the infamous Lady Gaga meme: \u201cNo sleep. Bus, club, another club, another club, next place.\u201d The image tracks.<\/p>\n![\"Who](\"https:\/\/cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net\/rWv87aAuGNaJzXzrXuNKs9-1700-80.jpg.webp)
\n<\/picture><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n![\"Who](\"https:\/\/cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net\/ts9GTwCFpzsReAht26uJF9-2400-80.jpg.webp)
\n<\/picture><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n