CAMILA MENDES: "Perfectionism Was Ruining My Life"

What's the tattoo? I got it after Riverdale. It's a pearl. Oh. Because Veronica, my character on Riverdale, wore pearls all the time. Awesome. I got it when we rapped. Hey, it's Jay. I don't know what your day's been like, but I was just thinking about you for a minute. And I hope you're being a little patient with yourself, because you deserve it. And yeah, I'll talk to you soon. It's amazing to finally have you here. I've been watching your interviews for years. Likewise. I've been obsessed over this whole press run that you've just done for Masters of the Universe. It's incredible to just watch you crush it, if I can say that. Thank you. Me and my team were talking about this. We're like, whenever we see a clip of you doing anything, it's so fun, effortless. Oh, wow. It feels like you're having a great time, and it just oozes through the screen. And of course, it's so fun. And of course, your fiancé is such a sweet man, Rudy, who we were just saying I first started talking to like eight years ago. Which is crazy. Yeah. Instagram buddies. Instagram buddies. He's so talented and incredible. So thank you for being here. Thank you for having me. I wanted to ask you, so at 31, you have your own production company. You're starring in this huge, huge movie, doing all these incredible things. What are you having the most fun with right now? I think what I'm most excited about in life right now is building my home and my future. And my family. I just want to cultivate a sense of groundedness, have my sanctuary. That's what feels fun to me right now. It's so beautiful being able to do that, isn't it? Yeah. I'm an interior design geek. Yeah. It's literally my favorite thing in the world. And so I'm obsessed with textures and colors and tones. And I remember just getting so lost in it. And the way I like to design is I like to design rooms like my mind. And so it's like, how do I want to feel in this space? And how does my mind want to feel in this space? How do you think about the different spaces in your home? When I got my first home, like the first home I ever owned, I had like no idea what my home aesthetic would be or anything. And then I sort of like, it was a process of getting to know myself. And I found my own style and taste through that experience. And I was so happy with where it landed because I was like, wow, this is me. This is all just a reflection of me and my mind. My mind and my creativity. And then I like, right when I finished, not too long after, like I ended up moving out and moving in with Rudy. And then it was a matter of like finding our taste together. And at the time, I had moved into his house. And it was like a weird process of being like, okay, I want to make some changes, but it's also your house. Rudy loves his interior to be like super clean, spotless. It's so zen, but in a like, you know, I think in a sterile way where it's just like, there's like no personality. Like it's like, because he's so booming with personality in his mind, it's like he needs his space to be super clean. And I was like, what about color and texture and warmth? And it was like this like interesting combination of personalities trying to find the common ground. And then we recently bought a home and it's like the perfect home. It's like the perfect amalgamation of our tastes. And now it's like that experience of finding like, what's our aesthetic together? Like how, you know, and he's grown. He's now telling me, he's like, I don't know, I feel like it needs more color. And I'm like, who are you? You've rubbed off on him. I really have. It's been contagious. Yeah. And when you're juggling all these things, you got this going on, that's exciting. What's most challenging? What do you find different from how you expected this moment in your life to be? The challenge is. Uh, balancing it all. And I wish I had that figured out. But, you know, especially just coming off this press tour, there's really no room to think about anything else when you're doing a press tour. Like it is literally just talking about Masters of the Universe every day, all day for three weeks straight, four weeks straight. For those four weeks, I felt like I was neglecting every other thing in my life. And that to me is the biggest challenge is finding time to still maintain. Relationships, friendships, um, other work projects that require things for me. That has been something that I still struggle with. It's fascinating, right? Like, I feel like we all have these moments in our life where everything's all absorbing and all consuming, and you've still got to realize that you have a life as well as the life that you're living right now. I have a mind where like, I just love to be focused on one thing. Like if, if I could have it that way, I would to just eat. Sleep and breathe one project at a time, but you just can't do that in this industry. Like you kind of have to have your hand in many things, especially because it's so fickle. Like at any moment, a project can fall apart. You could shoot a whole movie and then it just does, it just dies and it doesn't come out like you, nothing is certain. So it's like, you just always have to have your hand in something and be juggling a million things at once, knowing that at one point, one of them will take off. But that I struggle with that having to divide. My attention between a lot of different things. I would love to just do one thing at a time. Yeah. And one thing I do do that does help me is my team's often like, Oh, what have you got coming up next week? Or what are you doing in three months time? And I'm like, I live in 24 hour cycles. Yes. I cannot live outside of what I'm doing in the next 24 hours. I completely agree. Because the next 24 hours, like I'm here with you right now. And so I'm totally present with you. Yeah. And then I know what I can do for the next 24 hours and I can't know anything beyond that because it will overwhelm me. I think for people like us who do live very busy lives, it's so easy for your schedule to just fill up with so much stuff because there's always going to be a certain meeting or a certain thing that people want to put on your schedule on your calendar. I kind of like took a week off last week after having been on the press. I was like, I just need a week off to like not have any calls, not have anything. I'm going to go to this wedding in Italy. I just want to like be a person for a week and we'll get back to everything when I'm back. Even the idea of scheduling. A call while I'm on this vacation. I was like, I don't even want to schedule anything for when I'm back. Like, let me get back and then I will get back into all of this. It's so easy for the following week to just be full of things that I didn't necessarily ask for. And so I'm like, let me get back into myself and figure out what do I want to do with my time this week? What do I want to make time for? And then I'm going to work around that and schedule these meetings. Meetings and these calls around the things that I want to do for myself, because if I just say yes to this and yes to that call and that meeting and that Zoom, it's like before you know it, that's my whole week gone and doing things that, you know, are important that are that are still beneficial for me in terms of work, but they're not necessarily nourishing to my soul or making me feel like a stable, happy human being. So I'm like, let me schedule those things and and we'll work around that because if I don't, I'm not going to be able to do that. If I don't have those things, then I'm screwed. This episode is presented by State Farm. We spend so much energy becoming the best version of ourselves, building better habits, showing up more fully, embracing mindfulness. But sometimes the most purposeful thing you can do is just handle the thing you've been putting off. If getting your insurance sorted has been living on that list, State Farm is there to help you choose the coverage that's right for you. Go online at statefarm.com or use the easily accessible app to get help from one of their over 19,000 local agents. Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there. How did you make that decision? Because as you said, there's so many things that are temptations. Yeah. There's so many obligations. There's a fear of, and I'm asking this as much for you as I'm asking for everyone who's listening and watching, where we all get to these moments in our careers or in our lives where it feels like you've got momentum. Things are moving ahead. You're doing incredible things. How do you then go, no, it's okay to rest and it's okay to allow myself to rest? Yeah. I'm telling myself this week where I deserve this because I think so many of us feel we have to earn rest, but then we keep staying on that treadmill to get there. When I booked Riverdale and I was just working for seven years straight, like that was me on the treadmill. And because we shot for so long in Vancouver, then I'd only have two months in between each season to do other projects. So it was literally, I would never stop. It was nonstop. I was on the hamster wheel of life. And I sort of had to hit a rock bottom. In order for me to realize my limit, because like, if you have that mentality of like, I got to feed off the momentum, like you might not ever stop. And I think that's a very good problem to have. I've been very lucky to have worked. But like, for me, longevity is more important. Like, it's like, I'm in it for the long haul. I want to have a long, happy, healthy career. And I don't want to burn myself out too early. I sort of trust. In my talent and my abilities, not just as an actor, but as like a hard worker that like opportunities will be there. I just trust that they'll be there because I trust in myself enough to know that I'll make that happen. Like, I won't let myself down in that way. But having a break and taking the time to be a human is what allows me to do good work and just be more connected to myself where I make better choices about what I want to do. about what projects I'm doing or what I'm dedicating my time too. There's that famous old story of the woodcutter. He's with his boss and his boss says, go and cut some trees. Okay. So the woodcutter goes out and the first week he cuts 20 trees and his boss is happy. Then the woodcutter, the second week at work, he cuts 10 trees and the boss is like, why are you only cutting 10 trees? And then the third week, the woodcutter cuts zero trees and the woodcutter goes, what's going on? Like I was doing 20 the first week, I did 10 and now I'm doing zero. And his boss says to him, he says, it's because you didn't sharpen your saw. You didn't take time out to sharpen your saw. So your saw just got blunt. And so every time you went out there, no matter how hard you worked, how hard you pushed, you cut less trees because you didn't have the sharp saw, the sharp mind or the sharp energy for it. You mentioned that, what did rock bottom look like for you? It was the inability to say no. To anything. I have a lot of perfectionism patterns in my family on both sides. And so I hold myself to a very high standard in every aspect of my life, like not just work, but I want to be the best at everything all the time. And I would just like say yes to everything and even going to a concert, the way that I would look at it was not as fun, but as like, I need to maximize the six. Experience in some way, you know, it's like, I'm going to go have fun at this concert, but also, um, I need to make sure I know all the lyrics to all the songs so that I can, you know, sing along to everything. And I also want to make sure I wear a cute outfit so I can take cute pics. And so I can post on Instagram because I need to post on my Instagram and like increase my social media following and blah, blah, blah. Like I would just think in those terms all the time, I went to Coachella with like all my friends and it was supposed to be this like really fun experience. I remember as soon as I got in the car, my way home, I just started crying and I was so depressed. And I was like, I don't know why, but nothing about that was fun for me. That was actually like, it felt like work. It felt like I just wanted to make sure everyone is having a good time all the time. I didn't enjoy myself at all. I was just worrying about everyone else. And I got back home, you know, I was with Rudy and I was crying to him and he was just like, well, what's, why are you feeling this way? And I was just like, I just, I don't know how to have fun. Like, I just don't know. I don't know what joy feels like anymore. I'm just like nonstop. And all I can think about is great. I spent the whole weekend at Coachella and I'm back to work and I have all these things to do this week. And I have all these meetings and all these calls and all these people who need something for me and everyone annoys me. And I just like hate everyone. I realized like that for almost two years of my life at that point, I had always been repeating the phrase, things are just really crazy right now. Life is really hectic right now. And it was just like, it's not right. It's just like, that's just my life. That's just how I've been living my life. And I dreaded waking up in the morning and I was like, something's got to change. Like I cannot live this way anymore. And, and he had heard of Hoffman through a friend of his Hoffman Institute and he called her and she spoke about her experience and was like, I really like it changed my life. I really recommend it. And I was like, but you don't understand. Like, I can't just set a week, a whole week of my life where I have no phone and I can't talk to anyone. And like, I have all these people that depend on me and all these projects and all these things. And if I, if I step away, like everyone's going to freak out. And she was like, I know some pretty big names that have gone to this thing. If those people can take a week out of their life to do this thing, I think you can too. And I was like, all right, word. Yeah. Because it's no phone. It's no connection. You're not allowed to read. You're not allowed to, you know, listen to music. And obviously, like they can't necessarily monitor those things. But the whole point of it is to be completely present to the experience, because I don't think you'd be able to get what you need to get out of it if you were distracting yourself. Because even watching movies and reading and listening to music are forms of escape. Sometimes, sometimes we rely on those things to take us out of what we're feeling. And the whole purpose of Hoffman is to sort of like really be present and feel everything. When was this? Two years ago. I was like, OK, I'll I'll do it. I think I'll do it. But I sort of put it off. And then like two days later, I got in a huge fight with my mom where I like completely lost it at her. And the way that I was so reactive and so sensitive and so overwhelmed and burnout that I like lashed out at her and I hated myself for it. I like had a complete breakdown. And I was like, I need to go to Hoffman. And I called my assistant. I was like, please get me in as soon as you can. And I was able to get in a few months later. Even the process of choosing, choosing to go just like booking it already, I started to feel a change because it's like an active choice of choosing yourself and your happiness and like just to be able to say to people, I'm going to be away for a week for these dates and you can't reach me. And that's it. And you watch people like accept it and respond to it and be like, OK, fair. And I'm like, oh, OK, that was easier than I thought. And then to go do that experience and come out of it and be like, oh, wait, nothing crazy happened. Everyone's fine. Life continued. The world didn't stop. And I'm actually better now and I can like show up in my life in a way that's way more authentic and present. What would you say is the biggest lesson you learned about yourself from Hoffman? There was this one exercise that we did where you're not supposed to talk about it too much. That's what I'm saying, what you learned about yourself. Yeah, yeah. But in order to tell the story, I have to kind of describe what it was, but I think it's fine. It was like some sort of exercise where you're reliving an experience that was triggering. And they asked us to like pick something sort of light and easy just to kind of get a feel for the exercise. And I ended up picking the thing that wasn't light or easy. It was the very fight that brought me to Hoffman, which was this fight with my mom. You're supposed to like revisit it and try to imagine a different way of reacting to the situation. And I was so stuck. Like I was like, I can't imagine being any other way in that moment because, you know, the fight that we were having was so triggering to me that I just had to yell and stand up for myself and make a make a point, you know, for some reason I couldn't get past that reactivity. Like I'm like, no, that that is the only way to react in that situation. And I like got really stuck. So I, you know, my teacher pulled me aside and sort of worked with me one on one. And I was like, why should I be the bigger person? I don't want to be the bigger person. Why should I have to be? Why do I always have to be the bigger person? And she's like, it's funny when I hear you say that, I'm like, you talk. I hear this girl woman, like you're this little girl in a woman's body screaming, I want my mommy. I want my mommy. And my teacher is like, mommy ain't coming. You're your mommy now. And oh, that like, I just lost it. And it was this weird realization of, by the way, my mom is totally there for me. She's the most there for me person. It was a very specific dynamic that I was trying to work through. But hearing that was more for me to realize, like, I am my own mother now. I'm a 29 year old woman and I need to take care of myself. Like at a certain point, you have to take responsibility for yourself and your life. Like you can't just be mad at your parents for what they didn't give you. You know, like you just got to grow up and like take care of yourself. And like, there's something really empowering about that. It doesn't need to be sad. It doesn't need to be like, oh, like, my mommy and daddy didn't do this when I was younger. It's like, no, like, okay, fine. They didn't. But they also did all these other amazing, wonderful things. And they did the best they could with the tools that they had. And now it's time for me to grow up and take care of myself. And like, I think that's beautiful. Because there is still a little girl inside of me. But now I can be the mother to that little girl. I can take her in my arms and be like, it's okay, I'm here. I got you. And that was something that I really needed to learn to like reframe things in my mind to not sort of like pity myself, or like, you know, constantly be in the state of like grieving what I didn't have. Yeah. My mother is the most loving person you could imagine. Like I had a lot of love as a kid. But there was a period of my life where she moved to Brazil for a while. And I was living with my dad at the time my parents were divorced. And I remember going through it was my like first heartbreak. And it was a humiliating heartbreak or like, he was my best friend turned boyfriend, who ended up cheating on me with one of my closest friends. And I was like 15 years old. And I was devastated. And I was like, so depressed. And I was living with my dad who like, bless him. But like, you know, how much can a dad do for a teenage daughter in that time, I like needed my mom. and she wasn't there and I remember being feeling very abandoned by her in that time we've worked through this a lot and I've talked about it a lot but like no matter how much you talk about something that doesn't mean that you've healed it like it's like I needed to release the fury of this little girl inside of me and only then could I really forgive and make space for like real real forgiveness and I feel like I've reached that now I don't want you know this to frame my mom as somebody who wasn't because my mom is like the most loving the the most like supportive person I know um but you know no one's perfect and like that was something I think I needed to experience is like this feeling of empowerment to take care of myself I think what I'm hearing from you is it's okay to hold both of those things at the same time oh my god you know you adore your mom she loved you yeah she was there for you you had a loving childhood that's that's true yeah and at the same time there's this one specific experience that has left this mark on you that you had to address when you were doing the self-work and I think when we can hold both truths at the same time you actually give yourself space to explore both of them and validate both of them whereas when we say oh it's either or that's where I think we go wrong like my parents were like oh my god you're so good you're so good you're so good either were amazing and loved me yes and therefore none of my feelings are valid or important or my feelings are the only thing that's valid and important they didn't get anything right and that's just not true and I think maturity is actually the ability to live in the gray I feel that now more than ever is this idea of like living in the gray and like two things can be true at once because I struggle with not having absolute truths like I always want to be like what was what is the narrative what is the the thing that's going on in my life that's going to be that's actually true and it's like sometimes there is no truth it's just kind of it's just a gray area and like and you're right two things can be true at once you also had the experience of growing up between two cultures so I wonder whether that was part of it too when I was growing up Brazilian culture was such a part of my life because both of my parents are Brazilian so they and they were speaking Portuguese with each other and raising us in very Brazilian ways so like I know that that was part of my identity but I think I had a resistance toward it when I was in high school and I grew up in Miami which is a very Latin place like everyone there is Latino everyone at my school was Latino but like for me I denied it more out of fear of like you know I wanted to be an actor and I was afraid of that getting in the way of my success because there weren't a lot of models of success for people that looked like me or had my background like I wasn't this white girl next door with blonde hair and blue hair and blue eyes you know I wanted to make myself as like ambiguous as possible and as palatable as possible I guess I felt like I was sort of resisting that part of myself and there was a switch at one point in my career where I realized oh actually like this is my superpower this is what makes me unique and and then I started leaning into that and embracing it and felt more myself than I ever have and now that's why you know meeting Rudy was such a beautiful experience because he's also Brazilian-American he's Brazilian-Italian-American but his Brazilian side is I think way stronger because his mom's Brazilian and he grew up in a neighborhood that was very Brazilian and so we both shared that sort of Brazilian-American thing and it's so it's so rare it's especially in Hollywood like I never meet other Brazilian-Americans and so that was something we really connected and bonded about was having this like shared culture this shared third culture you know it goes back to what we were talking about a second ago that it almost feels like you had to learn to accept all the different parts of yourself yeah and like see all of them yeah and so it's like I am a bit of this and I am a bit of this and and this is also who I am and now I can see the full picture rather than what I'm having to choose I like I'm only this or I'm only that but it feels like when the older you get you kind of like go back to your roots more and more I don't know if you found this in life but like I feel like sometimes we kind of go full circle I've seen it happen with my friends too like people who grew up really religious and then they completely reject God and reject religion and rebel against it and then they like go through some things and they kind of come back to it later in life and then they're like religious again but in a different way yeah I've seen that happen a lot with people and um for me I feel like it's kind of been that way with my with my culture where it's like I grew up very Brazilian and then I sort of no I wouldn't say ever rejected it but I just didn't I didn't lead with that and then I sort of found it again and in a way that made me feel more myself than ever and then the values that I think that I carried that were more American values like more about those started to fade away and then my like more communal familial cultural side started to take over and and now I think those values are stronger in me than they were before yeah I think there is that cyclical nature to life yeah and that's why what we learn in our childhood is so important yeah because you find your way back to it often you do and you like redefine it in a way but yeah redefines a good word for me also um I didn't grow up with any religion in my house my dad's side of the family is super atheist my grandpa was like a radical atheist in the 60s in Brazil you know so like that whole side of the family they're just very you know all about logical thinking they're very science-based and just like religion just wasn't a thing and then my mom's side of the family is like very catholic and now they're um they practice a religion called spiritism I think that's the translation spiritism is how you say in Portuguese which has a lot to do with like reincarnation and it's just like a completely different two different sides of the religious scale you know even though my mom's side of the family was somewhat religious that wasn't a part of my upbringing like I didn't go to church my mom didn't really practice it at home she believed in God but like I think my dad's presence definitely was more dominant and it was like and it allowed for a lot of great conversations at the dinner table like there was a lot of thought behind it it's not like he was indoctrinating us to like not believe in God but I feel like I you know when I was a teenager I was an atheist and I like was very proud to be an atheist and I didn't believe in any God and I was like reading Richard Dawkins and like I was just very much an atheist and I was well into my 20s and it wasn't until I sort of hit that rock bottom you know and I went to Hoffman that things started to change for me and it was so funny because I rejected spirituality for so long and then you know I've done years of therapy I've been in therapy for almost a decade and I kind of hit a plateau where I was like I've talked about my problems and I've rationalized them and I can talk and talk and talk but like I don't feel like I'm healing I feel like I'm stuck in this cycle of like being very aware of what my problems are but not really being able to implement any change around them or like changing how I feel like all those like feelings are still there I feel like I need something more I need like a larger purpose I need like I'm craving something more meaningful and I didn't even know that it was spirituality at the time by the way I just like knew that I needed something more and yeah I hit plateau in therapy and I went to Hoffman and I found for the first time a sense of spirituality that I never had in my life and it was really hard Hoffman is not about that necessarily it's more about finding an inner sense of spirituality like being connected to your higher self and that was like the a form of spirituality I could get behind because everything else felt so hard to to get into this late in life like it just felt so inaccessible and like too grand you know but like believing in my spiritual self like that's something I can get behind that's easy to me I can see that I can visualize that like who is my highest self and like that is like my version of God in a way is like my best self and that's the person I should turn to for guidance and that gave me a sense of spirituality that I never had in my life and then it opened up the door to believing in something I wouldn't I'm definitely not an atheist anymore but I don't necessarily know what it is I believe in but I'm like so open to the possibilities I don't really care if it's real or true it's like I just want to believe it and I'm okay with that like I'm okay with not knowing I just want to like believe in something people often think they have this misconception that atheists don't believe in anything or don't have any like moral high ground I guess or moral compass and that's so not true like I think I agree there's a way to in the the book the God delusion by Richard Dawkins it opens with this quote that's like isn't it possible to believe that the garden is beautiful without believing that there are fairies at the bottom of it too and i really resonated with that because i'm like the world is beautiful there there are so many like beautiful things about life and like things that we can find purpose in without having to believe in a higher power i always had somewhat of a spirituality to me but you know i i rebelled against this idea of religion and then i sort of found my way back to it and i wouldn't say it's religion but it's spirituality and and it's just redefined now you know and much to my dad's family's chagrin i'm i'm like now a spiritual person and um and i love it sometimes it's almost good to rebel like it's almost healthy yes that you go to the other end because now you have the experience of what that means and what it feels like to study it to learn it so that when you come back to wherever you are now you can actually come back with more conviction and more clarity i think what a lot of us do with any value whether it's spirituality whether it's religion whether it's science whatever it may be any belief or value the more you argue it against others and the more you try and prove it to others is usually a sign of your immaturity and your understanding of the thing whereas when you're kind of in flow with it yeah you are totally open to everyone having their own beliefs and values and insights because you recognize that yeah i get a bit of what they're saying and i get a bit of what i'm saying and neither is right or wrong or good or bad or the truth yeah it's healthy to challenge yeah those beliefs i think challenging your beliefs is such a scary idea for us yeah because we already feel like the world is moving so fast around us yeah that to kind of take a look underneath and see if the fairies are there or not yeah it's kind of scary yeah you know it's kind of like wow like i believe them what if they're not there and if i don't believe them and i look what if they're there yeah and so either way there's a shock there's just no certainty everything's got something possible at this point anything is possible and everything has some faith in it i feel yeah like you're having some faith in anything and everything requires a level of faith absolutely but people reject that word sometimes how is this affected by the fact that when you were growing up you moved like 16 times did that have any impact or effect on what you're saying now i moved around so much and it was very destabilizing um i struggled with it a lot but at the same time made me a very adaptable person and it made me like good at social relationships and being able to assimilate into new environments so it's given me like a skill set that i'm very grateful for but like at the same time i'm so adamant about not raising my kids that way like i envy people that grew up with marks on the walls of their heights throughout the years like i think that is so beautiful like to live in a home that that's rudy's home like rudy lived like the house his parents live in today is the house he grew up in since birth and and it's like and you feel it when you walk in like it has so much history and i love that feeling and i don't know if i'm going to be able to give my kids that life because the nature of what i do but i'm going to do my damn best like i i want to provide as much stability as possible um because i think it is so important and raising kids but i feel like i've gone through some things recently that have basically shown me that like you just can't predict anything like you just don't know what's going to happen in life and like as much as you can like say to yourself like i'm going to do this with my kids and i'm going to blah blah and i'm not going to do that i'm going to do things differently like life will throw it at you and then you're going to have to deal with it and it might force you to make choices that you never thought you would and i think that's a really important thing to do and i think and like for example my parents got divorced and i've for so long been obsessed with this idea of like that never happening to me like i'm like i'm gonna make sure i do everything right and i'm the best partner and i choose the best partner so that will never happen and that's not a healthy way of approaching relationships i think like you need to sort of accept this and surrender to the really don't know and in a way that's sort of like liberated me yeah where i like trust myself enough to say you know what that could happen i could get divorced one day and i'll be okay i will be okay because my mom was okay and my dad was okay and my kids will be fine because i'm fine i'm okay i turned out okay and and and like you know i think i was so afraid of this idea that i might one day destabilize my family home or my family unit in a way that my parents did and that caused a lot of pain in the family of course but like that was just our pain that's our story and other families have different pain and like we all came out of that stronger in some way learning something in some way and the traumas that i have from that experience have shaped who i am and i've given me certain skill sets that other people don't have and that's like you can kind of reframe everything as like a superpower if you want to it's fascinating right you'll meet people who they their parents got divorced and they wish they stayed together yeah and then there's other people whose parents stayed together but they wish they got divorced exactly and then there's people who whose parents gave them all the love in the world and made life really easy and the person goes you've ruined my life because i didn't have any hardship right and so i never got tough and then you have the parents who are like i don't want to be a part of this and i don't want to be who only give their kids tough love and the kid goes oh i built really good skills and so you've just got all these versions and you can't you don't know what the psychology of your child is going to be and what their temperament is going to be no and how you love them is going to create a reaction you could love them and they could still turn around in 10 years and be like you didn't show me the hard way or you didn't love me enough that's what hoffman showed me because you're there with 40 other people or 39 other people and everyone's there from all walks of life all ages different life experiences some people are like i was loved too much like my parents loved me so much that like i don't know how to be independent i don't know how to do anything for myself like i was so smothered i was so spoiled i don't know how to do anything for myself and then other people are like my parents like you know my dad wasn't in the picture and my mom didn't show me love and no matter what your childhood experience was like you're gonna you're gonna be up in some way and like it's just the way it goes like there is no way of doing it completely right or completely perfect and you know in the theme of like perfectionism that i was talking about earlier like i've started to let go that perfectionism of like needing everything to be perfect in my relationship or in my family life like i can surrender to this idea that like no i'm just gonna do my best at every moment and um whatever happens happens how did that perfectionism show up on the set of riverdale i like developed panic attacks through my experience on riverdale because you hadn't had them before no i didn't have panic attacks before and i don't have them anymore really and not because of anything other than just the nature of being on a show for that long and not having time to do anything outside of work it's like when you shoot a movie it's like two months two months and you go off and you're there shooting the movie and then you're like okay that was that and i'm done and i can go back to my life for a little bit but when you're shooting a tv show for seven years and one that's like old-fashioned network television where you shoot 10 uh months out of the year like it's not a job it's like a lifestyle and then the hours are super long and it was a very ambitious show it required a lot out of us it like you know the schedule is really tight and you have to like shoot a lot of scenes in a day like there's no time for anything it's like you wake up you get to work you're like all right let's go boom boom boom boom you're just like running around like a madman there's no time for human error sometimes and that would drive me crazy because let's say you know i'm dealing with a stressful situation that has nothing to do with work like a personal situation and then i have someone knocking on my door like they're ready for you on set and i'm like crying because of the situation that i'm dealing with and now i'm like my makeup's ruined and that's another 30 minutes in the makeup chair for them to fix me and now everyone on set's waiting and now and now i feel the pressure that i'm the reason why we're behind oh my god it was like a pressure cooker environment constantly because there is no time to deal with any of those things so i had to get prescribed lorazepam so that i could like literally numb myself and be able to show up and work because otherwise if i let myself this panic and i start crying and hyperventilating i don't know i don't remember exactly how much it would cost a day to shoot riverdale but like we're talking like thousands and thousands of dollars that it required if you had to reshoot a day or something if you if you missed a day if you call in sick like you're costing production a lot of money so there's this pressure that comes with that and i just like couldn't handle it at a certain point it was a lot so my perfectionism came up a lot with that where i like i just felt like i needed to be on all the time and and at my best and looking my best. And, you know, I had an eating disorder when I was on Riverdale. I had it since high school, but that's when I really started to, like, come face to face with it. I felt a lack of control because, you know, I'm wearing a costume for a character that dresses differently than I would want to dress in my daily life. And she's wearing tight dresses and mini skirts and heels and, you know, showing my stomach, my little midriff or whatever. And if I felt bloated or if I didn't feel good about myself that day, like, I had to wear something that made me feel worse and made me feel super insecure. And that perfectionism pattern showed up a lot through my relationship with my body. And I would just, you know, sometimes have panic attacks about that feeling so disgusting and needing to be on camera and just not being able to accept that. I can imagine how heavy that is because, like you said, you can't just call it in. You can't say, I'm not coming in today. You can't push it off. Can't fix it quickly. There's no solution apart from having to go through with it, even when you're in a state where you don't want to. I only have the panic attack if I'm not, if I feel for whatever reason that I'm not allowed to feel the emotion that I'm feeling freely. So, like, if I'm feeling like I want to cry and I know that I can't, that will cause my panic attack. Because you don't have the space to actually experience and feel it. Exactly. But, like, if I did have the space, if I was told you have an hour, I'd be like, great, I'm going to cry for a bit, let it out. I'll be good to go in an hour. But you don't have that. And that's really healthy, by the way. Yeah. And that's how I like to deal with things in my day-to-day life. I have no issue just, like, crying it out for a bit, like, letting it out. Because sometimes that's all it is. Like, you just need to release the energy. And I just didn't have the space to do that. So it's like, it creates this, like, pressure cooker in your body. And then, like, I had to take something in order to get through the day. Yeah. But I don't, like, I don't like to lean on that unless I absolutely have to, because I would rather just feel it. I'm okay with feeling it. Yeah, you don't want to numb it out of choice. I don't want to numb it out, no. But it became, like, what I had to do to get through. How did you get to the other side of that? The show ended. Right, literally. Wow. But, like, not every day was like that. Yeah, of course. That was a specific kind of thing. But, like, I did love my experience on the show. Don't get me wrong. I look back on that time very fondly. It was just, like, being young and not having control over your schedule in your life. That was really hard. As I'm listening to you, I'm thinking, you know, you've been the face of, like, body positivity as well. And then you're dealing with this. And on top of that, I feel like we're living at a time where the scrutiny on women's bodies just continues online to be terrible. Yeah. And it almost doesn't get better. And it's almost like you've got to hold all these things at the same time, which is, like, I want to be confident in my body. At the same time, I have to be at work even when I don't feel confident in my body. And on top of that, there's constant commentary on women's bodies in general. I never actually experienced criticism about my body from anybody but myself. Like, I didn't see anything online that was, like, triggering to me. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It was always just my own internal standards for myself. Right. And also, my body was changing. Like, I look at pictures of myself then, and I do look different. My body was different. This happens a lot as a woman in your early 20s. Like, your body changes. And I was like, I didn't know how to deal with it. It was very overwhelming. That's what led me to therapy in the first place, was I started seeing a therapist specialized in eating disorders. And she paired me with a nutritionist. And they worked sort of as a team. I would see them separately, but they worked together and helped me sort of reestablish a healthy relationship to food by reintroducing certain things that I would avoid, like carbs. I was, like, really afraid of eating bread. And my nutritionist, like, slowly reintroduced bread in my life and was like, okay, we're going to have you have, like, a piece of toast in the morning. And I was like, oh, my God, that's going to make me gain weight. You know, like, I was so afraid of a piece of toast. And those two working together, one with the psychological aspect and the other with the nutritional aspect, was incredible. And I literally was cured in, like, a year. The nutritional aspect was so important because the reason I was binging and then purging is because I would avoid carbs so much that there'd be a certain part in the day where I'd walk by Crafty and I'd just stuff my face with so many carbs. And then I'd feel disgusting and then I'd purge. And the only reason I was doing that is because I was depriving myself. So she was like, if you give yourself that permission to eat the things that you want, you'll find that you don't want them that badly. And I started doing it and she was completely right. If I wanted something, I would just let myself eat it and trust that I'm not going to go overboard. Like, I just trusted myself. I just trusted myself that I wouldn't go overboard. And I could trust myself. Yeah. Then it wasn't as tempting because it wasn't this forbidden thing. This episode is brought to you by Wayfair. Home should be a place that feels like a sanctuary, a space that truly reflects who you are. 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There's this ancient piece of wisdom that says attachment and aversion are two sides of the same coin. And so we're either attached to it, like that's all we want, or we're like, oh no, I'm not going to touch it at all. And it's like those two things are the same thing. Whereas what you're saying, which is this more balanced approach, going back to what we've been talking about, since the beginning, is like that ability to say, well, I can have a little bit and that's okay, and that's not going to change my life. But if I avoid it, then that's what I'm like with, I have a massive sweet tooth. And it's like, I have the worst sweet tooth of all time. And I can go through the whole day, like from morning till evening, I'm fine. And then at midnight, it will hit if I'm up and I'm traveling or whatever. And I can order like 1,200 calories, 1,500 calories of just like sugar and just devour. I can't have dinner, like I need to finish dinner with a sweet treat, always. I think even the picture Rudy sent me was you eating dessert. Yes, the pistachio ice cream. It's so good. I have to, I have to. Like even when I was training for Masters of the Universe, I was like, when we were in the cutting phase, I was like, please just don't take my dark chocolate. Like cut my rice in half, don't take my dark chocolate at the end of the night. I need that. I need my little treat. But it shows you can do it that way. Yeah. Like that's the point. It works for me. I don't know if it works for everyone. You know, I think maybe some people are, have more addictive personalities and need to be a little bit more like strict with things. I don't know. Like I've never had an addictive personality, to be honest, with anything. So I've, I've always been good at like, you know, being able to draw the line when it comes to things. I'm thinking about all the young women who probably look up to you, listen to you, want to be like you in some way. What would you say to them if, they're currently struggling with an eating disorder, they're struggling with body image? See therapy for it. I know that's a very straightforward answer, but like, that's, that's personally how I was able to get through it is I couldn't do it alone. I needed help. I needed professional help because sometimes the people around you sort of send you right back into that loop. People will say things, people who don't know any better will say things to you that will actually encourage those negative, negative ways of thinking. They'll comment on your body or say, you know, when you do look thin, God, like I remember when I was my most depressed, I lost a lot of weight because I wasn't eating. And I wasn't eating because I was like trying to lose weight. I was just not eating because I had no appetite. Like I genuinely had no appetite. And the amount of people that were like, you look incredible. You look amazing. What are you doing Pilates? And I'm like, no, I'm like miserable. I'm not working out. I'm not eating well. I'm not eating at all. I'm not taking care of myself. And that was when I would get the most compliments. Those are like the kinds of comments that send you back into a negative way of thinking where you think, okay, this is when I look my best. So what did I look like before? What did you think of me before? And then when people stop saying that to you, you're like, oh, I'm fat. I think it's important to get professional help because they actually know how to talk to you in a way that gets through because sometimes people around you are just, encouraging the same patterns of thinking. Gosh. And that, that is like a vicious cycle that just keeps going. around and around and around because yeah you feel good but you're doing something bad to yourself yes and then you feel bad when whatever it may be yeah and it just keeps going around and around i wonder you're so close with all your riverdale classmates now i believe as well did you have space to have these conversations when you're on set or not really definitely oh you did oh wow i think especially with lily because she was dealing with a similar thing and she's been very open about that too she's been on the show too yeah oh yeah that's right yeah but i think she really started to experience her issues at a time where i had just kind of gone out of it we had different issues i think hers was more if i'm correct body dysmorphia and maybe like a weird relationship to food or something but mine was more bulimia so it was just like we had different issues but yeah we talked about it a lot and um and with madeline too they've always been people that i can lean on for those things that's amazing yeah i mean that's pretty rare yeah i feel like to actually have a crew that everyone not that people aren't friends but that you can actually be open about what's actually going on behind the scenes but i've also found that like i'm just really careful to talk about those things with other people because sometimes you don't want to open up the door for commentary that will trigger you and send you into that headspace you know what i mean yes yes yes i'm so fortunate to say that i've healed from it so much so that it's such a distant memory to me now i love hearing that and i can't believe that like at the time i never thought that it would ever go away that the insecurity would ever go away that the bulimia would ever go i genuinely didn't think that was possible that a therapist could heal that for me and it took a year i don't know that that's the case for everybody but that's what it took for me and then now i'm like so so removed from it and i have such a healthy relationship to food and like yeah sometimes i get insecure about my body but it's not this like all-encompassing feeling it's like okay like all right i gotta like not eat so much chocolate or what you know it's like such a it's so relaxed you know it's such a i have such a healthier relationship to it where i just trust myself like i liked my body a week ago more than i like it now but it's fine yeah i'll get there yeah it's like a life edit rather than like a complete breakdown of yes yourself yeah it's like i need to edit that and add a bit of that minus a bit of that and it's like okay i miss my abs we'll get them we'll get them back yeah we don't need to we don't need to internalize all of this and make it about our self-worth and self-esteem does not define you the way you're talking about it sounds like it did have an impact on self-worth self-esteem oh no i couldn't i couldn't function i remember my therapist during that time was like what if i told you because she wanted to see if it was it a fear of gaining weight or was it of uh an insecurity with how i look currently and she's like what if i told you that this is what you're going to look like for the rest of your life and i just started crying i just started crying i was like no like so it was like oh okay that that helped me realize i cannot accept the way that i look right now like i'm so deeply unhappy with what i look like right now i was afraid of looking the way i currently looked for the rest of my life how did this coincide with meeting rudy i met rudy 2022 his team reached out to me i had an offer for the project he was directing it was his his directorial debut called musica and the it was a rom-com that a lot to do with brazilian american culture and i'm kind of like one of the only people in this industry that could play that part i was like i don't know like this guy from vine is directing a rom-com and once i was like i don't know like we'll see and i met with him and i was like oh wow he's brilliant i have to do it like it was like a complete 180 like i was i was like pretty sure i was gonna pass then i met i took the meeting anyway because i was like he's brazilian i need to meet another brazilian in the industry and i was like i don't know i don't know i don't know and then i was like within 10 minutes like so in awe of just his his whole personality and vibe and like i could tell he was he was a brilliant mind and then we sort of like had a love story over zoom like we got to know each other over zoom because i came on as an ep and i was helping rewrite a lot of the script and like especially my scenes and we were taking inspiration out of my personal life and his is entirely out of his personal life because it's you know autobiographical and so we were just like creating these characters together and writing these scenes together and sharing intimate stories about our lives in order to service these characters and through that experience we like i mean i was falling in love with him and now i know that he was too but i like was like oh my god like i don't even know him yet i haven't even met him in person but like wow i feel this chemistry over zoom and i was like kicking my feet underneath the table and like getting all good and i was like oh my god i don't even know him yet i haven't even met him in person but like when i was talking to my friends about him but i was like i have no idea you know if this chemistry is just like one-sided yeah and and if it's just over zoom or like what's it gonna feel like when i see him in person like what if he smells different you know like i don't know it's like you start making all the excuses yeah exactly and the moment we met it's so beautiful we have this like two minute long footage of the moment we met because we like shook hands um at the the screen test and then went right over in front of the camera and they just started recording and he and i just started chatting and so we have this two minute long footage of us basically talking in for the first time and there's no audio you can't hear it but you can just see us like like being all like cute and giddy and like this sort of like you could just feel this energy between us and this chemistry and i'm so happy we have that because it's like this like such a defining moment of us meeting and then yeah it kind of escalated really quickly i think like within a week of filming he and i were already seeing each other i felt like i had known him my whole life and i don't know if some of that was because of the like shared culture thing he felt so familiar to me like i just it felt like past life stuff and i didn't even believe in that at the time it was just like i just feel so at home with you that's the word i would it just felt like home it felt right and easy it felt really easy how did you view love before you met rudy and then after i like am hesitant to say this but like i really feel like i'm my best self when i'm in love and when i have a partner i have no shame in saying that i think humans need each other and like finding a life partner has always been so important to me like someone who's like by your side through thick and thin and i mean like partner you know like more so than anything else like who is my best friend in this life and that was really what i was looking for and i feel like i was always so ahead of my time in that way not actually ahead of my time but just like i was looking for that from a very young age like a life partner i feel like i really didn't find that until rudy like someone who i could really envision a whole life with because like more than anything he's my best friend he's literally my best friend and like i just want to spend time with him always like i i just enjoy being around him and we've been through dark times like we've we've been through a lot of and like it never changes and never waver like i never hesitate to be with him i'm like i want to be with this person i choose this person until life gives me a reason not to i'm gonna continue to choose this person and i feel that he has the same view on love where it's like we're in it for the long haul and you're my life partner and like life's gonna get crazy but i want to experience it with you i was in a relationship before that was so we were just so incompatible and i felt like i was trying so hard for it to be right like way too hard and it was this talk i had with my dad where he was just like i know you have this thing because me and your mom got divorced you need to get right what we got wrong and he's like and you're like fighting so hard to like make a relationship work because relationships are hard and like i'm not gonna give up like my parents did and he's like yeah relationships are hard but they're not that hard like it shouldn't be that hard it should feel somewhat easy like like being with them should feel sort of effortless and easy and this relationship didn't feel easy it felt like constant work where you're just like oh you're just incompatible you're just two people that shouldn't be together and i feel i feel the way about my mom and dad i don't think they're compatible and i don't think they should have stayed together but for some reason at the time i was like i should really i'm not gonna i'm not gonna make the relationship work and yeah i think meeting rudy it just felt so effortless and easy and right it just felt like home what part of yourself you think you had to heal to let that kind of love in that was a hard experience healing from my last relationship the hard thing about our industry is like when your ex moves on you have to like see it in your face all the time and to be honest i don't even think that's that that's that unique to our industry i think now because of social media it's like Like, everyone has to sort of deal with that. But it's just magnified because, like, the whole world is seeing it happen, too. And I had to see a lot of photos and content of my ex with another woman. And it was, like, there's something about it that feels, like, humiliating. Like, you're just, like, embarrassed a little bit. And I don't know why because there's nothing embarrassing about it. It's, like, yeah, this is just what happens. But it's just so hard to metabolize that. And that part of it, I feel like I needed to heal. I had things I needed to heal from myself and flaws in my behavior that I needed to look at. But I do believe that part of the healing process is meeting someone new. I don't think we fully heal, like, for real heal until you start falling in love again. Yeah, loving differently. Yes. Yeah, experiencing love in it. Different container. In a new way. And it brings up patterns. I think, like, when you start loving again, it shows you what the wounds are from before. That can only be healed by loving again, you know? Because then you're, like, okay, now I'm having trust issues. And now I'm having, it's, like, all those things come up. And they wouldn't have if you were just on your own single. It's when you start loving again that you have to confront those wounds. And so part of the healing process from your last relationship, relationship is welcoming in a new person and learning how to trust again. Most people kind of try and package everything nicely where it's, like, you've got to break up, get over it. Yes. And then once you're over it, then you can, and it's, like, well, you can't, there's going to be parts of that journey that are going to Overlap a little bit. Overlap a little bit. Yeah. And not because you're trying to move on because of a new person. Yeah, it's not like you're trying to fill a void. What I'm hearing you say is that, There are certain things that you can only learn in connection. Yeah. Because they don't come out when you're sitting by yourself. There are certain things you can only learn by yourself. And there are certain things you can only learn in connection. Yes. And you've got to do them in the right place in the right rooms. Because relationships teach us so much about ourselves. For sure. Like, they hold up a mirror to you and you're like, Oh, I have some issues I need to work on. I love the point you're making that that is exactly what relationships are for sure. Yeah. Gives you an opportunity to see yourself much more deeply, intimately, but then know that that person's going to hold your hand through that. I feel like we've both seen the ugliest sides of each other. And I still love him. I think that's real love. And I think every time you're challenged in your relationship, it just forces you. Because you have a choice. Like, it's like when you reach certain obstacles in the relationship, you can end it or you can work through it. And the choice to work through it has always been the better choice. And I feel like it's only made us stronger and stronger and build more and more intimacy where I'm like, I like know you now. I know you and you know me and I'll continue to get to know you. And like that process never ends. But like those experiences, I think, are what make a couple really strong. You know, you say you've been married for 13 years. Um. I'm sure there have been bumps in the road along in those 13 years, you know. And I feel like I love meeting couples who are so transparent and real about what it takes to like be in a long lasting relationship. It's like an art form. It requires work and maintenance and it's never done. The work is never done because you continue to grow as people and you always have to continue to like nurture the relationship and like redirect. Right. You know, like find new ways of communicating because life changes and we go through different things. And I feel like my favorite couples are the ones that, you know, they've been married for decades and they're like, oh, we've been through it all. And like, you know, we almost broke up at one point and then we did that. And it's like they're so open and transparent about how imperfect it can be. All of our friends joke how annoying we are because we're very publicly affectionate. Like he and I are always like in each other's faces and kissing. And to the point where I think it like pisses other people off, especially like people that aren't like that. Like someone's girlfriend will be like, why aren't you hugging me like that all the time? Because that was my parents' love language. My parents are very affectionate. His mom is very like they're just we're very publicly affectionate people. And that's not something that Brazilians really shy away from. Yeah. And also culturally, I think it's more common in Brazilian culture to like flaunt your relationship. Like it's not this thing that you're like, we're going to be very private and concealed about everything. Like it's like, this is my man. I love him. You know, like that's that's the attitude towards love and relationships. And he and I are very much like that. And that's a challenge in this industry because that is who I am as a person naturally. But I have to fight it a little bit because I can't just like pour everything out and share. I don't want to completely open up to the world and welcome them in to this relationship. But at the same time. I'm like such a transparent person and I want to be able to share everything because I think that that's how we connect as people. And like, I want to share my experiences. But at the same time, you want to like protect the relationship. And yeah, I feel like we were constantly trying to find that balance of like, you know, I want to shout that I love you from the rooftops. But also don't want to give off this idea that we're like a perfect couple, you know? Just because all you're seeing is the highlights like there are going to be challenges and relationships, no matter who you're with. They're just different challenges. And it's a matter of like deciding what challenges you're comfortable taking on. I've been able to look at Rudy and be like, I, I can handle the challenge of this relationship. I'm OK with this. I'd prefer this over that challenge. Your public life should be good, but your private life should be better. Yes. And I always say. To people, I feel like my public life looks great, but I always want my private life to be better. And that's something you get to keep. And so you don't have to dim your public life. You just have to make your private life better. And that gives it a great balance. Because if you're trying to dim your public life or dim your outer light, that starts to feel uncomfortable. As you were saying with your Brazilian attitude. It doesn't feel natural. It doesn't feel natural and organic. If you're sacrificing your private life for your public life, that doesn't feel great either. One of the biggest lessons I've learned in relationships is don't let it be. Don't let it be one-sided for too long. Where one person's doing everything. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. For too long. Yeah. If you're in a long-term relationship and one person's doing too much for too long, that's hard. Yeah. And so the ones that get through the tough times and the hard times are where it's two-sided. Where both people are turning up, showing up, making the effort. I felt that way at one point. To be honest, that kind of circles back to the Hoffman thing of it all. Where I kind of hit my rock bottom. I went to Hoffman. I came back. With a new lease on life. A lot of clarity. New sense of purpose. And, like, a lot of my habits changed. My outlook on the world changed. Like, I wasn't wanting to go out as much or drink as much. You know, I just had a different priorities, different boundaries. It just sort of, like, highlighted this difference at that point. Because Rudy hadn't done any therapy at that point. And I had done, you know, almost a decade of therapy. And I had just done Hoffman. And then it was like, okay, I've done all this. I've done all this work around my issues. And it still feels like you're not quite ready to dive into yours. And it wasn't until he started doing therapy, after I was recommending it for a long time. He finally started. So many of our problems started to get resolved through that. Because it was like, you're finally meeting me halfway. And, you know, we had done couples therapy and stuff. But I feel like you kind of need to do individual therapy as well to really. Confront your own issues that have nothing to do with the relationship, but have to do with, like, your past. So when he started doing that, I noticed such a difference in our dynamics. And then when he was finally ready, he then went and did Hoffman. Very recently, actually. He, like, just got back not that long ago. And now it's, like, amazing. Because we speak the same language. You never know. Not everyone's going to come out of that experience having the same experience. Of course. I didn't know if it was going to happen. I didn't know if it was going to have the same effect on him that it did on me. But it did. And now it's, like, the way he's showing up is the way that's, like, I've always wanted. And it's, like, just the, like, presence and communication and authenticity. And, like, now we, like, we're that lame couple that, like, meditates together and, like, shares our. You know, it's, like, we're able to speak this language that has now become our language. It's, like, our shared language. And we already have that with Portuguese. Which kind of feels like our own little intimate thing. And then now we have this other, like, spiritual language that we share that really brings us together in a beautiful way. And, like, I've been told that it's important for couples to have, like, something that you share as a couple that's yours. That you do together. And I'm, like, oh, this is that thing for us now. Like, we have that now. I'm, like, so happy. Like, so, so happy that he had the experience that he did. Because it just made us closer. And, like, he was somebody who didn't believe in us. leave in therapy two years ago, you know? and now he's like obsessed with his therapist and wants to meditate. And now he's like, let's go do the couples thing at Hoffman. And like, now we're going to go do that. It's like, and now like the maintenance and nurturing of this relationship is like something we both participate in. And yeah, I think that's really important. It's beautiful to hear. Congratulations. Thank you. I'm so happy for you. Honestly, genuinely, I'm so, I love, I love seeing people in love and I'm so happy for you guys. And it was, it was so awesome because I remember the night you guys got engaged, you guys came to Glenn's party afterwards. And so I was on the way out and I saw you guys coming in and I remember, it was just like this awesome, talking about Glenn Balfour, he's awesome, dear friend. Basically, he disguised it as my best friend's birthday dinner. So they were working together. They were in cahoots. Her birthday was a Saturday and she was planning a dinner Friday night. So naturally, I was like, yeah, that makes sense. Her birthday's Saturday and she's going to go do something with her boyfriend on Saturday and Friday's for the friends. She's like, come get ready at my house. And like all the girls were getting ready at her house and like getting ready for this night out that we thought was at her birthday dinner. And she told me that it was like a super secret, like speakeasy that hasn't been open to the public yet. She didn't want me looking up anything. She was like, we're going to go to this dinner. And then afterwards, let's all go to Glenn Powell's. Birthday party and kind of make that part of my celebration. And I was like, great. And the theme for his birthday party was tracksuits and tequila or something. I was like, great. I'll wear my tracksuit to dinner. And she's like, um, she's like, maybe don't wear a tracksuit to dinner. And I was like, oh, no, it's fine. Like mine's like really chic and cute. Like it's not really a tracksuit. And she's like, no, but like I want the theme to be like sex in the city, like girls, like women in their 30s, like hot, but mature. And I was like, OK. So I took the sex in the city theme like really seriously. And I was like, I brought like all these options to her house and I put on this like tight corset that was like pushing my boobs up. And I was like looking a little like and she was like, um, do you want to like wear a different top? Maybe I was like, what the fuck? Why are you being so controlling for your birthday? Little birthday Zillow over here. And then treating it like a wedding or something. Yeah. And then I was like, well, what if I put this like jacket over it? And she's like, great. Yeah. Like she's like, it's just like a members only club, like really chic, like just so you walk in. And then when you sit down, you can take it off. I was like, OK, great. So then I put this jacket and thank God, because I would not have wanted all my engagement photos to be with the outfit I was wearing underneath. I got there and it's like the super secret, like knock, knock, knock on the on the door. And I'm like, oh, my God, like this is like a proper speakeasy. But it was just to let everyone know that I had arrived. I walk in and I just. I see this like long aisle of white and he's standing at the very end, but he was coming to the birthday dinner. He was going to meet us there. So it wasn't shocking to see him there. And I just thought this is what the restaurant looked like. I didn't know. I was like, oh, my God, it's beautiful in here. And there's like white flowers everywhere and candles. I'm like, oh, my God, this restaurant is so gorgeous. And I see him standing there and it took me a second, but I kept walking. And then I realized my friends weren't walking with me. Like they stayed behind. I look back at them and they're like giggling. I look back at Rudy and he's sitting there smiling. And then I hear the song playing and it's the engagement party song from La La Land. And I just I was like, oh, my God. Oh, my God, it's happening. And then. I'm getting chills right now. Just listening to it. Because we love La La Land and we bonded about that when we first met. And then we had this like beautiful little private moment. He proposed, did the whole thing. And then like I didn't even have a time to process. And then all of a sudden he was like, I want to show you something. And he like takes me through a curtain. And then like it was like a huge surprise party. And like my mom was there and all my closest friends. And it was just this like beautiful moment. And then we got to like go right into a big celebration. That went for hours. And then from there, we went to Glenn Powell's party. And I changed into my tracksuit. And then as soon as we walked out of the car, Rudy and I hadn't even discussed. It was all happening so fast. But he was like on cloud nine. And as soon as we walk out of the car, there's like paparazzi because. There's paparazzi outside this house. And Rudy just goes, we got engaged. And he like announces it to the whole world. And I was like, oh, God. I'm like, you shouldn't have done that. But I love you. And that's it's fine. And then it ended up being great. Like it was just like such a fun night. And we got to run into so many people and be like, we're engaged. Like it was just like the high of that. I remember him shouting that out actually. Because I was just about leaving then. Rudy's like so not like the being face. He's like the famous thing. He like doesn't think about those. He's just like authentically himself. He like doesn't even. But I'm always the like conscious one of like, oh, wait, we shouldn't do that. We shouldn't go. It's a good balance. Yeah. How is all of this learning, love, growth in your life. How did you bring it to Masters of the Universe? Like did it. Was it in parallel some of it? Was it. Having gone to Hoffman and like having this spiritual journey. When I came back from it. Very shortly after I got the audition and then got the role. And I don't know. I just feel like when you kind of align with yourself, like opportunities come your way. This felt like a blessing in that way. And it's a superhero movie, you know, like it's it's all about good versus evil and light versus dark in the most tangible way. And I've always struggled to connect with superhero films in the past because it's almost like too big. It's too grand of. An idea like good versus evil is so binary to me. And I've always struggled to connect with that. But then after coming out of Hoffman and then I booked this role where it really is about like lightness versus darkness and empowerment and self-identity. And I was like, oh, I really I think I get it now. Like, I do understand this theme. That's why these stories are told. That's why these stories like say what you want about superhero films. But I think there's like like thematically. There are themes in there that agree that like are very important. And for me, it was like finding the light. I had to fight my dark side and fight just the darkness in general. And that's what this movie is all about in a way, you know. And so, yeah, I feel like it came at the perfect time of my life where I sort of was already feeling like this, like more heroic version of myself. How did your spirituality? How did that help you show up on set differently? I was like doing my meditations in my trailer every day. Oh, that's cool. And like grounding myself in a way that felt right. And, you know, it's I've come such a long way since Riverdale. And I know what things I need to do to take care of myself now, like because being on set is so overwhelming and stressful and there's always a lot of pressure and everything's moving so quickly. But like. I just feel like I have the tools now to take care of myself. Like, I just know. I just know what I need to do to feel good. And I was constantly in search of. Of what those tools were. And I, I found them like I like have real tangible tools. I give Hoffman taught me anything. They gave me real tools that I can use. It's so it's so effective. It's so practical. It's very easy. And now I feel like I just I have that at my fingertips and I can do it in my trailer and it takes two minutes. And I'll feel like I'm set. I'm set for the day. And I have like, I know what I need to do throughout the day to look out for myself. Your energy is infectious. And just, you know, I can tell just how much work you've done, what you've looked at, like you've, you've visited all the corners and of course there'll be more, but you visited all the corners of your psyche up until this point. And by the way, though, I'm like, I don't want to frame this like I'm, you know, some perfect human being is like so evolved and so spiritually connected. Like I, in the last few months, I feel like I've completely disconnected. And I have to find my way back again. You know, like I, I also have my ups and downs in that spiritual journey where I like will stop doing everything. And then I'm like, oh, I got to go back to that. Tell me about it. You know, and then, and then I find my way back to it. But I just, they even say this at Hoffman. It's like a pendulum. Like you swing one way and with time, it'll just start settling a little bit more. Like you won't swing so far in the other direction. Maybe you'll lose your cool a little bit, but not as much. And that just keeps going and going, you know? And so sometimes I, I do sort of like lose connection to it, but I trust that I'll find my way back and the pendulum will swing. That's a beautiful way of putting it. Yeah. Camilla, we end every episode of On Purpose with a final five. These questions have to be answered in one sentence maximum. And so Camilla Mendes, these are your final five. Question number one, what is the best advice you've ever heard or received? I feel like this is a silly piece of advice to share. But it's helped me a lot in relationships. You know, Mark Consuelos plays my dad on Riverdale and him and Kelly have been together forever. And they're like couple goals to me. And I was like, what's your secret? Like, what's like, what's like a piece of advice you have for me? And he was like, whenever I like go to say something, I ask myself three questions. Does it need to be said? Does it need to be said right now? Do I need to be the one to say it? Good questions. that like thought, pattern is very helpful for me second question what is the worst advice you've ever heard or received i hate when people tell me not to tell the truth about something or like when they're like you don't need to say that don't share that don't tell that person that thing i'm such an honest person like i need to lead with honesty that's like my number one thing i always feel like telling the truth is the better option and sometimes when i've you know made mistakes in life i've had people tell me like don't tell anybody that and i'm so grateful that i didn't listen to that advice question number three i want you to repeat after me and complete the sentence this is about overthinking i think i think too much about i think i think too much about what people think of me if people will like me very recently i feel like i've started to surrender to it specifically around this press store for masters of the universe i think because it's like maybe the biggest stage i've ever been on it's a whole new audience that i've that i haven't had a relationship with yet you know like i've had a relationship with like the young adult audience but this is a whole other demographic and i sort of have had to kind of accept like i can't be palatable for everyone like it's just not possible not everyone is gonna like me and that's okay because if i'm being myself then there's nothing really i can do about that like i can't really change how someone feels about me but if i'm being myself that's really all i can do absolutely and it's like take it or leave it because i think i've tried a lot in my life to like be liked by everyone and i think it only makes me a less interesting person because you're not really revealing yourself to anybody you know you're just like such a neutral person that like there's like it's like who are you yeah i'd rather just be known than um liked one of my favorite quotes is confidence doesn't mean everyone will like me it means i'll be okay even if they don't exactly and that feels much safer than trying to get everyone to like you i struggle sometimes to share things about my life because i'm like how's the person gonna feel about me saying that like what conclusions are they gonna make about me as a person but then i'm like everything i've said has been honest like that's all i can do yeah i can't do anything about my truth like that's just the life that i've lived and what i've learned and like i can't do anything about that question four how's wedding planning going it's like very slow very very slow the house has taken over honestly because we weren't expecting like the house thing just kind of came up and we were like we jumped on it and then that's been a very time-consuming thing uh there's still there's a lot of empty space that we need to fill so that's sort of the reason why i'm like i can't do anything about my truth but it's going we have a location great yeah fifth and final question camilla we ask this to every guest who's ever been on the show if you could create one law that everyone in the world had to follow what would it be be honest i would make lying illegal i feel like that'd be really dangerous i feel like we like society wouldn't function in full truth but i don't know i want to see what would happen it's a good look that's what camilla's world looks like yes i love that honesty camilla mendez congrats on your professional life your personal life uh thank you for being so open i feel like i learned so much about you today and i could honestly talk to you for another two hours but honestly this has been such a joy and a gift thank you for being so vulnerable and so kind and generous thank you for trusting me i appreciate you made it really easy yeah well i hope you'll come back oh my god please yeah come back regularly give us updates when i've lived more life yes yes absolutely thank you so much thank you