Camila Mendes

Mendes was born on June 29, 1994, in Charlottesville, Virginia,[4] 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, Viviane, who is four years her senior.[2][5] Shortly after her birth, she moved to Atlanta and then back to Virginia, and then to Orlando, Florida.[6] Due to her father's job and later, her parents' divorce, she moved 16 times growing up, but mainly lived in Florida.[7] At the age of 10, she lived in Brazil for a year.[7] Mendes attended the Fine Arts program at the American Heritage School in Plantation, Florida, graduating in 2012.[8] In May 2016, Mendes graduated from New York University Tisch School of the Arts.[9][10][11] While there, she also became friends with singer Maggie Rogers.

Mendes' first acting job was a commercial for IKEA.[12] In 2016, Mendes was cast as "silver-tongued high school sophomore" Veronica Lodge in The CW's teen drama series Riverdale, a subversive take on the Archie Comics.[13] Mendes was represented by the Carson Kolker Organization, later changing to CAA.[10] She appeared on the cover of Women's Health in December 2017 and Cosmopolitan in February 2018.

Mendes made her feature film debut as Morgan in The New Romantic, which premiered at the SXSW Festival in March 2018.[14] In the same month, Mendes joined the cast of the romantic comedy The Perfect Date alongside Laura Marano and Matt Walsh.[15] The film was released on Netflix on April 12, 2019.[16] 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.[17] She subsequently headlined the Netflix thriller film Dangerous Lies, released that same year.

Mendes has said she has suffered discrimination in Hollywood, and that when auditioning for characters of Latin American background, she has been told "You don't look Latina enough." Mendes is Brazilian American and identifies herself as Latin American. She speaks Portuguese.[18]

"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."
– Camila Mendes in an interview with People Magazine.[19]

In 2018, Mendes appeared in the music video for Rogers' song "Give a Little".[20] She would later state that she was "roofied and sexually assaulted" during her time at NYU, which inspired her to get a tattoo above her rib saying "to build a home".[21]

Mendes dated photographer and director Ian Wallace in 2013 but broke up in 2017.[22][23][24] Mendes dated her Riverdale co-star Charles Melton in October 2018, but broke up in December 2019. They got back together in June 2021 and subsequently broke up sometime later. [25]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Camila Mendes.

• Camila Mendes at IMDb
• Camila Mendes on Twitter