DA MAN: Hi, Camila. Awesome to have you with us. So, the first episodes of “Riverdale” have just started airing. How excited are you? Camila Mendes:

It’s so surreal. I started auditioning for this role in November of 2015. We’ve been working on this project for so long, living in our own little “Riverdale” bubble, and here we are in 2017, about to burst that bubble and share all that hard work with the world. This is a very exciting time.

Acting has always been a part of my personality. I was a very performative child. Not only did I act in a lot of school plays, but I was just generally a very hyper and goofy child, always putting on voices and pretending to be different people. My mom caught on to that pretty quickly, so when we moved to South Florida when I was about 12 or so, she enrolled me in a school that had a very strong theatre program, a school where people were given scholarships for their talent, and I think that’s when I started to get serious about acting. Everybody there was so talented, and the productions they put on were very professional. I think that’s what truly inspired me to pursue acting as a career.