Speaker
Camila Mendes
Appearances over time
1 episodes
Episodes
1
Podcasts
Quotes & moments
Camila Mendes shot Riverdale for 7 consecutive years, 10 months per year, with only 2-month gaps between seasons, leaving no time to stop or rest.
Camila moved approximately 16 times during her childhood, which she says was deeply destabilizing but made her highly adaptable.
Camila Mendes reached a breaking point roughly 2 years before the interview, repeating the phrase 'life is really hectic right now' for almost 2 consecutive years.
Camila had been in therapy for nearly a decade before going to the Hoffman Institute, yet still felt stuck in a cycle of awareness without real emotional change.
Camila developed panic attacks during her time on Riverdale — something she had never experienced before — due to the relentless schedule and inability to process emotions.
Camila was prescribed lorazepam to numb herself enough to show up on set during panic attacks, because missing a shoot day cost production thousands of dollars.
Camila had an eating disorder — bulimia — since high school, but confronted it most directly during her time on Riverdale, where costume requirements made her body insecurities acute.
Working with a therapist specializing in eating disorders and a nutritionist simultaneously, Camila says she was effectively cured of bulimia in approximately one year.
When Camila was at her most depressed — not eating due to genuine loss of appetite — she received the most compliments about her body, which she says reinforces dangerous thinking.
Rudy Mancuso went from never having done therapy two years ago to completing the Hoffman Institute program, which Camila says transformed their relationship communication.
The Hoffman Institute program requires participants to disconnect entirely for a week — no phone, no reading, no music — to stay fully present to the emotional experience.
At 31, Camila says she is still learning to stop trying to be liked by everyone, identifying it as a lifelong pattern rooted in perfectionism.
Camila went to Coachella with friends and came home in tears, realizing she had spent the entire weekend maximizing the experience for Instagram rather than enjoying it. She had lost the ability to feel joy for almost two years — every event was a task to optimize.
After two years of burnout, a huge fight with her mother — where she lashed out in a way she hated herself for — became the catalyst that made Camila book the Hoffman Institute. Simply booking it, she says, already felt like choosing herself.
At the Hoffman Institute, a teacher told Camila she was still a little girl screaming for her mommy — and then delivered the gut-punch: mommy isn't coming. You are your own mother now. The realisation that she had to parent herself, at 29, was both devastating and deeply liberating.
Camila and Jay unpack the emotional intelligence skill that most people never develop: holding two contradictory truths simultaneously. Her mother was loving AND her absence at 15 left a wound. Both things are true. Choosing 'either/or' closes the door on real healing.
Camila went from proudly reading Richard Dawkins in her teens to finding a form of spirituality she could finally get behind — not religion, but a deep connection to her highest self. Therapy had given her awareness; Hoffman gave her something to actually believe in.
Riverdale wasn't just a long TV show — it was a grinding pressure cooker that gave Camila panic attacks and forced her to get prescribed lorazepam just to function on set. Meanwhile she was battling bulimia she'd carried since high school, all while wearing tight costumes on camera.
Camila nearly passed on Rudy's directorial debut about Brazilian-American culture — until she took the meeting anyway because he was Brazilian. Within 10 minutes she was in awe. They fell in love collaborating over Zoom, co-writing scenes drawn from their real lives, before they'd even met in person.
Camila rejects the idea that you have to be completely healed before you fall in love again. Some wounds are invisible until you start loving — they only surface when a new relationship holds up a mirror. Real healing happens in connection, not just in solitude.
Rudy and Camila's best friend conspired to disguise the proposal as a friend's birthday dinner, complete with a fake Sex and the City dress code. Camila walked into what she thought was a stunning restaurant — until she heard the engagement song from La La Land and realised her friends had stopped walking.
Camila had done nearly a decade of therapy before Rudy started. When he finally did, problems that had lingered for years started dissolving. After Rudy completed Hoffman, they began speaking the same emotional language — and now they meditate together. The couple that does the work together, stays together.
On the set of Masters of the Universe, Camila grounded herself with daily meditations in her trailer — a 180-degree shift from the panic attacks and lorazepam of her Riverdale years. The Hoffman tools she learned are practical, fast, and portable. That's the point.
Camila actively suppressed her Brazilian identity early in her career, trying to make herself as 'ambiguous and palatable as possible' because she saw no models of success for people who looked like her. The switch came when she realised her heritage was exactly what made her irreplaceable.
Camila's nutritionist slowly reintroduced carbs — starting with a single piece of toast — and the binge-purge cycle stopped. The deprivation was the engine of the disorder. When the forbidden food was no longer forbidden, the compulsion evaporated. She was effectively healed in about a year.
At her lowest point, not eating from depression with no appetite, Camila received more body compliments than ever. Those compliments wired her brain to associate being unwell with looking 'best.' It's exactly the feedback loop that keeps eating disorders alive.
Analysis
What they talk about
- Society & Culture 50%
- Health & Fitness 40%
- Religion & Spirituality 10%
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