Camila Mendes Says That Playing a Cranberry in a School Play Ignited Her Passion For Acting
Camila Mendes stuns on the cover of Ocean Drive‘s new March 2019 issue in a cut-out dress.
The 24-year-old Riverdale actress opened up in the glossy about her rise to fame, which all started by playing a cranberry in a school production in Florida.
“I was a cranberry and I had my own solo song,†Camila recalled about The Turkeys Go On Strike play. “Actually…no. I had a duet. It was a duet. I’m getting carried away. We sang a song about being the side dish and never the main course.”
She adds that playing the fruit ignited her passion for performing: “I was really committed to the choice and to the emotion, and to being a really sad cranberry. The audience was laughing, and I started to get a kick out of it, realizing, ‘People enjoy this.’â€
However, it all could’ve went away during her college days where she chose partying over her art.
“My teacher yelled at me in front of everyone. He was like, ‘It’s such a shame to see you waste your talent. You need to stop making you more important than your work. Make your work more important than you,’” Camila says. “It was a slap in the face.”
“I was like, ‘Wait a second. I’m throwing away my freshman year. I’m ignoring what I’m really here to do. I’m over here partying, and that’s not what I want to be. That’s not who I want to become. I want to be an actress.â€
Read more from Camila‘s feature at OceanDrive.com.