Camila Mendes

In Masters of the Universe (2026) the prince stares at his sword and his furry shorts while Camila Mendes's Teela gets on with keeping him alive. That is the part she is usually given and usually plays well: the one who has sized up the situation before anyone else in it, says so, and does not let on what it is costing her. The type was set on Riverdale, where Veronica Lodge was the popular girl with a sharp tongue and something bruised underneath it, and Mendes played her for seven seasons.

Television made her. Riverdale ran from 2017 to 2023, and Veronica was the role that made her a name, over 137 episodes. The move to film began while the series was still on, with supporting parts in The New Romantic (2018) and The Perfect Date (2019), then a small role as Tala in Palm Springs (2020). We liked that film a good deal. We did not come away thinking about her, because it belongs to Cristin Milioti and there is not much room in it for anyone else. The leads came after: Drea Torres in Do Revenge (2022), Ana Santos in Upgraded (2024), which she also produced, and Isabella in Música (2024), directed by her co-star Rudy Mancuso. In 2024 she and Rachel Matthews founded a production company, Honor Role.

The pattern in the reviews so far is consistent. Do Revenge drew the warmest notices, and for the reason the persona works at all: a confident girl whose confidence is a front, played by someone who can let the front slip for a second and put it back. The romantic comedies since have been called uneven, with her performance better than the film around it. That is a compliment, and it is also a habit. Actors who keep rescuing weak films are usually choosing them.

Masters of the Universe is our clearest look at her, and we came away mildly annoyed on her behalf. The film gives its jokes to Nicholas Galitzine's bewilderment and its steadiness to Idris Elba's Duncan, and leaves Mendes with the errands. She does them briskly, pulling Adam out of trouble he has wandered into, and we kept waiting for the script to hand her a line as good as the ones it gives Jared Leto's Skeletor. It did not. She is competent, and the film treats competence as something that happens in the background.

What we have not yet seen is what happens when a writer writes to her rather than around her. The production company suggests she has noticed the same gap. Until it closes, she is a reliable reason to keep watching a film that is not quite good enough, which is useful, and not what a leading actor wants written about her.