The word ‘transformed’ gets thrown around when describing actors preparing for a role, but in Masters of the Universe, Camila Mendes transformed. Undergoing an intense strength-training programme, she pushed herself to her physical limits to fully become her character Teela, the ballbusting warrior sworn to protect He-Man – aka Nicholas Galitzine – and defend their planet Eternia. But within the fantasy, there’s emotion, as Mendes taps into Teela’s story as a parentified child forced to shoulder responsibilities beyond her years. Universes away from Mendes’ Riverdale days, this blockbuster role sees Mendes power up and enter into a new realm of maximalist cinema built on spectacle and scale. Adria Arjona is deep in her own superhero workout prep, training for the role of Maxima in James Gunn’s upcoming Superman film, Man of Tomorrow. In-conversation, Mendes and Arjona are two actors fully flexing.

Adria Arjona: Hi beautiful lady, how are you?
Camila Mendes: Hi hunny. I’m good, how are you?

AA: I’m good! I am in beautiful New Zealand. I’ve been here for the last month and I leave in about two weeks. I’m going to go back to real life, and then you go to Brazil?
CM: Yes, tomorrow I go to Brazil because we’re starting the global press tour.

AA: That is so exciting.
CM: We go to São Paulo, then London, then Berlin, and then we end in New York.

AA: We met maybe three or four years ago at the Venice Film Festival. You were at this beautiful table and I had just arrived – it was me and my mom.
CM: Yes, I met your mom!

AA: Yes, my mom! And I met your beautiful partner. I just remember the second I met you, I said, “Cami has the warmest, kindest energy.” Any time anyone meets you,  they feel like they have known you forever.
CM: I felt the exact same way about you, genuinely.

AA: I don’t know if it’s because we are Latinas. [both laugh]
CM: I have always admired you from afar because you are the most beautiful woman I have ever seen in my life.

AA: Oh stop. [laughs]
CM: But it is more than just what you look like, your energy is so beautiful.

AA: You are so sweet!
CM: When I met you, I knew you were going to be this warm light.

AA: And the same thing about you. I was like, “Who is this girl?” I did research [into you] and we have never spoken about how you moved so much growing up.
CM: I did.

AA: I had no idea, I have been stalking you a little bit. [laughs]
CM: I love it, she does her homework. Yes, I moved a lot as a kid. Both my parents are Brazilian immigrants and my dad was sort of a self-made man. He was climbing the corporate ladder and he kept getting relocated to different branches. Then one company would buy another company, and the headquarters would be located somewhere else, and it was always random places. When I tell people I was born in Charlottesville, Virginia, they are like, “What?”

AA: [laughs] I know, I was like, “That’s not true, the internet is lying to me.”
CM: I barely identify with it because I lived there for such a short time. I lived in Alpharetta, Georgia for a bit, Orlando, even Brazil a little. We were always ping-ponging around.

“Filmmaking is such a collaborative process, and you can prepare all you want, but you have no idea what’s going happen until you show up on the first day.”

AA: And how do you think that has affected you? As a person, but also as an artist – do you think it has given you more tools?
CM: I think it has definitely given me tools. I resented that part of my life when I was living it. I always envied my friends who grew up in the same house their whole life – they’d have little markers on the walls of them growing over the years. I was so envious of that kind of upbringing, but at the same time I feel like living such a nomadic lifestyle served me in this career, because it feels normal having to constantly relocate somewhere else. I can pick up my life and go anywhere and feel OK. That being said, it is not a preference and I actually hate change.

AA: You do?
CM: I don’t like to live my life that way, I’m not a very adventurous person. I love routine, I love staying put, I love being stable. So I am constantly at war with myself and with this job.

AA: That’s so funny, it is the complete opposite for me. I cannot stay in one place for too long.
CM: Did you grow up in the same place your whole life?

AA: No. My dad is a musician so I grew up on the tour bus – constantly moving. I never had the same school, and the same thing as you, all these friends of mine who have had friends since they were six years old. My parents made a lot of effort for me and my friends to stay in contact – they would like to fly them wherever we were, or we would try to meet up wherever we could. My dad and my mom were so worried we wouldn’t have friendships from childhood because we were just moving all the time. But now with this life, I can make a home anywhere. I’ve learned that home is where – it sounds so cliché – but home is where my people are. Or if my mom is with me, like my mom was just with me in Leeds, UK.
CM: I’ve shot in Leeds before – shout out Leeds. [both laugh]

AA: I loved it because my mom was there and it felt like home. I created a little routine, and once the routine is locked in, that’s when I get out.
CM: Then it’s onto the next.

AA: And you know, we are on set constantly meeting people and falling in love with people, and then having to say goodbye. How do you wrap a movie? Are you like, “Peace I’m out,” or does it affect you?
CM: I don’t think I’m good at goodbyes, in the sense I don’t like making a meal out of them. I don’t like making it a whole thing. I do love to get wrap gifts for all the people I have worked closely with. I like giving little parting gifts, but I don’t like treating it like this… I think because of how much I moved and how many times I had to say goodbye to people, I minimised it every time – that’s how I coped.

AA: Right.
CM: So now when I say goodbye it’s like, “I’ll see you again soon, let’s not make it a whole thing.”

AA: It affects me sometimes, I always make sure I invest myself with one or two people in each production and stay friends. I think that’s the trauma from being a kid and feeling like, “I must stay in contact with this person.” [laughs]
CM: I think Riverdale was different because it was such a big chapter in my life. That really was a big goodbye. That being said, we knew we were going to see each other again, and we do, I see my co-stars all the time. The sad part was like, oh it’s never going to be this again. We’re never all going to be in this room, as these characters, in this environment. This era of our life is over – that felt like such a bigger deal than, oh we wrapped a project. It felt like we were graduating high school.

AA: How many seasons was that?
Camila: Seven seasons, seven years.

AA: Wow.
CM: My whole 20s. And for someone who moved around a lot [as a child], that show was really nice as my first job. It was really stable and on the same location for seven years, so I really got comfortable with that lifestyle.

AA: That’s amazing. And now you have this huge movie that I am so excited about. I want to talk about your prep because I am kind of in the middle of it. I have so many questions. We’ve spoken a little bit about the physicality of a character – how do you balance the physicality of the character and the character itself? I am so used to approaching my work like, “OK this is the character.” But now I feel like, “OK I go to the gym to go to work,” and then I have a script I have to figure out. How do you balance those two things, or mesh them together?
CM: I found it interesting because, the thing about Teela, the character I play in Masters, she doesn’t have any superhuman abilities. She is just a really highly skilled, highly trained fighter. So for me, the training process – going to weight training and stunt training every day – to me felt like I was becoming Teela and getting into the character. Because Teela had to train to become the warrior that she is, so by me training every day and that process of finding the version of me that is strong and fearless, that felt like becoming Teela. Then there was the emotional side of it, which I think maybe was the easiest part, in that I really related to her storyline. The thing with her is that she had to grow up faster than she should have and has been carrying a lot of weight on her shoulders. She carries a lot of responsibility. When it comes to therapy speak, I think of her as a ‘parentified child’.

AA: Interesting.
CM: I didn’t grow up quite like Teela did, but I have my version of that. With Riverdale, I found success at a really young age and I had to grow up really fast. I had a certain amount of responsibilities that nobody that I grew up with had. So I related to Teela in that aspect, and that informed my emotional exploration of her.

AA: That is so interesting. Do you use therapy, or concept space to create a character?
CM: Sometimes. I think it’s involuntary because therapy is such a part of my life – that is just how I speak. You have to sort of psychoanalyse your characters – do you do that?

AA: I’m very intuitive – I go on intuition and heart. I was talking to Glen [Powell] not that long ago. He goes, “You are all heart.” And me and Glen worked so well together because of that. He’s such an intellect, and he’s like, “Passion, love – what does she need?” [laughs] I will journal as the character. I’ll write little things or thoughts that I think are interesting. One thing I do all the time is scent. I’m very sensitive to smells and I don’t really wear a lot of perfume in real life. So when I put a perfume on for a character, it informs me so much, it makes me feel a little bit different than who I am.
CM: That’s so unique.

“Wherever I am, that’s home. As long as you feel confident in your own skin, then you’re always home.”

AA: Every character I’ve had has had a different scent. It’s pretty crazy.
CM: I love that. It engages a different part of your brain.

AA: A lot of people have called me a wild horse. Like if you let me go, I’m all intuition and [I’ll do some] very wild takes. [laughs] Then the director has to reel me back. But I’m interested to go a little bit more into intellectualising.
CM: I’m like this weird blending of the two. I definitely am more cerebral and analytical when it comes to process, because I went to drama school and they taught us all these very specific strategies. I approached acting for a long time from that academic mindset, because I felt like I had to. I felt like that was the right thing to do. But then on Riverdale, all of a sudden there’s no time for that. On TV, you don’t have time to sit there, break it down and write out your objectives. You have to be so guttural. You have to know instinctively what the scene needs and do it quickly on your feet. That show taught me a lot about connecting to my gut and my instincts and going with that instead of overthinking things. When I was done with the show, I felt like, “OK, now it’s time to reconnect to my more cerebral side,” because sometimes roles require a little bit of that and I don’t want to lose that part of myself. I think it’s nice to know that you have a system. I love systems in general, I like having my prescribed way of doing things.

AA: I don’t do well with structure. [laughs] We’re so similar in so many ways and then also the complete opposite. [both laugh] Every time I get a script or every time I approach something, I have no process, and then in the midst of it, this process starts evolving. Every project that I’ve done has been very different.
CM: Filmmaking is such a collaborative process, and you can prepare all you want, but you have no idea what’s going happen until you show up on the first day. You could plan out a whole scene in your head, but ultimately you’re not the one directing it, there are so many more elements. It’s a completely different set than the one you imagined in your head, and it has a different layout, and the blocking’s different than what you imagined, and the director actually had a vision for this line to be read more like this, and your co-star also has ideas and wants to try this. You can prepare all you want, but the moment you show up, everything’s going to change.

AA: Yeah, I’m a big fan of like prepare, prepare, and then…
CM: Let go.

AA: Say, “Fuck it” – let it go and have fun.
CM: With moving around constantly, I think the thing it probably did for both of us is, because you’re constantly having to enter new environments and reintroduce yourself, you become really good at reading people. There’s this hypervigilance where you’re very in tune with other people. You know how to quickly assimilate and adapt.

AA: And the fact that we’re still doing that is crazy. We’ll forever be doing it. I have a question. How do you stay inspired between jobs? What is Cami’s perfect day?
CM: I’m such a homebody and I love the act of building my home. It’s funny because we were just talking about this concept of home, and you said that home is wherever my people are, which I do agree with. But the first tattoo I ever got says, ‘to build a home’, and it’s a song by The Cinematic Orchestra. The idea for me was that it was when I finally realised that my body is my home. Wherever I am, that’s home. As long as you feel confident in your own skin, then you’re always home. That concept has always been so important to me. I just love the pursuit of building my own personal sanctuary. So what I get really inspired by in between projects is curating my home and making it the perfect living environment that makes me happy. And creating routines that nourish me and give me peace. That’s my biggest source of inspiration. I get really excited about it – I love interior design, I love buying art. I just love expressing myself through my living space.

AA: God, me too. Maybe if I wasn’t an actress, I’d be an interior designer or a contractor. I’ve always wanted to be a contractor.
CM: I could totally see you building stuff.

AA: I love building stuff. You know what I love more than anything? Fixing things. I think that’s why I love acting so much, because it’s problem-solving every two seconds. My brain just soaks it up at the highest potential. When all the rains happened in LA and there were no roofers, I went up and fixed my roof. [Camila laughs] I was like, “I’m a fucking roofer.” I just watched some YouTube videos.
CM: That’s so impressive. I’m learning how different we are. [both laugh]

AA: I love being home, and I curated my home to kind of feel like a spa – I need serenity and peace. Then in two days I’m like, “Let’s go. I’m ready.”
CM: Two days is not enough for me. I need two weeks. If I get two weeks of nothingness, then I’m ready. I never get two weeks, but a girl can dream. [laughs]

AA: I will say that after a project, I need two solid weeks before I can…
CM: Re-engage.

AA: Re-engage. Because I just give it my all – I’m so passionate. By the time thatI’m done, I’m depleted. Which is something I’m learning to navigate better. To give a lot of myself, but not enough where I leave completely depleted. I’ve then got to zen out for like two weeks.
CM: Let me just take a moment, I can already see the biceps. [Adria tenses her bicep] Oh my god, they look amazing. I’m obsessed with women who have muscle.

AA: Isn’t that insanity? Cami, I have like, abs.
CM: You’re already there.

AA: We’re at week three-and-a-half, and I can already see my body transform.
CM: I was insufferable during Masters – I made everyone touch my biceps, every day. [both laugh]

AA: That’s where I’m at. I’m like, “Touch it, touch it, touch it.”
CM: “Squeeze it harder. Squeeze it harder.”

AA: “I can take it. I’m really strong.” [both laugh]
CM: I feel like things are changing now, and I think women are starting to realise this, but for a long time, women were really scared of weightlifting, and scared of gaining muscle and looking manly. I honestly think there’s nothing more beautiful than seeing women who are toned, who have strong muscles. It’s such a beautiful image, and I wish that was a body type that people were celebrating more.

AA: I agree. It’s not as accepted as every other body type. And it’s something that I’m like, “I have a couple of things coming up, and now I’m gonna be all jacked I wonder how it’ll photograph.” And I’m like, “Shut up.” It’s my body, and I’m gonna walk down in whatever dress and it’s gonna look great and beautiful. And Brazil is the same as Puerto Rico, you go to a beach in Brazil, and you have a woman that is bigger with cellulite, and you have a skinny girl with no butt, then you have a skinny girl with a big butt, with cellulite, no cellulite. Every body type is on our beaches, everyone is wearing thongs, and everyone loves and accepts their body. It’s the reason why I love going back home somuch, because it’s so refreshing to embrace your body and love your body, no matter what. The beaches of our countries give that to us.
CM: Every time I go back to Brazil my family’s like, “You’re too skinny. What is wrong with you?” They’re like, “You need to eat more!” And they’re throwing rice and beans in my mouth. [both laugh]

AA: Same. I’m just enjoying this process and having so much fun watching my body change and shift. How was it when you were filming? You got your body to where you wanted it to be and discovered the character in the midst of working out, but then when you started working how did you balance that?
CM: Once we got our goal physique, it was about maintaining it. Before every take we were always pumping up – there were always a set of weights in my tent. So we would go back and I would just keep doing bicep curls until they called me back [on set]. We’d have the little sweet treats that would help the blood, because you eat something sweet, to go on so that your muscles are more swollen. You’re not drinking water, because if you’re dehydrated then your muscles will pop more. There’s a whole thing.

“I honestly think there’s nothing more beautiful than seeing women who are toned, who have strong muscles. It’s such a beautiful image, and I wish that was a body type that people were celebrating more.”

AA: How do you sustain that through a whole entire production?
CM: You pick your days, which days really matter. I’d sit there with the trainer and I’d be, “OK, this is my big stunt day, my big fight sequence, and I really want my muscles to look great for this because it’s an important scene.” You build your schedule and your meal plan and water consumption around the days you wanted to accentuate and prioritise. Because obviously it’s not sustainable. David Kingsbury, who was our trainer for Masters, was so helpful and informative and so on top of things. I felt very protected and supported – it’s so worth it. Now I don’t work out like that anymore at all and I’m about to go into this role playing a heroin addict, so I can’t look like someone who lifts weights and looks super healthy. I have to start looking thinner and I haven’t been lifting weights as much. But I saw the finished movie [Masters] a few days ago at the premiere in LA and I was like, “Wow, I really did look different.” I didn’t know it at the time when I was shooting it because I was so in it.

hair ADAM MARKARIAN using ORIBE HAIRCARE; make-up JEN TIOSECO; fashion assistant GABRIELLE RAM