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The actress and producer is intent on finding her place in the world — and making movies about it — and as she tells IndieWire, if that bothers anyone, it’s not her problem.
Lili Reinhart decides for herself. And she calls herself.
It’s embarrassing when a big-name talent arrives alone for an interview—either in person, on the phone, or via Zoom—because it almost never happens. Not without the buffer of publicists, assistants, handlers and other assorted henchmen. Rinehart calls me just in time. No one is patching it up. No one else is on the line. It’s a surprising move, especially for the “Riverdale” and “Hustlers” star, who has earned a reputation for being outspoken when left to her own devices (often literally).
In May, the actress and producer made headlines when she took to Instagram after the Met Gala to talk about how upset she was to see so many celebrities “starving” in the name of fashion. “Walking a red carpet and giving an interview saying how starving you are…because you haven’t eaten carbs in the last month…all to fit into an af-ing dress?” she wrote in an Instagram Story. “So wrong. So they feed on 100 levels. To openly admit that you starved for the sake of the Met Gala. When you know full well that millions of young men and women are looking up to you and listening to your every word. Ignorance is alien and disgusting.
This unleashed a flurry of headline stories that flamed about Reinhart “slamming” other celebrities; Rinehart later decided to take a break from social media. Speaking out is nothing new for Reinhart; she’s been doing it for years, often focusing on her own personal life or the wackier machinations of The CW’s wacky “Riverdale,” in which she plays the iconic Betty Cooper. The driving force is not grabbing headlines, but a genuine desire to speak out about the causes that are important to her.
“Sometimes I feel like the black sheep who speaks out,” Rinehart said in a recent interview with IndieWire. “Why isn’t anyone else saying anything about this?” Then I understand why they aren’t saying anything about it, because the minute I do, 30 articles come up saying I’m “attacking” a celebrity. I’m actually just sharing an opinion that is extremely important to me.”
She added: “I really wish other people in the industry would do this. We’re just collectively afraid to go against the grain and a lot of people just get caught. … There’s no manual here, no one teaching you how to wake up from 20,000 tweets telling you that you should kill yourself or you should get a nose job or that you’re fat. Whatever the case, you just don’t sign up for it and no one really teaches you how to do it, you’re just expected to do it. There’s nothing more terrifying than seeing your name trending on Twitter, I’ll tell you that.’
“Rogues”
STX
Reinhart knows her reputation on social media, but that’s not something she weighs against the idea of keeping quiet. “I definitely post rants on social media, I’m very guilty of that,” she said. “I don’t like to just sit idly by, I don’t like to keep my mouth shut. I know people on Twitter hate me. There are articles and everyone’s like, “God, does this girl ever shut up and stop complaining?” No, actually I do not because I have a lot to say and it seems no one else has.”
Malnutrition and mental health are particularly hot buttons. “I’ve certainly been to the point where I thought I need help, that I’m not good mentally, that I wish I could go somewhere,” she said. “Unfortunately, a lot of the resources are $90,000 retreats in Malibu, and I’m not going to just sit in a lounge chair and have therapy for five days and be like, ‘Cool! I am better!’ I wish there were better resources for mental health and in the sense that people should be taken more seriously when they are struggling.’
This lack of resources is another reason she chooses to speak in real time. “When someone talks about unhealthy eating or encouraging unhealthy habits, that’s where I have to step in,” she said. “I’m thinking, ‘You’re hurting me and you’re triggering me, which means you’re triggering millions of other people who hear what you’re saying.'” It’s getting me in hot water, but I guess I’d rather be in hot water than just to be someone who stands for nothing.
Rinehart’s next big position is manufacturing. Her first production is on Amazon The 2020 drama Chemical Hearts, an adaptation of Krystal Sutherland’s popular YA novel Our Chemical Hearts. The streamer was eager to develop the project with Reinhart, and while he admits the opportunity “came out of the blue,” something clicked when he considered the next step.
“I said, ‘Hell yeah, obviously I’d like to be a part of something from start to finish,'” she said. “I really love acting, obviously it’s my passion, but I really love being involved in things from start to finish. I like to have a hand in everything.
“Look Both Ways”
Felicia Graham/Netflix
Amazon was so pleased with Rinehart’s work on the project that it offered Rinehart and her Small Victory Productions a first-look deal last June. So far, Reinhart describes the process as “freakin’ amazing.” Reinhart and her producing partner Kathryn Hagedorn have seven projects in development with Amazon. The process, of course, is slow, and Reinhart expects her next production project to come next year after “Riverdale” ends.
Reinhart is still a little overwhelmed by her luck (“What the hell does a 23-year-old have her own production company?”), but she has plenty of inspirations to guide her, including her “Rogues” director Loren Scafaria (Reinhart said she would “love love” to direct her for Small Victory and is actively seeking projects for the “Succession” director) and Margot Robbie, whose LuckyChap Entertainment productions include “Promising Young Woman” and “I, Tonya.”
Rinehart said she and Hagedorn were looking for “young adult stories that are hip,” she said. “I think we’ve overdone the virginity story, the prom story, the coming out stories. What’s happening after all these things? We want to dive into exploring queer stories, different mental health issues, a wide variety of things, but for young people, people in their twenties like me, who are still pretty ignorant and figuring things out. I want to make shows and movies that I can relate to and that I know my friends can relate to.”
Her latest production is the Netflix rom-com Look Both Ways, in which she also stars as aspiring animator Natalie, who discovers on the eve of her college graduation that she may be pregnant. The film, written by first-time screenwriter April Prosser, then splits into two parallel storylines: one in which Natalie is pregnant and one in which she is not. In both stories, Natalie deals with her career, various love interests and how she feels about motherhood.
“Look Both Ways”
Bettina Strauss / Netflix
The film is the first American production directed by breakout Rafiki director Wanuri Kahiu, who has exactly the voice Reinhart wants to protect. Reinhart met Kahiu during the earliest days of the lockdown in March 2020. (They zoomed in, of course.) “I was just, what the hell, what a director, what a beautiful woman in this industry that wants to create artRinehart said. “It was a very collaborative, warm experience.”
Reinhart is unfazed by the inevitable comparisons to Peter Howitt’s 1998 romantic comedy Sliding Doors, which starred Gwyneth Paltrow as a woman whose life depends on whether or not she catches the train (and that the film has often been compared to Krzysztof Keślowski’s 1987 film Blind Chance). One big difference: Howitt’s film makes a pretty strong case for a timeline much more favorable to its leading lady. “Look Both Ways” doesn’t do that.
“It was really one of those things that I had to let go [the script] sit down and sink a little into my heart,” Rinehart said. “I think as a person in your twenties – as a person at any fucking age – you don’t know what the hell you’re doing. None of us have any idea what we’re doing. Sometimes there are big decisions that change everything in your life forever, but there are also decisions that lead you back to where you need to be. I think things that are meant to be eventually happen.
Maybe Rinehart is already the change she’s been looking for, the one person who seems genuinely interested in taking these stories, struggles, and people seriously. If that means bothering people, that’s fine, because Reinhart knows the power of hearing someone speak her language. Maybe it’s “boring”, but at least it’s real.
“If I have to become someone who maybe has an ‘annoying’ reputation, great, so be it,” Rinehart said. “I don’t really walk around thinking, ‘Oh, I should be such a role model.’ I just think about when I was 15, even when I was 12, only the person I heard talking about their mental health was Demi Lovato and I was like, “Wow, it’s so cool and interesting to hear this person who has a TV show and records and obviously has money and glamor and yet they’re talking about bipolar disorder. I just thought it was so profound and I hope that young men and women today can have at least a few more examples of that and just see past the bullshit, because it’s all bullshit.
All this? Not Lili Reinhart.
“Look Both Ways” begins streaming on Netflix on Friday, August 19.
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