Lili Reinhart Is Redefining Her Career With 'American Sweatshop'

What drew you to American Sweatshop?

I was really drawn to the subject matter. I haven't seen this job as an online moderator portrayed in film yet. It’s an incredibly fascinating job and to think there are actually people out there who, all day long, have to watch the darkest, weirdest parts of humanity online and moderate it for the rest of us.

Was this one of your most challenging roles?

To be honest, I don't know if I would say it was that challenging. I've had to play characters in the past that are very different from myself. Whereas, Daisy felt like a very relatable young woman in her workspace so I didn't really have to lean into too much extensive psychological character work. That is where certain projects become a little bit harder as an actor.

It wasn't as emotionally taxing as some other roles, or as far away from who I am. I don't want to say that it was easy, but the character herself was not super challenging for me and I've seen plenty of disturbing things online so it's easy to pull from the horrors that I've seen in my own life on the internet. A lot of us have seen certain things online that have really stuck with us for the worse, so I’m tapping into that for her.

I love how the movie shows the way in which different individuals deal with a tough day at work. How do you deal with bad days?

I tend to disassociate a lot when I'm having a bad day, meaning I either dissociate into my phone trying to block out the bad feelings with the dopamine rush of scrolling through TikTok. Or, I reach out and I text my mom or my boyfriend and crave a connection where I feel like someone is, even if it's virtually, holding my hand through a bad day if they can't be there with me in person.

I'm someone who really uses the emotional support of my loved ones through text message and FaceTime when they're available, and that link to them over the phone keeps me grounded. It’s very Black Mirror, I’m playing this woman who's traumatized by a video online and how the online world is so traumatizing and horrifying and yet this is what we use to connect with people.

What's your current relationship with social media?

I don't like social media, but I understand the value of it in terms of work and connection. There's good and bad. I've tried to limit my time on social media. I'm spending less and less time on Instagram and I deleted X off my phone because that is just toxic and I’m not going on that environment anymore and I go on TikTok in moderate amounts. I'm not as obsessed with social media as I was a couple of months ago, which is good, because I've really tried to limit my exposure to the online world right now. It takes a toll on my mental health, so I'm trying to be on it less and less.

I've really tried to limit my exposure to the online world right now. It takes a toll on my mental health.

Did it feel heavy being on social media? It’s not the escapism it once was with politics and everything going on right now.

Social media is really helpful to stay informed, so I definitely use it as a source of news. But with that, it has become less of an escape of happiness and fun and more like, “Oh, the world is crumbling,” and I don't really want to stare at it for hours of my day.

You’ve launched a skincare brand, Personal Day. Could you talk about the mental health journey that led to this product?

I've talked about mental health publicly since I stepped into the acting world with my own experiences with anxiety and depression and as I've gotten older, an OCD diagnosis and an ADD diagnosis. I'm very open about it and try to joke and have fun with it on social media to poke fun at myself because we cope with humor and making fun of ourselves.

But I've also struggled with acne since I was 12, for more than half my life. I wanted to create an acne skincare line that had a really strong pillar of supporting mental health and understanding how much acne can affect your mental health. I personally have dealt with the anxiety and depression that come with acne. I hadn’t seen a lot of brands talking about it and I wanted to create a space in the market for people with acne who wanted to feel seen and heard, and that there was a safe space for them. The brand, Personal Day, was born out of that idea.

Has the success of Riverdale given you the freedom to explore a variety of different roles?

I'm lucky that the success of Riverdale gave me a platform with a lot of fans who are very supportive and passionate about my projects, and want to engage with the work that I put out there. I’m also lucky that Post-Riverdale, I have been able to take my time. There comes a big career pivot that happens after you get off of a seven-year-long young adult television show and you have to redefine what your career is and what it looks like. It’s a methodical thing and I’m taking it very slowly.

I've always loved indie films, so that's what I've done since Riverdale. No, they've not come out yet because it's a slow process and it's not a studio movie. It has been a little bit of a slow burn after Riverdale to redefine what my career looks like. But it's been a lot of years of hard work and strategic thinking about what I want my career to look like. Hopefully in the next few years, the things that I've been working on will slowly start to come out. I know that it's been a little bit quiet, career-wise, for me because nothing I've done has really been able to be seen by the public yet. So I've had a little bit of a fan reaction in the sense of, “Where are you?” and “Where did you go after Riverdale?” My life is not a CW television show anymore, so things come out slowly and I really took my time post-Riverdale to figure out what I wanted to do.

My life is not a CW television show anymore, so things come out slowly and I really took my time post-Riverdale to figure out what I wanted to do.

What are you prioritizing in your career at this moment in your life?

After being away from my home for so many years, I've really enjoyed my home life and so I really make sure that whatever I'm filming is something I'm super passionate about because it has to take me away from my home for however long the shooting schedule may be. I've just been very picky and selective, and I plan to continue doing that. Maybe that just means the work that I do is released at a slower pace, but it's been a gentle reminder to people, “Hey, I'm still acting but it's not episodic television being pumped out every month.”

What are you working on next?

I have a little bit of everything that I'm circling and that I'm attached to but I like it that way. I want to do every genre, but that's what makes your career fun. Sometimes as actors, you feel like you need to take this stuff a lot more seriously than it is. Ultimately, I would like to enjoy my life and have fun with the things that I do. I'm trying to choose projects and experiences that are going to be fun and enjoyable because I'm the one who has to go shoot them for months at a time.

Sometimes, I attach myself to a project because I think it will be a fun experience and an adventure. This is my life and that’s what I want out of it and not so much [thinking] about the end result or where it will get me. When you’re having to think about your career as a chess board [it can become] strategic and methodical. It’s nice to just step away from that for a moment and be like, “I'm going to do this because it's fun.”

Photos courtesy of Ssam Kim