Second Listen: Lili Reinhart: Actor, Producer, and Founder of Personal Day Skincare

Second Life

In this episode of Second Life, Hilary Kerr interviews actress and entrepreneur Lili Reinhart about her journey from child performer to mult

Key takeaways

• Lili Reinhart's skincare brand, Personal Day, focuses on non-irritating formulas specifically for acne-prone and sensitive skin.
• Her production company, Small Victory Productions, holds a first-look deal with Amazon Studios to develop modern narratives.

Main topics

• Acting career and Riverdale
• Mental health and anxiety

Notable quotes

Each audition was literally holding the weight of my hopes and dreams.

Conclusion

The episode provides an inspiring look at how to navigate career trans

Transcript preview

Speaker 1 (0:04) Hi, everyone. I'm Hilary Kerr, the co-founder and chief content officer of Who, What, Where, and this is Second Life, a podcast spotlighting women who have truly inspiring careers. We're talking about their work journeys, what they've learned from the process of setting aside their doubts or fears, and what happens when they embark on their second life. Today on the show, I'm chatting with the actress. producer and founder of the skincare brand Personal Day, Lily Reinhart. Lily wanted to be an actress from a very young age. Her teen years were filled with modeling gigs, self-tapes, and begging her parents to let her finish her schooling online so that she could focus on her craft. At 19, she was cast as Betty Cooper on the hit CW show Riverdale. She spent the next seven years in a nonstop filming and promotional cycle, while also pursuing a ton of outside projects, like starting a production company and publishing a book of poetry. Her years on Riverdale were exciting and fruitful, but they also highlighted issues that she'd been struggling with for years, from anxiety and depression to sensitive, acne-prone skin. So when Riverdale ended in 2023, Lily was able to pause and re-evaluate what she wanted to work on. Since then, she's been developing projects with her production company that ignore the mainstream in favor of tackling topics like mental health. And she also spent two years developing her skincare line, Personal Day, which launched just this past fall and has been getting great reviews of its non-irritating formulas and effective solutions for acne-prone skin. Lily's honesty about her struggles and triumphs was so refreshing to witness and it made for a fantastic conversation, if I do say so myself. I hope you enjoy it. Now, on Second Life, it's Lily Reinhart. Speaker 1 (2:03) Lily, you ready? Speaker 3 (2:05) Yes. Speaker 1 (2:05) Okay, great. So Speaker 2 (2:07) on this podcast, we like to start at the beginning. So what did you study in school? But much more importantly, what did you want to be when you grew up? Speaker 3 (2:17) I wanted to be a lot of things. I went through different phases. Like I wanted to be a dentist. What? I did because I wanted to wear gloves and I wanted to play with the little tools. And then I was wanting to be an actor. And then realistically, I was like, well, maybe not. Maybe I want to be a paramedic. Weird hopping around mentally. But then we were an actor and we as in me. And so I didn't have to worry Speaker 2 (2:45) about it. But I Speaker 3 (2:46) didn't go to college. Really hated school pretty much my whole life. So I was fortunate that I did not have to go to school to pursue this career because I did not want for. plus more years of academia. It's Speaker 2 (3:02) always interesting though, when you look back on the things that sparked our interest as kids and some of those through lines. And I think that there are more through lines than sometimes we perceive on the surface, which is like. helping people or like solving problems. And it's interesting to see how, while you did not go in to the wonderful world of dentistry or paramedics, you are still helping people in a different way. So it's like, there's an element of that that comes back around. Speaker 3 (3:31) Yeah. And I get a kick out of watching Rudolph every Christmas because of the little dentist elf. Speaker 2 (3:39) I'm like, that was me in first grade. Okay. So you discovered your love of acting early on. And I read that your mom actually used to drive you from Cleveland, Ohio, all the way to New York City for auditions. Yeah. Talk to me about that. I mean, first of all, the support is amazing, but how did you really understand that passion of yours at such a young age? Speaker 3 (4:02) I think I was just one of those little performer kids. There's so many of us and we want to perform for our families and put on little shows in our living room. I think I liked making people laugh a lot. So that sort of led its hand to me going into theater and I really loved it. I loved the community of it and that creative outlet as a kid. And that sort of allowed me to then pursue. quote modeling because that was sort of like the next step in Cleveland. So you got like a modeling agency to try and just get your face out there more, get more photos of you. And then I think my modeling agency repped actors as well. And I remember like reading a monologue for an audition for them and they were like, great, we'll sign you as an actor as well. And so it sort of just like. It was a natural progression. And then my mom really went above and beyond and would drive me to New York for open casting calls. That mainly more so was happening after I got my first agent and manager, which I got as a result of one of my trips to New York, which is when I was 14. And I booked a role over my manager's client at the time. And my manager was like, well, who is this girl? not signed booking this short film over my client. And so we met and we've been together ever since. Speaker 2 (5:28) That's pretty amazing. Yeah. So you've also been really open about your relationship with mental health over the years. And you've spoken about how challenging you found it to be a teenager and that you actually finished high school online so that you could focus on acting. Yeah. Looking back. How do you perceive that time now and that choice? And also, what perspective do you have on what acting offered you in terms of solace? Speaker 3 (5:58) I begged my parents for a year to let me be homeschooled when I was in seventh grade. Ironically, it kind of was at the same time where I was really invested in theater. I felt like Hannah Montana going to like this theater group. three times a week, living my best life with these people that I felt I really belonged with. And then I would have to go to school the next day where I never had a bunch of friends and I didn't feel like I really fit in. And so I begged my parents to let me be homeschooled because I just couldn't take sort of the isolation I felt. And eventually my parents were sort of like, fine, like we don't know what else to do. We'll let you be homeschooled for a semester. And I did online school for the latter half of seventh grade, which was a bullshit excuse for a school. It was pathetic. And basically like my mom would go to work and I would have the house to myself and I would put YouTube karaoke musical theater songs on and sing to myself for like hours. And then from there, my parents basically said, you're going back to regular school in eighth grade, which I. was sad about, but I was like, okay, we'll go back. And then eventually when I was 16, we moved from Cleveland to North Carolina and I said, Speaker 1 (7:17) okay, I'll move if I can finish school online so Speaker 3 (7:22) I can really focus on self-tapes and my acting Speaker 1 (7:25) work and whatever, whatever. So they let me do that. And ultimately it was like the most Speaker 3 (7:29) isolating years of my life because I moved to a different state and then was home alone all day doing my schoolwork online and then not meeting anyone or making friends. So it was a very depressed moment in my life, but I guess I sort of thought that's what I needed in order Speaker 1 (7:44) to Speaker 3 (7:45) move the needle forward in my acting career. And it definitely wasn't, but that's what happened. Speaker 2 (7:50) Do you think that because you were able to focus? on the self-taping that you were sort of getting a version of your 10,000 hours though, of like getting to immerse yourself in something so intensely while not an ideal situation in many ways, were there some benefits? Speaker 3 (8:09) It's crazy. Cause like I was miserable every time I got an audition, it caused immediate anxiety. And I think it's because each opportunity was a chance to change my life. No Speaker 2 (8:21) pressure. Each audition was Speaker 3 (8:23) literally holding the weight of my hopes and dreams, which is not the right way to go about it to those listening who are maybe aspiring actors. And I suck at auditioning. I really do. And I think it's because there is this like... thing inside me where when I get an audition, it's immediate anxiety still. So when I get offered a role now that I love and I don't have to audition for, it's a blessing. And I'm really just sort of thankful when directors can see me as this character without me having to put myself on tape or to read for it, because truly expecting an actor to fully embody a role in a self-tape, it's like the worst and I'm not good at it. Speaker 2 (9:07) And that's basically what you did for two years is just auditioned by yourself? I Speaker 3 (9:11) mean, I did it from ages 12 to 19. That was the bulk of it. And then I booked Riverdale when I was 19. And then I didn't have to audition for things as much. One, because I was booked and didn't have time to do other jobs. But two, because... You start getting offers at that point Speaker 1 (9:27) in your career, which is great for someone like me who hates auditioning. But Speaker 3 (9:31) the things that are really special or really big and like will move your career forward in a big way are the ones that you have to audition for. But sometimes not. Sometimes you get lucky and I feel like I've been lucky. And Speaker 2 (9:47) I feel like that's also nice. Like as your body of work grows, there will be more examples and there will hopefully be less. Auditioning. Totally. Like I know I will always Speaker 3 (9:57) have to audition for something. I taped an audition on Friday, you know, it's just the life of an actor. We have to audition. So I need to really get over my fear. Speaker 2 (10:06) I think it's just a fear because I auditioned Speaker 3 (10:10) for so many things. I was told no 99 % of the time. And when you're in your quite literal formative years of puberty. And you're just told, no, it's a rejection that lives in you and sits with you. And it's really hard to dedicate your life to something that ultimately you're saying, okay, I'm going to enter into a space where rejection is the norm. I Speaker 2 (10:38) remember reading something that said acting is one of the few arts that requires permission to practice. Speaker 1 (10:45) Because Speaker 2 (10:46) if you're a painter, you need the supplies, but like you can just paint, you don't need someone else to cast you. And like the lack of agency in that way is really challenging because for all other creative endeavors, to some extent, like you can just go and do them. Absolutely. And I think that's why a lot of actors Speaker 3 (11:05) and directors and people who go on to be successful. They spend a lot of their formative years making their own things. Like you hear the age old story of the actor or the director who made their own films, like at home with their friends, with a camera. And I did the same thing. I was always making videos with music and editing them on my Windows Movie Maker desktop at home. And I think it's just out of a desire to, you want to create, you want to be funny, you want to be entertaining. And if no one's going to give you the opportunity, you're going to make it Speaker 2 (11:36) yourself. Speaker 3 (11:38) I think that's why, honestly, I mean, a lot of people who are in film, they do go to do theater at one point in their careers to kind of take a break from film because there's so many people trying to control you in film. And I think there's much less of that in theater. And you also just get, whether it's 90 minutes or two hours of uninterrupted time to just be an artist. Speaker 1 (12:03) Yeah. Speaker 3 (12:03) Yes, you have a director, but. you have that space where no one is saying, do it again, cut, you know, whatever. It's like, you're on a stage and no one's going to stop you. Speaker 2 (12:13) You're in charge. Speaker 3 (12:14) Yeah. And I think that's the draw to a lot of actors to do theater because it's like, yeah, they're probably really fed up with being told to do shit 30 times. Like that's the beauty of theater. And I hope to do it at some point in my career again. I mean, I've only ever done community theater. I've never done professional. theater. So to do that at some point would be really nice. But my heart right now is definitely still focused on film. I was on a TV show for seven years and I Speaker 1 (12:40) was able to do film when Speaker 3 (12:41) I Speaker 1 (12:42) could, Speaker 3 (12:42) you know, in between our hiatus of seasons and then COVID happened. So I couldn't do anything then. And then the strike happened and it's just been really tough on our industry. And also I was dealing with a lot of really bad, serious health issues. And so My post-TV life has been a slow roll and a slow