How Camila Mendes and Rachel Matthews Turned an NYU Meet-Cute Into a Production Company

For next-gen Hollywood, the starlet has become a multi-hyphenate. After the success of production companies like Reese Witherspoon’s Hello Sunshine and Margot Robbie’s LuckyChap, a whole generation of rising young stars have taken it upon themselves to wear multiple hats at once. Enter Camila Mendes and Rachel Matthews, who founded the production company Honor Role. I myself started bb² earlier this year. For all of three of us, last week was our second time premiering films at the South by Southwest Festival in Austin. When we met up, Mendes and Matthews had just screened Pete Ohs’ The True Beauty of Being Bitten by a Tick and Nastasya Popov’s Idiotka, both micro-budget films shot during the strike, the latter starring Anna Baryshnikov and a rogue’s gallery of cool girls, including Saweetie, Benny Drama, Julia Fox, Gabbriette, and Mendes herself. “The strike came with a lot,” they admitted, “but I do think it was the only way we were able to get the caliber of talent.” Fresh off a dinner at the W Austin, the girls joined me to discuss their newfound roles as producers—and what comes next.

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JEREMY O. HARRIS: Okay guys, we’re here and we had such a great night last night.

CAMILA MENDES: We did.

RACHEL MATTHEWS: It was a huge success. The two casts felt like a family pretty quickly.

MENDES: Yeah, a lot of numbers were exchanged. 

HARRIS: I was so impressed, watching this moment where you could center yourself–which I think a lot of young people want to do, but you guys have started building this and haven’t been at the center of most projects. The movie you did last year, Música, did you produce that as well?

MENDES: That wasn’t under our company, but I did produce that.

HARRIS: Well, your company did Griffin in Summer, and now you’re here with Idiotka. Why did you decide to be both the producers and actresses in the middle of them?

MENDES: Honestly, it’s not as much of a conscious decision as it is, “Oh, I really like the story.” With Griffin in Summer, there may have been a small role that I could play in it, but I was like, “Let someone else play that.” I’d rather just be a producer on this and experience that in its purest form first. 

MATTHEWS: Also, we’ve spoken about being actresses first, but at the end of the day it’s really what serves the story. I think we’re aware enough to know when it’s necessary for us to be in something.

MENDES: Exactly, when it feels right.

HARRIS: You guys went to college together, right?

MATTHEWS: Oh, Jeremy, do you not know about our meet-cute?

HARRIS: I don’t.

MATTHEWS: It’s the most theater kid meet cute.

MENDES: We were both in the same Tisch [School of the Arts] orientation group. Day one, they just put you in random groups to mingle and get to know each other.

MATTHEWS: All the studios.

HARRIS: Were you guys in the same studio?

MATTHEWS: No, I was in musical theater, New Studio on Broadway.

MENDES: And I was in Playwrights Horizons. We were placed into this group, and we were playing a name game.

MATTHEWS: It’s a classic theater ice breaker. And every stereotype everyone’s ever imagined for a theater kid is what we were on our first day.

HARRIS: Everything that everyone hates about us is exactly what NYU Tisch is.

MATTHEWS: It’s exactly what we were.

MENDES: I looked at Rachel across the room and I was like, “She looks cool. She has a tattoo, and she’s from L.A. We’re going to be friends.”

HARRIS: You had a tattoo at 18?

MATTHEWS: I did. My parents were really strict and conservative, yet the tattoo was the one thing I was able to get. It was misleading though, to Cami’s point, what you assumed of me at that time.

MENDES: I was from Miami and I was in my little rave phase. I was like, “She definitely parties.” So I said, “Let’s get a coffee.”

MATTHEWS: The first number I ever got in New York was Cami’s. I knew no one going to NYU. 

MENDES: And again, I’m in my party girl era, so I’m texting Rachel every week being like, “We need girls for 1 Oak tonight.”

MATTHEWS: She’s like, “I got a table. I know the promoter over at 1 Oak,” and I was just like, “Sorry I’m going to a Bon Iver concert.” 

MENDES: And I was like “Who? Is that a DJ?”

HARRIS: Did you have a fake? 

MATTHEWS: I did not have a fake. I literally was still a virgin straight from a Christian private school. Moving to Manhattan was huge for me.

MENDES: I completely misread it.

HARRIS: So when did this discordance sort of rectify?

MENDES: Well, we weren’t really friends. We never really saw each other again until I started dating someone who was really close with—

MATTHEWS: My boyfriend at the time.

MENDES: That’s how the groups merged.

MATTHEWS: I remember hearing that he was dating her, and I was like, “I don’t know if he’s ready.”

HARRIS: Miss Miami over here.

MATTHEWS: Of course, we got out of those relationships and stayed best friends, then the rest is history. We lived on the same street in New York and moved in together in L.A. post-college. We lived together for seven years.

HARRIS: Seven years? That’s common law marriage.

MENDES: We’re civilly married.

HARRIS: My producing partner is someone I met at the Independent Spirit Awards. I sat on his lap by accident.

MATTHEWS: I wanted to know how you met Josh [Godfrey].

HARRIS: Josh, my fiancé, repped the company that he used to work at, K Period. They got a table at the Independent Spirit Awards the year Zola had just come out. There was something wrong with the seats, so I just sat on his lap and we started talking. He was so funny and so charming.

MENDES: That’s so you. “There wasn’t a seat, so naturally, I just sat on his lap.”

HARRIS: We realized that we had the exact same taste in who should win and who shouldn’t win. Over COVID, I would bring him things by other people because he had a company that could pay for them, and he really consistently liked those things. They were often in a different direction from his company, but he wanted to go in that direction with me. We came together and just decided to jump in and do it.

MATTHEWS: You guys feel like such a good duo. How did you come up with your company name?

HARRIS: Our company name “bb²” came from the fact that we couldn’t think of a good name. 

MENDES: It’s so hard to find it and also trademark it. 

MATTHEWS: Nearly impossible.

HARRIS: What’s been the biggest challenge getting Griffin in Summer and Idiotka up at these big festivals? Because Griffin premiered back at Tribeca, and this is now in SXSW. 

MENDES: I think the biggest struggle is trying to create the illusion that it’s a more expensive movie than it is. You’re working with such few resources, but you don’t want it to look like you had few resources. You want it to look as cinematic and glossy and big as possible. A lot of that is, in a way, covering up mistakes, but also you end up making really beautiful choices that feel like they were meant to be. 

MATTHEWS: Under Honor Role, we’ve produced two movies with first-time writer-directors. That’s been big for us. We’re really having to be these cheerleaders, advocating to get them into these places where they deserve to be.

MENDES: A challenge that I’ve had personally has been honoring my voice as a producer. I know my creative opinion is valuable, but I also have to understand that not everybody knows that yet.  They might understand my value as an actor, but I still have to prove myself as a producer. I am hands-on and I have so much more to give than maybe people expect.

MATTHEWS: I will say that about Cami. Whenever she puts her name on something, it is not a vanity credit. She truly gives her heart and soul and is there every single day. It’s genuinely so impressive.

HARRIS: Do you feel like people are more dubious because you’re actors and your schedules could be other places, or because you’re women?

MENDES: Because we’re young women, definitely. Moving forward, we need to warn people from the beginning that we’re very involved and hands-on because we don’t want them to be caught off guard. If you’re coming to us, it should be for more than just a name.

HARRIS: I think the art of being a screenwriter or a director has sort of fallen away. There’s a lot of stuff I need to learn about how money in this business works. I still can’t make sense of why certain actors have value and others don’t. That feels crazy, especially being a person of color. It’s like, “Wait so, no Black actor I want to work with, unless they have an Oscar already, has value?” But this white kid who’s been in one season of this random show is the most valuable.

MENDES: Don’t even get me started on that.

HARRIS: It’s really frustrating, but there are all these lessons. The whole reason I’m doing this is not for vanity. It’s literally because I’m like, “I read the script, I think it’s really good, and the only way I can see this movie that I really want to see is if I help make it happen.”

MATTHEWS: What was the name of the off-Broadway show that you produced on Broadway?

HARRIS: The Sign in Sidney Brustein’s Window.

MATTHEWS: You championed that.

MENDES: You’re a proper taste maker. You’re more than a writer, you know? I would trust you with any sort of creative opinion.

HARRIS: Well, it’s really been complicated. It always is, right? But what was so amazing about the dinner last night was seeing the adoration that your collaborators have for you. That shows how much sweat equity got put into the work. You look at the cast of Idiotka and you’re like, “What the fuck? How did you do this for a first time director?”

MENDES: We have no idea.

MATTHEWS: It’s kind of insane.

HARRIS: Let’s go through it. Benny Drama, Julia Fox, Saweetie, Anna Baryshnikov—

MENDES: Owen Thiele. Gabbriette has a little cameo, and this was before brat girl summer and all of that.

MATTHEWS: The strike came with a lot, of course, but I do think it was the only way we were able to get the caliber of talent. Plus, shooting in L.A. was huge. There were brilliant creatives that were just so hungry and wanting to work.

HARRIS: Did you guys shoot it during the strike?

MATTHEWS: We did. It was tricky. 

HARRIS: As producers, have you guys tried to take what you don’t like about being an actor and put it into how you produce? 

MENDES: We definitely try. 

MATTHEWS: It’s tough, though, because there’s a lot of restrictions when we’re making lower budget films. It doesn’t allot for the time that we want. Something going into Idiotka that we really stressed was rehearsal, really working through the script before going on to set.

MENDES: We had months of prep to really finesse the script and made a lot of changes, especially for my character, but something that we always think about is, “How do we add depth to this?” We want this to feel commercial, but also how do we make it feel like it has layers? For me, a movie’s not worth watching unless it has something to say, something that I can extract from it, or a question that’s being asked. 

MATTHEWS: We also try to maintain playfulness. Obviously it’s up to the director, but if an actor feels comfortable, we really try to encourage some level of improv. 

MENDES: We do that a lot. “Let them go one more time, and this one’s just for them.” Oftentimes that’s the best one because you’re not in your head. 

HARRIS: The two actors that I’ve learned the most from watching were Riley Keough and Colman Domingo. They have so much freedom as performers because they have such control of their instrument. That one take for them is every take. I get a little tiffed sometimes because I’m like, “I don’t want to mess up.” They never have fear.

MENDES: I admire that so much.

HARRIS: It’s amazing. There’s a really funny way that you guys got Idiotka. Did someone slide into your DMs with the script?

MENDES: Yeah. It wasn’t a random person, though, he was someone I knew from high school. He’s a photographer, and he did this photography book about Florida that I wrote the forward for so we would talk every once in a while. I hadn’t heard from him in a while, but he reached out and was like, “I know this is super random, but my friend wrote this really cool script and I think you’d really like it.” I really respect him as a creative, so I was like, “There’s probably something to this.” I was in Vancouver filming Riverdale, but I was like, “Have her send us the script first, but then you should have her meet with Rachel who’s in L.A.”

MATTHEWS: Yeah, I met with Nast [Popov] a couple years ago.The story was loosely based on her life, and we’d be shooting in the house she grew up in. When I went home and read the script, I remember calling Cami five pages in and being like, “We have to make this movie.”

MENDES: We were giddy. I was two pages in, but I was like, “We got to do it. Let’s finish reading it, though.”

MATTHEWS: The way she wrote it was so brilliant. I was sucked in from the beginning. That opening line.

MENDES: You know what’s funny? Rudy [Mancuso] did an editing pass on this movie, and I sent him the most recent cut when it was finally colored and sound mixed. He called me after watching, so happy with the final product, and was like “Not to quote the film, but this really is for the girls and the gays.” I died. For Rudy to quote that—

MATTHEWS: You’re like, “Babe, thank you.”And that goes back to your point earlier about doing this with people you love. Besides getting to run this company with my literal best friend and my other half, with every project we’ve done, we’ve been able to work with a family member or a friend. We always bring in people that we trust.

MENDES: It feels like theater, that communal aspect. Why not take advantage of the resources we have with people who are so creatively aligned and whom we respect and admire?

MATTHEWS: Yeah, my brother Justin has become one of my go-to writers. He was a writer on The Morning Show and is so talented. Joe, my youngest brother, is actually in Idiotka.

MENDES: He plays one of the cameramen, and he’s in a lot of the shots.

MATTHEWS: And he’s a brilliant DP so he was getting some behind-the-scenes footage. Then my sister, Catherine, is a brilliant musician and scored our title card. It’s something we really try to implement in all our projects.

HARRIS: What’s the next thing on your slate that you’re working on? Can you say yet?

MATTHEWS: I don’t know if we can say it.

MENDES: We have two that we’re aiming to shoot this year.

MATTHEWS: None of them have been released in the press.

MENDES: But we can say that both of them are very Latin-forward projects.

HARRIS: Whoa, that’s sick. 

MENDES: I’m really, really excited. I’m in both of them.

MATTHEWS: The first one is an Oscar-nominated director, and we’re shooting that in Mexico City.

HARRIS: When are you guys shooting in Mexico City? I need to come visit.

MATTHEWS: July, August.

HARRIS: I will be there.

MENDES: What’s next for you?

HARRIS: We bit off so much in a crazy way, but it’s because I’m just so greedy. We have two plays premiering this summer that I’m really excited about. One is a new play called Prince Faggot. I’m really excited about that. It’s at Playwrights Horizons—

MENDES: Shoutout Playwrights Horizons.

HARRIS: Hopefully, if all goes well, we will transfer to a commercial theater because I really love that play and I want as many people to see it as possible. Then we’re working on Will Arbery’s newest play, so the goal for that one is the summer.

MATTHEWS: He’s so talented.

HARRIS: We’re circling some really cool people, but it’s a way for me to collaborate with one of my favorite directors, Simon Stone and one of my literal best friends and peers, Will. On the TV side, a young woman I used to work with is a genius and wrote a show that we’re developing with Lena Dunham right now.

MENDES: Oh my god, how did you find her?

HARRIS: We met when I was at Yale. Her name is Raffi Donatich. She was my assistant for five years and then I kicked her out because I was like, “You are too talented.” Now Maude Apatow is directing a movie of hers, and we have this TV show with Lena that we’re working on. I’m really excited about that. There’s a bunch of other little things percolating. Danny Ramirez and I have a movie together. 

MATTHEWS: We love Danny.

MENDES: We were in a Shakespeare studies class with him.

HARRIS: Oh, my gosh. He’s such a dreamboat.

MATTHEWS: We have a funny story from those days but—

HARRIS: I want to hear it.

MATTHEWS: Off record. [Laughs]