Camila Mendes executive produces and stars as Ana Santos in Upgraded. The new romantic comedy is now streaming globally on Prime Video.

Ana (Camila Mendes) is an ambitious intern dreaming of a career in the art world while trying to impress her demanding boss Claire (Marisa Tomei). When she’s upgraded to first class on a work trip, she meets handsome Will (Archie Renaux), who mistakes Ana for her boss– a white lie that sets off a glamorous chain of events, romance, and opportunity, until her fib threatens to surface.

“It was amazing, I’m happy you brought that up because I mean, I produced this with my best friend from college, Rachel Matthews, who is my producing partner, and this is our first time doing something like that together and it felt so nice to not be alone in it, you know? To have a familiar face and a hand to hold when things got stressful,” she shared, reflecting on what an empowering female-focused project it was to work on.

“She and I have such a good creative alignment that if I’m anxious about something or having doubts about a moment in a scene, if I look to her and she’s like, ‘You’re fine,’ I feel immediately at ease and there’s that really, really beautiful trust there with us, and same thing with Carlson. I would look around at the three of us and I’m like, ‘We’re running this set.’ These three, like she’s a first-time female filmmaker and we’re first-time female executive producers and for some reason, everyone’s listening to us. We were just like, ‘This is crazy, this is not normal,’ but I’m so happy that we were able to do that. I feel like this is just the beginning.”

I caught up with the actress to ask what her advice would be for anyone chasing their dreams in the industry they love, what it meant to her to be part of such a female-focused production, and which of her characters she would want to be stuck on a plane with.

Watch my full interview here: