Interview with Riverdale’s Marisol Nichols

Powered by Mom’s Interview with Riverdale’s Marisol Nichols aka Hermione Lodge

Riverdale’s Marisol Nichols talks about the season one finale (May 11), Hermione Lodge, Vancouver, human trafficking and more.

Marisol Nichols like her character Hermione Lodge on Riverdale has many fascinating layers. Her background is diverse from her Mexican-Hungarian-Romanian roots to her career. She has starred on both television and silver screen in a variety of roles that just demonstrated her versatility as an actress.

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A woman of many layers

The interview was to mostly be about the current show she is starring on the CW’s hit show Riverdale I couldn’t help but be intrigued by the other layers of her life. She’s an actress, wife, and a mom, which was hard to miss. She was in her car to do the interview, something I think we can all relate to, trying to find that quite spot to get some work done or a few minutes of quiet. I know I have to close my home office door at an attempt to separate the home noise from work, I’m not always successful but that’s the life of a mom. During the interview her daughter came into the car to tell mom she loved her, now how sweet is that?

Human Trafficking

Marisol Nichols is also a commissioner and spokesperson for the Citizens Commission on Human Rights and most notably co-founder of the Foundation for a Slavery Free World and spokesperson for Youth for Human Rights International. She has been fighting modern slavery and human trafficking for over a decade! I do want to share the important work that Marisol Nichols is doing and bring attention to the horrible truths about human trafficking. So I added a second article about Marisol Nichols and the work that she does fighting for others. Human trafficking happens here at home, in Canada and the United States. In fact 83% or more of the victims of human trafficking who are rescued/found in the United States are American citizens. You can read and share that article HERE.

The Interview

Now on to the interview where we talk Riverdale, the upcoming season finale (May 11, 2017) and of course the characters. I found Marisol Nichols to be well spoken, engaging and overall friendly. She comes across as a nice person, a woman you would like to have in your circle of friends along with being passionate about her causes. From my questions to questions I got from our readers and even a few questions from my 11 year old nice who is a HUGE Riverdale fan, it was a fun interview.

What do you like about playing the character Hermione Lodge?

She’s so not one dimensional, different dichotomies not opposing to one other, she’s so not one dimensional. There are so many layers to her and I love it. You can’t really tell if she’s good or bad. I think she’s both. I think in her mind she’s always good but I think she could be both and I love that. 

Since Riverdale was filmed quite a bit here in Vancouver naturally I have to ask what did you like and didn’t like about Vancouver?

I Love Vancouver! Everyone is so nice here. I had my daughter with me and it just amazes me how kid friendly Vancouver is unlike LA.  So many great places like Science World, Stanley Park and all the festivals. Now the food! Seriously I’m a foodie but wow the food scene alone I could go on and on. The diversity and quality of the restaurants it’s just amazing.  No hormones and antibiotics in your meat and everything is just so much healthier in Vancouver. I also love that you can import food from Europe. The water tastes so much better too. I miss being able to drink out of the tap and getting such great water.

Hermione & Veronica Lodge – Still from Riverdale

I didn’t realize until I started asking my readers and even families and friends who watched Riverdale that at least from what  I’ve seen covers a large demographic. I have friends in their late 20s to early 50s watching, my 11 year old niece, my 15 year old etc.. Did you realize that it appeals to so many and if so why do you think that is?

The story and the characters are universal. I think we can all relate to the story of liking someone who doesn’t like you back or being the new girl, or the outcast or black sheep.  The stories are related sincerely and people can identify and relate to them. The stories transcend age and I really think that viewers can relate to those stories and characters. 

The next three questions are from my niece Dakota.

Oh great. I love that she’s a fan that’s just wonderful.

Did you think that the show would be as successful as it is? Everyone at school is talking about it.

It goes back to what I was saying about the universal stories and characters and that Riverdale isn’t catering to a younger audience.  We’ve got the range of characters. If you think about it TV was never up until like the 90s or something when TV and movies really started catering to a younger audience. I remember when I was like 6 years old and going to Star Wars and there was nothing for the 6 year old me to relate too. 

Who is your favorite actor/s to work with?

It’s probably the people I work with the most which would be Cami (Camila Mendes) who plays Veronica and Luke (Luke Perry) who plays Fred. I could be partial because I work with them a lot. 

 My niece’s last question are any of the actors on Riverdale like their characters?

KJ (KJ Apa) is a lot like Archie. He really is he’s wholesame, down to earth a  really good guy, born & raised in New Zealand. He was away from America and American pop culture. He’s just as far as I can see a very sincere guy, not like a 19 year old American boy. He’s like a 19 year old boy from yester year and I love that. 

A question from one of my readers: Does Hermione’s relationship change with Veronica at the end of the season? (if it does it all) and how does she feel about Hiram now?

It does change and it’s because of Hiram. Hiram has put Hermione in a very difficult position including their family but at the same time Hiram is not someone you can cross too much. Hermione has had to learn to live with the consequences of being married to this man and his business dealings and she’s had to survive and learn how to survive. I think she had a reprieve from that at the beginning of the season where it was good he’s gone, let me start and be the mom that she wanted to be. Now that Hiram is still inserting himself in their lives more and more, she can’t get away from that. So she has to go back to survival instincts. 

What would you like to see happen in Season 2 with your character Hermione Lodge?

I would like to see more of her strengths, more than stand up to Hiram it’s more like take over. I think that would be fun. Love seeing women in positions of power and strengths and I think she deserves it. She made her bed and had to lie in it but enough is enough. So I think it’s going to be interesting to see how that plays out especially with Hiram making an appearance in Season 2.

Without any spoilers for the season finale on May 11th can you tell us if you were you surprised with the finale?

Yes! Well it changed, it was going to be one way and then halfway through filming it was changed and it was OH MY GOD! No one knew what it was because the pages hadn’t been written yet. So I was very surprised because I hadn’t seen it. Yep. 

Riverdale airs Thursdays at 9/8c on The CW or you can catch up on past episodes on Netflix.