Lili Reinhart Says She "Feels Like a Prisoner" Filming Riverdale Amid Pandemic

Lili Reinhart is opening up about returning to film Riverdale in Vancouver during a global pandemic.

In a new interview with Nylon, the Betty Cooper actress said that she will have to quarantine for two weeks ahead of production beginning, and stay there until filming has wrapped.

"I genuinely feel like a prisoner, going back to work, because I cannot leave Canada," she explained.

"That doesn't feel good. You can't go home for Thanksgiving, can't visit your family. No one can come visit you unless they quarantine for two weeks. It just feels f--ked."

There were still three episodes of Riverdale Season 4 to film when production shut down back in March, and those will be completed before going straight on to Riverdale Season 5.

Given that filming was halted during filming of the prom episode of series, Reinhart said that "I have to fit back in that prom dress."

Five months later, we're all going to be tan, maybe a little bit thicker. I certainly am."

Reinhart said that she used the time off due to the COVID-19 pandemic to take a much-needed break.

"When everything's out of control, out of your hands, that's when it feels like it's very much doom and gloom," she described.

"It's also like, 'But what a perfect opportunity to take control of what's going on inside.' I feel very grateful because, without this time, I would have just kept trucking along."

The 23-year-old said it gave her time to process her emotions.

"This gave me a time to, for the first time in four years, step back and process what has happened in the past couple years, process my emotions and just process my s--t."

She said that's she's "been through some s--t" in the last year and wanted to prioritize herself.

"I needed to learn self-love, basically. It's a very hard thing to do. How the f--k do you love yourself," she questioned, before saying she felt "very lost" at the beginning of the pandemic.

"I felt very sad and hopeless, because of personal things that were happening in my life," she revealed.

"Instead of distracting myself, f--king random people and doing drugs and drinking my problems away, I chose the harder route, which was to not distract myself."

"I was like, 'I'm not doing that. I'm going to go through the next however many months of s--t, pure s--t, awful, crying every day, but the necessary work,'" she added.

She went on to say that she's witnessed many stars opt for the easy route.

"I've seen too many people, especially in Hollywood, choose self-destruction," she said.

"I understand it because no one wants to feel pain. No one wants to feel grief, or heartache, or sadness. 'Do I want to grieve, or do I want to sleep with someone?' Hmm. You can very clearly see why people choose destruction. But your s--t's still waiting for you at the end of it."

That's a big reason why she opted to look after herself.

"If you think about your brain as an attic, there's a corner with a box. It's dusty. You haven't gone in there for a long time. The box is kind of mysterious," she said.

"You're not sure what's in there. So, when you open it, you let some shit out that you're not going to want to see or deal with. But in the end, that corner that was dark and gloomy is clean."

Riverdale Season 5, which includes holdovers from the previous season still to be filmed, is slated to bow on The CW in January.

Remember you can watch Riverdale online right here via TV Fanatic.