#TeamBetty: Interview With Riverdale’s Lili Reinhart

The CW’s Riverdale premieres on January 26, and continuing our string of interviews related to the series, today the spotlight falls on Lili Reinhart who plays the role of Betty Cooper. In the comics, we know Betty as the “nice girl,” and on Riverdale she is literally the girl next door, albeit with a mom who is not too fond of her hanging out with that Andrews boy.

You can see video of the interview below. Here are some highlights:

“There’s a lot more to Betty than just wanting to be with Archie,” Reinhart says about her character. “That’s very important for us. It was important that we set that tone for our show, that Betty has a lot more going for her than just Archie. Both the girls – both Betty and Veronica, because in the comics it’s just kind of a back and forth between which girl Archie wants which day, but in our show, it’s definitely not the case. These girls are very strong and independent women. They don’t get walked all over by Archie,” she assures.

One added depth to Betty in the TV series is that she has some issues at the Cooper household. “Betty is dealing with a lot of family problems in the show and in this season, she’s dealing with her sister who was sent away, and Betty’s trying to discover why. Certainly someone’s keeping secrets from her, and there’s a very big divide between Betty and her parents, and that’s a big arc for Betty,” Lili teases. In exploring this storyline, we will see some of Betty’s inner strength. “Betty’s strong in her own sense and you see that throughout the season when she fights against her parents to find out what happened to her sister. She’s maybe not as confident and as bold and blunt as Veronica, but she’s strong in the sense that she’ll do anything for her sister, specifically, and she’s just a really good friend,” she says.

“She’s a fighter,” Reinhart asserts. “She really is, and she has a lot of built-up anger that you kind of can see in the pilot when she’s digging her nails into her hands. You can tell there’s more going on inside than meets the eye.”

Was she surprised that Betty and Veronica became such fast friends on the show, considering their background from the comics? “I guess I was,” Reinhart admits. “I was expecting it to be a little bit more catty, but I’m glad that it wasn’t, and I’m glad that at the end of the day, Betty and Veronica aren’t rivals. They’re friends. There is drama, and there’s problems between them, and they can bicker and fight because they’re so different, but they’re friends, at the end of the day. They’re friends, and they support each other, and that’s important.”

And what about Cheryl Blossom, who mercilessly taunts Betty and tries to push her buttons during the series premiere? “Betty and Cheryl have a very interesting relationship,” Lili reveals. “I think to Cheryl, Betty is the perfect target because she’s so sweet and nice and forgiving, and Cheryl’s so manipulative and you see this throughout the beginning of the season. Cheryl tries to manipulate Betty and [tries] to get more information out of what happened between Polly and Jason, because no one really knows… but Betty grows stronger throughout the season, and comes into her own a little bit. She doesn’t let people walk all over her. So, she can stand up to Cheryl a little bit. It’s a love-hate [thing], because they do work together in the end, to try and find out what happened to Polly, but at the end of the day, Cheryl just is a pretty nasty human being, and Betty doesn’t put up with that.”

And finally, is Betty involved with the Archie-Jughead rift… and what is her relationship with Jughead like? “Betty is not directly involved with the Archie and Jughead fallout that I know of,” Lili tells us. “Honestly, we don’t know who killed Jason. We aren’t told these things. We have no idea. So not that I know of, no, but Betty does have a very strong relationship with Jughead throughout the season. They work together to try and figure out what happened to Jason and who killed him, because they think that the Blossoms and the sheriff are hiding something. They think their town is corrupt, so they want to know what really happened to him, because they think the police are lying to them. Since they’re high schoolers and they can talk to Jason’s peers, they try and get the inside information and try to work together to solve the mystery a little bit.”

You can watch video of the interview below. Be sure to check out more Riverdale coverage here! The series premiere airs Thursday, January 26 on The CW.