Madelaine Petsch is best known for playing Cheryl Blossom on CW’s Archie Comics reboot series Riverdale. On the air since 2017, the show is careening, with its typical shambolism, toward its seventh and final season this summer, and Petsch is looking forward to the role’s end. “I think it was definitely time. I think playing a character for so long can be great, and also bad, for an actor,” she told Vanity Fair. “The great parts are, you get to really dive in, and play around a lot more. There’s a lot more time to live in stories. But you can lose a bit of challenge in the job.”
But while she was filming the final season, Petsch was presented with an exciting opportunity. A fan of Mercedes cars since her childhood—she recalls being driven around by her grandmother in a metallic gold Benz sedan—her first big automotive splurge after landing Riverdale was to purchase her own three-pointed star, a 2018 A220 four-door. Buying the car was a point of pride, making her feel as if she’d reached “a level of luxury and success.” So she had her team reach out to Mercedes and see if the company was interested in working together. She’s been a brand ambassador since 2019, and just shot her first commercial, with content creator Cole Walliser, introducing the German luxury marque’s all-new CLE two-door coupe. “It’s honestly quite an honor,” said Petsch.
Courtesy of Mercedes-Benz.
It’s certainly a step up from the car she learned to drive on, her mom’s Toyota Prius hybrid, or her own first car, a Hyundai Elantra that she and her parents bought in 2010, back when she was still in high school in Tacoma, Washington. However, it should be noted that that car, and her driving permit, were awarded to her without her having acquired a necessary skill.
“When I got my license, I couldn’t parallel park,” she said. This caused some strain, as most of the parking spaces closest to her school required this method of parking. Petsch usually found a perpendicular spot on a street farther away from the campus, and walked. But one morning she was running behind schedule and didn’t have time for this additional step.
Courtesy of Mercedes-Benz.
“There was one parallel parking spot, and it was really tight, and I did not have any confidence in parking,” Petsch said. So she did what any self-described “punctual woman” on the verge of tardiness would do. “I got out of my car and started flagging down strangers, asking them to parallel park my car for me,” she said. Strangely enough, this worked. “One kind woman did it for me. And she did a great job. No dents, no scratches,” Petsch said.
Her current vehicle is a Mercedes GLE53 AMG SUV, which she describes as her “dream car,” perhaps in part because it has a simple technological solution to this vexing issue from her past. “My car now parallel parks for me,” she said, describing the marque’s active parking assist system, which can, uncannily, do just that at the tap of a button. “Not that I need it. I’m a great parallel parker now, let the record show.”