Marisol Nichols is best known for her role as Hermione Lodge on Riverdale—but it turns out she’s been living a very, very interesting double life that feels as if it could have been invented in the writers room.
In a May 2020 Marie Claire story, Nichols revealed she has been working as an undercover agent alongside the FBI to take down sex traffickers. Seriously. Basically the actor serves as “bait” for predators, sometimes portraying a parent who’s “pimping out” her child and sometimes portraying the child.
Now, according to Deadline, her story is being turned into a TV show by Sony Pictures Television. The project is still in the early stages of development, but Nichols will executive-produce and is expected to star. (She and Skeet Ulrich both announced earlier this year that they were leaving Riverdale at the end of season four.)
Marisol Nichols told Marie Claire she became interested in learning about the world of sex trafficking after playing detectives on shows like Law & Order: SVU and Cold Case. “It gave me mad respect for these guys,” she said. “It sparked my interest in the trafficking world, realizing and really being on the other side of the underbelly of society.”
She started a nonprofit called Foundation for a Slavery Free World in 2014. After speaking at a conference, Nichols connected with a former government agent who was working privately to fight predators and internet sex crimes. “Hey, you’re an actress. Do you want to do an op?” he asked her, and she said yes. “Okay, here’s your backstory. Here’s the scene.” While Nichols was passionate about her cause, she nonetheless realized what a strange situation she was now in. “What the hell did I get myself into? How the hell did I get here?” she recalled to Marie Claire.
The whole story is utterly fascinating, and we can’t wait to see it all play out on the small screen, whenever it does air.
