While it's obvious that the new hot teen soap Riverdale will overlap with a few other famous comics (Josie and The Pussycats, Sabrina the Teenage Witch), it's safe to say there's one kid-friendly universe it won't mix with — Disney's. Cole Sprouse, who plays Archie's best friend Jughead, made sure of that.
In an interview with Vulture, Cole — famous for his role alongside twin brother Dylan in The Suite Life of Zach and Cody on the Disney channel, as well as playing Adam Sandler's son in Big Daddy — said that one of the reasons he was so excited to do the show (and even be its narrator) was how far from a Disney after-school special it was.
The classic Archie comic is pretty similar to the goofiness or The Suite Life, and Cole was not interested in that. "The classic, sitcom, goofy-hijinks stuff that my brother and I were doing in The Suite Life is what I wanted to stay away from, frankly, when I was reading for this part," he told the site. "And Roberto [Aguirre-Sacasa, the showrunner] wants to, as well. What we’ve got now is something that’s not that." After that, he was all in.
For those that didn't catch the premiere episode, the tone and vibe of the series is intentionally much darker and more twisted than the classic comics. This was alluring to Cole, who said he had just " come off a binge of The Twilight Zone" and was "in a weird place" when he first auditioned. He made sure the show would be less "Goll-ee, Arch!" and more mature in general. "[When] we shot the pilot, I really knew where we stood, in terms of the film noir elements and the darker tone," he told the site. "That’s when I knew this was a show I was really excited to do. Because I had just come off a Disney background."
When asked about how much his time on the Disney show prepared him for his role, he said in terms of similarity in tone, "very, very little," but "In terms of working for my whole life and the professionalism demanded on a stage and so on and so forth? All of that stays with me."
From The Suite Life to the Riverdale life, we can't wait to see what he does next.
AdvertisementADVERTISEMENT