Cole Sprouse has grown from the suite life of his childhood to the sweet life of a town called Riverdale in the upcoming CW series of the same name. In Riverdale, which premieres Thursday, January 26 on the network, Sprouse plays Jughead Jones, famous from the comics as “Archie’s Pal” for all of these years. However, as the show begins, the characters might not have that same closeness.
We spoke with Sprouse and other members of the Riverdale cast late last year at the show’s Vancouver sets. You’ll be seeing those interviews rolling out within the next few days as we lead to the January 26 premiere. Hopefully we’ll have some video on our KSiteTV YouTube channel as well, in addition to the Sprouse interview you can see above. So, as we begin this journey, what makes Sprouse’s take on Jughead tick?
“He is definitely different from the digests,” he confirmed for the group of journalists on the Vancouver set visit. “He very much resembles the Jughead in the Mark Waid and Fiona Staples [comic books], a more recent reboot of the Archie Comics series, where he’s this kind of outsider. He is down on his luck in those comics as well, and he gets a very objective perspective on the entirety of the workings of Riverdale, but he’s still kind of on the outside. In the show, he carries very much the same sardonic, sarcastic sense [of humor]… he’s dry, he’s a very cynical character, but he’s definitely a little more down on his luck on this show, which I think explains why he’s quite cynical,” he explained.
“In the pilot, you don’t see a lot of Jughead,” he admitted. “You hear Jughead’s voice; he’s the narrator of the entire show, which is quite fun, so he’s the perspective character, but you don’t really know what angle he’s coming from in the pilot, and slowly but surely over the season, you start to see just how involved he is. He definitely has his own angle that he’s trying to pursue. It’s not like he’s coming from some altruistic approach; he definitely has his own reason for being there.”
Jughead’s outsider status is even greater than it is in the comics as the show starts, as he and Archie aren’t the buddies we always know them to be. “It is stated in the show that Archie and Jughead were once very close, best friends, just like they were in the digests and in the comics, and so that still holds quite true for the ‘origin stories’ as we would call them, but we thought it would be more interesting if there was a little tension, and we could talk about it, and we could have a story to build off of that, and that would be more fun,” Sprouse explained. “Episode 2 is a deeper exploration of why they’re upset at each other, what happened, and what could happen in the future if they should choose to be okay, and forgive, and all of that.”
When Riverdale’s development was first announced, it was hinted that the show might feature annual “Afterlife with Archie” Halloween episodes, based on the popular Archie Comics title of the same name by Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa and Francesco Francavilla.
“I would love it,” Cole said about the potential for Afterlife with Archie on TV. “I’d love it as long as it doesn’t break the theme and mood of the show. That, to me, has kind of been the balance we’ve had, because Jughead is like the narrator, which is a super kind of ‘film noir’ angle, but he’s also kind of the comic relief, and the balance that the writers and a lot of the creative have been finding with the tone of the show is the balance between where comedy is appropriate and where we have to keep the moodiness and the tone and all of that. So, if we can manage to find a way to inject the Afterlife with Archie into the show in a way that’s not heavy-handed or done in a shoddy way, I think then, hell yeah! I would like to see that stuff. That’s awesome! I mean, I personally would love to be able to be a zombie, because I know Jughead is the zombie in Afterlife with Archie, so yeah. I’d love to see all of that stuff!”
Afterlife with Archie has been a big series for comic book fans to “meet” a new Jughead; another, more recent take on the character was Archie Comics’ new Jughead comic book series originally produced by writer Chip Zdarsky and artist Erica Henderson. That series garnered a good amount of publicity by the revelation in passing that Jughead is actually asexual. Is this something the show might explore?
“I, personally, would love to see that exploration, but I’m just the actor,” Sprouse admitted. “At the end of the day, to say that that’s my job or my duty, is probably a misunderstanding of the writer’s role, and the director’s role, and the producer’s role. If I was in full creative charge of this character, things obviously would go a certain way,” he said, adding that that might not be the way the show takes the character.
“I think there’s a lot of room for growth in that, and I think that kind of representation is quite interesting, and I think it’s needed, frankly,” he continued, “but this is also one of those things where it’s only really been canon in a single iteration of the Archie universe, and that’s [Chip] Zdarsky’s universe. It was said very shortly in passing, and it really wasn’t addressed with the fullness that I think it should have been addressed with, and unfortunately for the other other representations of Jughead, it has garnered much of the attention on his character. Jughead has not really been asexual until that single iteration of Zdarsky’s comic, about a year ago. It’s not in the Digests; it’s not in any of the previous ones, and now it’s become kind of the lynchpin of his character. I also don’t know if that’s right, specifically, but I don’t have that kind of control as an actor, to be quite honest. I would love to sit here and be like ‘yes, of course! He will do this and this!’ 
But we’ll see. I know that Jughead’s story right now has not fully been explored, especially in terms of sexuality and his placement with the world, and I think because he as a character is so, so lost, just amongst himself and amongst his relations with everyone around him, that I think there’s a lot of growth available there, and there’s a lot of narrative that can be explored,” he said.
Riverdale premieres January 26 on The CW, and you can see a trailer for the show below. Be sure to browse KSiteTV for more content related to the show and keep coming back for more interviews as they become available!
