K.J. Apa AKA Riverdale’s Archie Gets Candid About Playing The CW Character (Photo Credit: Instagram/ K.J. Apa & Riverdale)
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Actor A.J. Apa aka Riverdale’s Archie has a place in our hearts thanks to the CW series based on the Archie comics. But in a recent interview, the actor compared working on the show to being in jail, a lot! While stating that he was grateful to it, he also opened up playing the character.
While in conversation with his Songbird co-star Demi Moore, Apa spoke about the oppressive rules on the set of the CW series and the ‘pressure’ that comes with playing such a pivotal character on the show.
In the conversation published in Interview Magazine earlier this week, K.J. Apa said working on his pandemic film Songbird was very different from working in Riverdale. The 23-year-old New Zealander actor said, “I felt so free coming from a show where I feel like I’m in jail a lot of the time. There are so many restrictions on what I can and can’t do. With this character (in Sonhbird), it was like, ‘Wow, this is what it’s like to really express myself in a natural way.’ I wasn’t covered in makeup or hair products. I had long hair and a beard. I just felt free.”
K.J. Apa sports red-orange hair and mostly a clean-shaven face for his part as Archie on Riverdale. Breaking away from that, he sports a thick stubble long with his natural brown hair in a shaggy pandemic hairdo in Songbird. The actor added that he was grateful for the show but complained of the ‘pressure’ that comes with it. He said, “There’s been so much pressure in playing Archie. I’m so grateful for the show and its success, but at the same time, there’s a lot of baggage that comes with that success.”
He continued, “I feel like the only people I can talk to about my issues are my co-stars, the people who can really relate to me. Cole Sprouse (Jughead Jones) is an amazing person to have on set, because he’s been doing this his whole life. I try and look at it from a fan’s perspective to understand the way they think. But there are times when I’m like, ‘Wow, they really have no idea that we are actual people. They can’t separate us from our characters.’”
K.J. Apa continued, “You don’t have that in other professions. You don’t dissect the life of a builder and start judging the decisions he makes in his life with his wife and kids. As an actor, I will be judged on everything: my political opinions, my opinions on drugs, my opinions on the people I want to be with. Everything. It’s something I’ve had to come to terms with.”
Do you feel sad when actors are judged for everything they do and say?
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