40 Things You Didn’t Know About 'Riverdale'

Famous for his flaming red locks, KJ Apa apparently has a brutal time getting the shocking color. To achieve and maintain the color during filming, Apa has to go to the hair salon bi-weekly for touch-ups on the shade, even to his eyebrows. He told Vulture, "It was really painful the first and the second time I got it done because they do my eyebrows as well. They ended up bleaching my eyebrows, and I had two holes—they burnt into my skin." Yiiiiikes.

In the show's first season, fans learned Cheryl Blossom could always be found by the water. However, Petsch's scary past involving boats made for an uncomfortable and anxiety-inducing filming experience. Petsch told Glamour, "Yeah, I'm afraid of open bodies of water. I was in a glass-bottomed boat that broke a long time ago, so I've always been kind of freaked out."

She'd been under the impression she'd have a stunt double in her opening scene where Cheryl is on a boat, but that turned out not be the case. Petsch had a panic attack before filming began, but "once we started shooting, I was fine."

In his Reddit AMA, Cole Sprouse revealed that even the costumes on Riverdale have hidden meanings. Basically, in the early-20th century, factory workers who wanted to keep the brims of their hats (typically fedoras) out of their eyes flipped them inside-out and trimmed the brim off. Never to be wasteful, these workers typically passed the hats onto their children, and those children wore the modified hats with pride. "The cap will always stand for a kind of nonconformist, working class symbol," Sprouse added in his AMA. Kinda like Jughead, right?

Emilija Baranac wore a black pixie wig during her run on Riverdale as Midge Klump. After her character was killed off in the second season of the show, Baranac went on to act in Netflix's To All the Boys I've Loved Before—wearing her real hair.

Even the parents of Riverdale were teen stars! Molly Ringwald, star of the 80s John Hughes movies such as The Breakfast Club and Sixteen Candles, plays Archie's mom, and Luke Perry of Beverly Hills, 90210 fame is Archie's dad. Jughead’s dad is played by Skeet Ulrich, from Scream and The Craft, so being spooky is kind of his thing.

The 21-year-old has been playing the guitar since he was 13 years old. Dubbed "the guitar prodigy from down under," Apa found stardom when he won a talent competition and performed in front of thousands of people at Vector Arena in Auckland.

It's been confirmed that Ashleigh Murray will be leaving Riverdale to join the CW's Katy Keene, but she'll still be playing Josie McCoy—just as a twenty-something in NYC.

Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa is both the showrunner for Riverdale and also works as the Chief Creative Officer for Archie Comics. The Riverdale universe is allegedly jumping from the screen back to the page, with—rumor has it—Jughead himself, Cole Sprouse, in talks to pen a few issues of the comic book.

In the original stages, showrunner Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa imagined Riverdale as a movie, and pitched the film to studios. Producers didn't bite on the concept as a film, but they loved the characrers enough for Aguirre-Sacasa to take Riverdale the television route. Maybe Josie and the Pussycats are better suited for the big screen?

If you were wondering why Betty Cooper and Jughead Jones' love connection on Riverdale feels so real, it's because it totally is. Lili Reinhart and Cole Sprouse are an IRL couple, and they've been together since early 2018. Sometimes our ships do sail.

Okay, Veronica Lodge and Reggie Mantle may not be endgame in the Riverdale world, but in the real world, things are looking really great for the couple who plays them. Camila Mendes and Charles Melton became Instagram-official back in October 2018, and it's been heart eye emojis ever since.

Makeup has a multitude of uses–to emphasize one's beauty and hide flaws. And sometimes it can be used to help the audience get a gauge on a character's personality. Veronica's darker brown and purple lip colors reflect her darker nature, while Betty sports a dainty and feminine pink lip color...unless it's Dark Betty, who loves a blood red lipstick. In a video behind the scenes for CoverGirl, Madelaine Petsch explains the thinking behind Cheryl Blossom's signature red lip: "Red is the color of sass and fire, so when I put red lipstick on as Cheryl, it's instantly done. It's gotta be the lips."

Sure, the one used in Riverdale is a replica—a replica so realistic a group of truck drivers once pulled into it looking for some food—but the look and feel of Pop’s Chock’Lit Shoppe is inspired by Rocko's Diner, an eatery in Mission, British Columbia. You'll also recognize it from Percy Jackson and The Lightning Thief.

Originally asked to audition for the leading role of Archie, Cole Sprouse had his employability in mind when he asked to read for the role of Jughead. After discovering that Jughead is the series' narrator, Sprouse realized that there's no way the narrator could be killed off, and that was why he hoped to play Jughead in the end. He had also just binge-watched The Twilght Zone, hence Jughead's Rod Serling-esque narration.

But there are no hard feelings—the British cutie later landed a lead role in Netflix's Chilling Adventures of Sabrina as Sabrina's cousin and pansexual prince Ambrose Spellman. Keeping it all in the Archie Comics universe, people.

Cole Sprouse confirmed that Riverdale doesn't exist in any specifically defined time period in his Reddit AMA after fans expressed confusion by the old cars and 1950s styling alongside modern technology. "Riverdale has no formal or announced time period as of now," Sprouse said. "And with the amount of money we dedicate to atmospheric fog, the setting is supposed to feel dream-like."

Love Riverdale and want to get together with other fans of the show to obsess over Archie and the gang? There's a convention for that. The Official Riverdale Convention is a real thing, and fans will even get the opportunity to be up close and personal with Lil Reinhart, KJ Apa, and Cole Sprouse.

The dramatic first season finale results in Archie injuring his hand trying to crack open a sheet of ice and save Cheryl Blossom from drowning. Real life, was brutal, too: KJ Apa wound up being so immersed in the scene he actually broke his hand—and showrunner Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa predicted the entire event. Talking to Comicbook.com, Aguirre-Sacasa shares the saga: "In a weird way, and I told this to KJ, the second we knew that Archie was going to be punching through ice, I literally said, 'Now guys, KJ is such a committed actor, he's so method, he's so in this character and passionate, you have to make sure he doesn't hurt this hand.' So when at the end of that day I got a phone call that KJ had maybe broken his hand, I was like 'Yup.'"

It's clear from first look that Riverdale is a teen dramedy surrounded by deep cultural references that inform the show's universe. Every episode is titled after a film, show, or a novel that inspired the series, and they make heavily pointed references to those inspirations in the show itself. The entirety of the film noir genre is a main inspiration, but also David Lynch's Twin Peaks and Blue Velvet, and teen dramas Stand By Me and Brick.

Wondering where you've seen the actress behind Ethel Muggs before? Probably on Netflix's Stranger Things. Shannon Purser also starred in the streaming giant's coming-of-age comedy Sierra Burgess is a Loser. Fun fact: her co-star Noah Centineo later worked with Camila Mendes in The Perfect Date, and Camila plays Veronica Lodge on Riverdale. Talk about 6 degrees of separation!

In the later Archie Comics, Jughead came out as asexual, and Cole Sprouse had hoped that storyline would be extended to the Riverdale universe. No such luck, unfortunately. Sprouse told Glamour, "I think, in this show, he's not a romantic and not asexual. I argued in the beginning, creatively, that he should be both, but in this show, he's kind of a tortured youth that ends up finding a comfort and a resonance with another person who's going through a lot of trauma. They end up forming this kind of beautiful, honest union, and I think that, to me, is a narrative that works with this universe of Jughead. But I think that kind of asexual and aromantic representation is really important."

Sprouse doesn't mind the questions, though. In his Reddit AMA he said he even welcomes them: "I continue to hope this question is asked, over and over, it will only increase visibility," Sprouse said. "Yes, I'm still a big proponent of this representation, and it needs to be done correctly."

Apa thinks Archie and Betty are endgame simply because they're the most famous couple, even though both characters are involved in other romances. He told Vulture, "I think it's so iconic and everyone kind of wants that. If there was any relationship that I would ship for, it would be Archie and Betty, which is kind of a classic, iconic relationship." However, Camila Mendes thinks Veronica is better for Archie.

We all know and love Cheryl Blossom, an actual queen–but Madelaine Petsch almost missed out on the role. She was originally called in to audition for Betty, but upon arrival, found out she was being asked to read for a secret role, who eventually turned out to be Cheryl. We're all thankful for that.

Fans have a theory the show is going to start featuring zombies. Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa, who is the showrunner of Riverdale, Chief Creative Officer of Archie Comics, and creator of zombie-themed comic series Afterlife With Archie, has yet to rule out the entire notion. He even originally pitching the series as a more supernatural show before deciding the teen murder-mystery genre was a better fit. Considering Aguirre-Sacasa also created the new show The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, which takes place in Greendale (on the other side of the Sweetwater River from Riverdale, according to Aguirre-Sacasa), we may see this fan theory become more of a reality than expected. Don't you just love being right?

According to Kelly Ripa, Consuelos was actually behind his wife's casting for the role of Mrs. Mulwray, Hiram Lodge's sidechick. "I said, 'Oh my gosh, honey, they’re going to be so sick of Consueloses on the set of Riverdale'" Ripa told EW.

Though she joined Riverdale in its third season, Ripa was already very close with several of the show's cast members, particularly with Cole Sprouse. “There’s a lot of history there, and it really is very much like a family,” she said of Riverdale's cast.