Riverdale’s update of Jughead Jones from a burger-loving asexual beatnik to a brooding writer in love with Betty Cooper is a big reason the hit works as well as it does. Sprouse is the perfect dreamboat for his moment—analytical, self-aware, and willing to play his own hotness for camp. When we meet, he’s dressed casually, in a jean jacket with a shearling collar over a white T-shirt, but he sports his classic uniform the way he does almost everything else: with intention and a half dose of irony. Sprouse says his personal style was inspired first by his father, “very much influenced by a kind of working-class, little bit more archaic definition of masculinity.” […] Sprouse, after all, is a guy with ideas about the “archaic definitions of masculinity” and one with sympathy for Jughead. “Here’s this kid writing about all the people he’s close to,” Sprouse says of his and showrunner Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa’s approach to the character. “I want him to feel sort of like a hipster and a little bit pretentious and self-serving. He’s got some social anxiety.” — Cole Sprouse for GQ’s The Second Coming of Cole Sprouse, photographed by Kelia Anne, February 2019.
