The casting breakdowns of Riverdale, a new live-action take on Archie Comics’ famous characters and town in development for a pilot on The CW, have hit TVLine, and they include some major surprises when it comes to Archie and his pals.
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Archie Andrews, for example, is described as boyishly handsome and fairly muscular thanks to working a construction job with his father. He likes both music and football and “harbors more than one dark, terrible secret.” Archie, what have you done?
Betty is still blonde (phew, that’s one internet commenter bullet dodged!) and pretty, but has “self-esteem issues and an affinity for Adderall.” She and Archie are just best friends, much to her chagrin, and is looking for major changes in her life.
Veronica will “ideally” be cast Latina and is described as a “silver-tongued stunner.” She won’t have the rich dad looming over the town like in the current comic books – her father will have had a scandal and be in prison in this incarnation, making her move back to Riverdale. Intelligent, self-confident, and popular – so this one’s about as on-the-nose with the comics’ version of the character as any of them could be.
Jughead, finally, is being cast as an “emo-heartthrob” and the “former best friend” of Archie, with a secret rift between them – sounds like it could be one of those terrible secrets. The CW is looking to cast a hearing-impaired actor for the role.
And that’s what Riverdale is looking like with the initial casting notices. Now, producers have been known to make major changes if the right actor comes along, but these are the initial guidelines. The show is being executive produced by Greg Berlanti (Arrow, The Flash, Supergirl, Blindspot, Legends of Tomorrow) and the pilot is being written by Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa, the chief creative officer of Archie Comics.
