Riverdale's Luke Perry On The Archie Legacy: "It's Not Fragile"

01/17/2017 09:00 am EST

While fans and critics who have seen the pilot for The CW's forthcoming Archie Comics adaptation Riverdale have by and large fallen in love with the show, there's one criticism that's stuck: the notion that the idyllic humor and romance characters of the Archie Comics universe are being shunted into a Twin Peaks-inspired murder mystery, driven by lust and scandal, has some fans put off.

TV icon Luke Perry, who plays Archie's father Fred Andrews in the series, says that while the characters of the Archie pantheon are absolutely iconic, the show is treating them with respect even while it challenges audience ideas about who and what they are.

"They were iconic when we got to them," Perry said of the characters during a set visit back in October. "I think the thing that you really want to do when you do something like this is to respect that history...at the same time, it's not fragile. You've got to take a chance with it, you've got to be able to crack it a little bit, maybe even break it, knowing that we'll put it back together. And we do it all with the best of possible intentions. We just want these characters to live in another way, in another dimension. That's the fun of it and that's also the challenge of it. I think so far, [showrunner Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa] has struck a good balance of taking them to new places and yet respecting the integrity of who the original characters are."

Aguirre-Sacasa, in addition to his work in Hollywood on shows like Glee, is the chief creative officer at Archie and the creator of the Afterlife With Archie and Chilling Adventures of Sabrina series for the publisher. It's he, with executive producer Greg Berlanti, who developed the show and then brought it to The CW when its original deal at FOX fell through.

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Riverdale stars KJ Apa as Archie, Cole Sprouse as Jughead, Lili Reinhart as Betty Cooper, Camilla Mendes as Veronica Lodge, and Luke Perry as Archie's father Fred Andrews, among others. The series' showrunner is Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa, Archie Entertainment's Chief Creative Officer and the writer of Afterlife With Archie, the publisher's wildly popular zombie series.

Riverdale will debut on January 27, 2016, on The CW. You can check out our review of the pilot here.

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