- Cole Sprouse has been acting his whole life, and he plays Jughead on "Riverdale."
- He acted with his twin brother on "The Suite Life of Zack and Cody," which is his favorite role.
- Sprouse studied archaeology in college and he has a passion for photography.
He was born in Italy but raised in California.
Although he grew up in the US, Sprouse was actually born in Arezzo, Tuscany, in Italy on August 4, 1992.
Per Biography.com, his American parents, Melanie Wright and Matthew Sprouse, were in Italy teaching English at the time he and his brother were born.
He's 15 minutes younger than his twin brother, Dylan.
As many fans know, Cole has an identical twin brother named Dylan.
According to a tweet Cole sent in 2015, Dylan was born 15 minutes before him.
He was named after a famous jazz singer.
According to a 2007 interview with Parade, Sprouse was named after jazz singer Nat King Cole. Per the interview, his twin also has an artist-inspired moniker — he was named after the famous Welsh poet and writer Dylan Thomas.
Sprouse said his mother got him and his brother into acting because his family needed money.
Sprouse started out as a very young actor and he first began appearing on TV shows as early as 1993. In a now-deleted audio clip he posted on Tumblr a few years ago, he explained that he got into acting because of his mom.
"My brother and I were put into acting when we were 8 months old by our mother because we needed money. I never made the decision to join the arts or acting specifically. And so it was never really my passion," Sprouse said in the post. "To be honest, if she never thrust me into it, I probably never would have thought of it as a career choice for myself."
In his early years of acting, Cole played the same character as Dylan.
When they started acting, Cole and Dylan used being identical twins to their advantage by playing the same role — this is popular in Hollywood because of strict child-actor rules that limit how long a kid can film.
You might recognize him and Dylan as the kid in the movie "Big Daddy" or as Ross's son Ben on "Friends."
Sprouse said he had a crush on Jennifer Aniston when he was part of "Friends."
Even the youngest actor on set wasn't immune to Aniston's charms during "Friends."
In a 2017 interview with the New York Post, Sprouse said, "I had a really, really hard time working with Aniston because I was so in love with her. I was infatuated. I was speechless — I'd get all bubbly and forget my lines and completely blank … it was so difficult."
He has also said that he felt like an "automaton" working for Disney.
His roles on the Disney Channel may have catapulted Cole into stardom, but it wasn't always easy. Over a decade ago, he and his twin starred on Disney's "The Suite Life of Zack and Cody" and "The Suite Life on Deck."
In 2016, speaking of his Disney past, he told Entertainment Weekly, "There was a feeling of machination; I felt like an automaton. I needed to take a break and step outside myself … I needed a dose of reality and I needed to see myself in a more objective point of view. And now I think I can enjoy [acting], which is a really fundamental part about being an actor."
Still, he said he doesn't regret his background as a child actor.
Despite the fact that Sprouse said he felt like part of a machine at Disney, he's happy he was a child actor.
"I don't regret anything about my younger career, mainly because we were children and didn't have too much power, but also because it gave us the privilege to be where we are now," he told Hunger Magazine in 2017.
He also said that working as a child "eased a lot of the burdens that people live with day-to-day."
After working with Disney for years, he decided to take a break from acting to attend college.
After enjoying massive success on the Disney-Channel show "The Suite Life of Zack and Cody" (2005 - 2008) and "The Suite Life on Deck" (2008 - 2011), both Cole and Dylan decided to take a break from acting.
The two enrolled in college at New York University and Cole said his goal was to "fade out peacefully."
In a 2017 interview with Women's Wear Daily, he explained, "It's no new narrative to say that when people get out of child stardom, they often times rebel in very serious ways. I didn't want to make that public spectacle. So part of the reason I went to college was that I wanted to fade out peacefully, show everybody I had gone through something that was quite challenging and difficult, but did so with grace and poise and got an education."
In college, he majored in archaeology, something he said he's always been interested in.
In a now-deleted audio post from his Tumblr, Sprouse said he studied archaeology in college and was very invested in the subject — he was even the president of the underground archaeology club.
In 2019 he told the LA Times that he studied archaeology, geographic information systems, and satellite imaging. He said he was interested in these topics because his grandfather was a geologist and the fields seemed "competitive and challenging."
During a "73 Questions" interview with Vogue in 2021, Sprouse said he worked on an archaeological site after college and found "an old ceramic theatrical mask of Dionysus in Bulgaria.
He also said that he sees himself returning to the field "eventually."
Cole and Dylan pulled a switch during their college graduation.
Ever wondered if the famous brothers ever use their identical twin looks to trick others? The answer is yes.
In 2015 they told Teen Vogue that they switched places during their college graduation. As Cole told the publication, "[Dylan and I] actually received each other's diplomas."
Photography is one of his hobbies.
Sprouse has built up quite a portfolio of his photography and much of it is on his Instagram account. It's a bit of a career for him — he's already worked with big names like Elle magazine and Adidas — but it's also his hobby.
"It was depression that drove me to do it. That's the real truth. It was depression that led me to the camera. It heals you know, a hobby. There's no bandaid like a hobby," he wrote about photography on an Instagram post in 2016.
He has a second Instagram account where he takes pictures of fans taking pictures of him.
The Sprouse twin is pretty active on social media — his other Instagram account is called @Camera_Duels. It's filled with photos of fans trying to take sneaky pictures of him paired with lengthy and humorous captions describing the situation.
In 2017 he told Elle magazine he made the account after noticing too many people trying to sneak photos of him.
"I would always be dissatisfied that people wouldn't just ask, because I always say yes. So @camera_duels was born. It was a way of coping or trying to turn it around in my favor and give me more agency in a situation," he told the publication.
He said he always cries when he watches two very different movies.
In 2019, Sprouse told Glamour that the Pixar movie "Up" (2009) always makes him cry, saying, "The first 10 minutes of 'Up' is seriously one of the greatest romances ever. It just really pulls on your heartstrings."
He said he also thinks "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" (2004) is beautiful and it "never fails to make [him] cry."
He said he had no interest in being on "Riverdale" at first.
After trying to "fade out" during college, Sprouse wasn't sure if he wanted to go back to acting, even after he was approached about filming "Riverdale."
In 2017 he told Women's Wear Daily, "At first when I received the script for the 'Archie' show, I was immediately turned off. But in more recent years, 'Archie' comics have tried to stray away from the 'Golly, shucks Arch, let's go to the sock hop' thing."
On "Riverdale," Sprouse may have almost played Archie instead of Jughead.
Per that same interview with Women's Wear Daily, Sprouse said he was originally asked to read for the part of Archie instead of Jughead.
But Sprouse said he felt more of a connection with Jughead, explaining, "He's very much an outsider. He has a pretty unique perspective because he's seeing the town and the friendship and the friendships that are forming from a more objective point of view."
When Sprouse is in a relationship, he's a fan of big romantic gestures.
Sprouse was in an on-again, off-again relationship with his "Riverdale" costar, Lili Reinhart, for several years.
In 2019, he told Glamour magazine the most romantic thing he's ever done was take a road trip with Reinhart to Canada.
"I surprised her with a big hot-air-balloon adventure, which was quite a bit of fun. I like traveling quite a bit. I like road-tripping. Those grand experiences always end up yielding the greatest memories — and the greatest romances," he told the publication.
His favorite movie couple is from "Casablanca."
In 2019, Sprouse told Glamour magazine that his favorite movie couple is Ingrid Bergman and Humphrey Bogart from "Casablanca" (1942).
"I was always rooting for them but, in the end, it doesn't really work out," he explained.
Cole doesn't want Dylan to be on "Riverdale."
If you're waiting to see an on-screen reunion of Cole and Dylan on "Riverdale," don't hold your breath.
In 2017, when asked if Dylan might appear on the show, Cole told E! News, "That to me is also one of those things that, one, I'm hard-pressed to think Dylan would ever say 'yes' to and that I would ever approve of; and two, that wouldn't break [the] fourth wall."
He said he thinks it would be strange for the plot of the show if Dylan came on as a random identical twin to Jughead.
He said he once worked in a comic-book store.
During a 2017 interview on "Late Night with Seth Meyers," Sprouse said he's a big fan of comics and when he was younger he worked at a comic-book store in California called Meltdown Comics.
Funny enough, the actor ended up on "Riverdale," a series based on the "Archie" comic books.
During his 2021 Vogue interview, Sprouse said, "My favorite comic is more of a graphic novel called 'Black Hole.'"
In addition to the Charles Burns novel, the actor has a number of old "Incredible Hulk" and "Fantastic Four" comics. But his most precious comic is "Avengers #500."
Sprouse said he watches old episodes of "The Suite Life of Zack and Cody" when he's drunk.
During the 2021 interview with Vogue, Sprouse said that he rewatches episodes of his Disney Channel show when he's "drunk or feeling really narcissistic."
But he added, "I don't really like to watch anything that I do, so I try to stay away from it."
The actor celebrated his middle-school graduation on the set of "The Suite Life."
In the same 2021 Vogue interview, Sprouse said his favorite memory from his time as a child star was when the whole crew of "The Suite Life" helped him celebrate his middle-school graduation.
"When I graduated middle school, the crew threw a big graduation – I cried on screen. And you know what? I think it's on video somewhere …" he said.
The actor said that Adam Sandler was his mentor as a kid.
When asked who his mentors are in his 2021 Vogue interview, Sprouse said, as a kid, it was Adam Sandler, who he starred in "Big Daddy" (1999) with.
"It was the way that he was always in love with production. And he worked with his friends and his family and was still able to turn and do more independent films and artistic films while balancing commercialism," he said.
Sprouse has a "deep fondness" for his favorite role, Cody on "The Suite Life."
During his 2021 Vogue interview, Sprouse said his favorite role he's ever played is Cody Martin.
"I know it sounds cheesy, I still have a really deep fondness for 'The Suite Life,'" he said.
But the role that challenged him the most as a kid was in "Big Daddy."
"It was this huge production, and I was 6, and I got to see New York City for the first time," he said.
He considers himself to be a "serial monogamist."
The actor described himself as a "serial monogamist" who consistently moves from "long-term relationship to long-term relationship" in a March 2023 interview on the "Call Her Daddy" podcast.
"I was never a sort of one-night-stand guy, ever," he said. "Couldn't do it."
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