One of The CW’s most beloved shows is coming to an end very soon. Developed by Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa, Riverdale premiered in 2017 and brought characters from Archie Comics to live action in the young adult series that followed the romance and mysteries in the small town of Riverdale.
Karl Walcott joined the series in season 7 as Clay Walker with a significant time jump that brought the main characters back to 1955. Joining the established cast took some adjusting for Karl, but not relying solely on source material and his audition scene helped Karl when it came time to perform on set.
“When I auditioned for Clay Walker, I didn’t really look to be honest. I prepared my audition like I prepare any other audition and I knew what Riverdale was because of its reputation. I had watched a few episodes and I knew the tone of the show and I knew that it resembled stuff that I had already done like for Le Chalet for example. It’s similarlike teen, young adults, so I was like ‘okay I’m familiar with this’,” Karl told Popternative.
He continued, “When I got the gig though I had a week, so I went in overdrive with preparation. When they confirmed me on the show after my audition, I was like ‘okay let’s get prepared,’ so the week before starting I was watching episodes, finding out who Clay Walker was from the comic books. Finding out who my colleagues were really deeper like Casey Cott, finding out who he was as an actor. Finding out a little bit of his storyline and stuff. Not getting too much because I thought to myself, Clay wouldn’t know this stuff you know so I don’t need to know all of his backstory because Clay doesn’t know it, but just knowing who Casey was, researching that and then coming on set my first day was my audition scene so that was a little bit of…honestly that was for me like a few bricks off my shoulders.”
Watch the full interview with Karl Walcott below.
The series finale of Riverdale airs Wednesday, August 23 on The CW. Seasons 1-6 of Riverdale are available to stream on Netflix.
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Amber Dover is a multimedia journalist with over a decade writing about pop culture. Cat mom with a deep love of horror, you can follow Amber at @Glambergirlblog on Instagram and Twitter.