KJ Apa sets sights set on career change
Hollywood heart-throb KJ Apa, in Sydney for Oz Comic Con, loves playing Archie Andrews on hit teen drama Riverdale, but there’s another career he has his heart set on.
Confidential
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MUSIC is the long-term goal for Hollywood heart-throb KJ Apa. In Sydney as the headliner for Oz Comic-Con, the 22-year-old New Zealand star of hit US series, Riverdale, revealed music is his true passion.
“I never really wanted to be an actor, it was never really something that I actively pursued,” the star told Sunday Confidential’s Jonathon Moran.
“I do enjoy it but I don’t think it is the end game for me. I have always been super-passionate about music, that is my first love. I love being a part of things that I am super-inspired by at the end of the day.”
Apa, who flew into town just for the weekend to appear at the Oz Comic-Con event at Sydney Showground in Homebush today, has a legion of devoted fans thanks to playing Archie Andrews on Riverdale.
He’s also starred in a string of films, the next to be released being I Still Believe, and is working towards a debut album with his four-piece rock’n’roll band, Legend, in which he plays guitar.
“It is nice to have something to work on and to keep the creative juices flowing while you are on a TV show that shoots 10 months of the year and for me, that is music,” he said. “We have an album in the works, all original music. It is in the works, happening as I speak.”
Apa credits his success to being a mixture of “a bit of luck, always a bit of being in the right place at the right time, and just the ability to be able to work hard”.
“People ask me how I got where I am and I believe it is half luck and half working hard,” he said.
Riverdale shoots in Vancouver, where Apa spends most of the year, and when not there, he is based in Los Angeles.
He says he is often mistaken for an Australian like many of his fellow New Zealanders.
“I don’t mind it,” he laughed. “Most Americans assume that I am Australian anyway so at this point I just go with it.”