Cole Sprouse: Exploited for Money and Fame (FBF) [VIDEO]
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What is up, Daddy Gang? It is your founding father, Alex Cooper, with Call Her Daddy.

Cole Sprouse. Yes. Welcome to Call Her Daddy. Thank you for having me. Considering how private you are, I'm so happy that you're here because I'm excited for people to get to know you a little bit better. Maybe even have you talk about some things that you've never talked about before. Sure. Let's go. Okay. Let's get into it. No, I will say I really like how conversational your podcast is. Thank you. And I think that

I think that that's missing a lot from the publicity space, that there's like this curation that I believe does a tremendous disservice to actual guests on something. And the conversational nature of just the podcast space in general, but particularly yours is...

really refreshing. My publicists are obviously not here. Cole showed up alone. They rarely, they know that they have very, very little control over the lunacy that whatever happens on set. So they're like, okay, dude, he's just going to be this whirling dervish. We might as well just let him go. I will say I love it because I've had people show up here with 20 people. And then I've had people like you that show up alone. This is what I prefer. I show up to a lot of things alone. Were you like nervous showing up here at all?

I was nervous because my girlfriend was like, hey, she's going to pepper you with some really interesting questions. But that's kind of it.

Shout out to Cole's girlfriend. We love you for giving him a little bit of a taste of what he's about to get on Call Her Daddy. Okay, so let's get into it. Let's go back to kind of the beginning. You and your twin brother Dylan were born in Italy. Yes. Why were your parents in Italy and when did you move to the United States? My parents were teaching out there at the time. They were part of this school slash cult. I can't really figure out what it was. But my father was teaching physical education. Okay.

And my mother was an art teacher. And we were living in Tuscany. And we were just born out there because it was romantic and sexy. And then we... I mean, we moved when we were very young. We ended up moving to Switzerland. And then my parents got a divorce. And my mother moved us back to the U.S. to like Studio City, between Studio City and Long Beach. And that's when we started acting. Uh-huh. Acting. Okay. Okay.

Twins are a lot. Have your parents ever talked to you about how hard it was in the beginning? Like, were they ready to be parents and ready for two newborns? No, no, no. My father got a vasectomy immediately after he found out he was having twins. Okay. Yeah. And they shared that with you? Oh, yeah. My father and I have a very good relationship. He's very open about all that stuff.

So you and Dylan booked your first acting gigs before you were even one year old. Yeah. Diaper commercials. What did your parents explain to you as to like why you were auditioning so young? Well, my mother needed an income. I mean, there's two, I think there's two types of kids within, you know, the child acting business. There's like the thespian children that choose to do it.

And then there's the working class kids that, in our case at least, twins are a great labor exploit because babies can only work for a certain amount of hours. So you double the time if you have two of them that look identical. So it was, I mean, it started really as a means to put bread on the table and also allow my mother at the same time to be a mother. Yeah.

but to make her main focus and her job our careers. I mean, it made me think kind of like Mary-Kate and Ashley. It's a great example. Yeah, because like obviously I remember on Full House, it was like you can just swap in each kid when it's like, oh, you're up on, what is it, like five hours you can work or something? Even less. I mean, every year it gets a little bit more, but in most cases, a baby can only work like an hour or two hours.

When you think about that, like you as a kid being like... I wasn't conscious until this last year. So please go ahead. I don't even know where I am. I don't remember fucking breakfast. No, it is crazy because I do. I was like thinking about that of like the child labor laws of how you have a better way to... I too often think of child labor laws. And how do you feel about that, Cole? I mean, to be honest, I get a lot of people...

asking me like, oh man, you really went through the gamut. Oh man, all this. But in very many ways, it was like, you know, the golden ticket from Willy Wonka. It was a really, it was a great means to an end. ♪

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Do you mind if I have a cigarette? Please have your cigarette. You know what, Gold? Let's open the door. I don't know. People are all cool about everyone smoking weed in like a studio. But not a fucking cigarette. And everyone gets like this. It's fine. It's fucking fine. I'm curious. Did you even go to like elementary school? I did. It was off and on. It was in between jobs mainly. But most of my younger curriculum was homeschooled. Which

Which is great because to be honest, I did not feel like I missed out on much. Everyone that talks to me about their high school experience, I was like, this sounds fucking horrible. It wasn't great. It wasn't great, Cole. But I'm wondering, do you remember when you were in elementary school? Like how did people treat you? Because I know you weren't famous, famous, but like Big Daddy, you were what, five? Yeah, six. And when we were kids, I don't think they really cared too much. Some of them knew that we were actors, but...

Dylan and I, Dylan specifically was a huge bully. So our navigation through elementary school and middle school, we were like fucking dicks. How would he bully me? He would beat him up.

He would beat him up. And then I became known as the twin that would come up and be like, I'm so sorry for my brother. Wait, I kind of feel like that was your character also on Zack and Cody. Well, I think the writers on Zack and Cody took a lot of cues from our actual personalities. But yeah, he was a real bully.

Your brother's like, what the fuck? Thanks, Cole. Oh, no, I say this all. Everyone knows that he's a boy. And he's fine with it. I don't know if he's fine with it. I think he's still got some stuff to work out. Yeah. Yeah, totally. So how are the two of you different in personality? Like if people don't know you, they just know your onscreen personalities. What is the difference personality wise? My brother's a lot more stubborn. Yeah.

I would say pigheaded as his brother, but, uh, he is very much a natural leader. Like he, he, a lot of people respect his opinion because he goes into his opinions incredibly boldly where I, I will sort of tiptoe and, and sense the room. And, um,

Yeah, it's interesting. We're very, very different. And I think most twins get more distinct as time goes on. But we're still best friends. I mean, he lives like 10 minutes from me. Do you guys talk every day? Every day. Yeah, every day. It's very cute. Very cute. I mean, when I moved to Vancouver for Riverdale, it was probably the biggest amount of distance we've ever had between each other. And we felt it, man. It was sad. Really?

It was genuine. It genuinely made me upset. So back to what you were saying about your parents split when you were how old? Ooh, I mean, I think before a year. Yeah. Okay. I only have one memory of them still together for sure. What is that memory? Oh, it was me riding on the back of my mother's bike.

um in the little baby seat uh in switzerland and there we were down this little bike path because you know europeans love that shit and uh there were aspen trees and owls and things it was very picturesque i actually can't tell if i've completely fabricated this memory now but i i i'd like to think there was this idyllic origin yeah were they on the same page about your careers though because okay no my mother um

My mother definitely was fascinated by the industry far more than my father was. My father's a very blue-collar dude, grew up super, super rough. He's an automotive repairman. So he had a very blue-collar approach to understanding our business. I'm very thankful for my father's just philosophy of life because it allowed me to take...

none of this too seriously which is great but uh yeah i would say he did not really understand he saw the money and was like hey this is quite lucrative and i come from a family of 49ers so it was like this is a gold rush man you gotta you gotta strike this vein while it's hot but uh i think he understands that more than anything when you say that your parents obviously were on different pages at what age do you did you recognize that and like what were those conversations

Well, both my brother and I were given—we went through a lengthy court battle at about 10, and custody was stripped from my mother and given to my father. And at that point, I said, hmm, my mother thinks of this a little differently than my father does. Yes. And it's interesting because in very many ways, the court system—

especially in cases of divorce and in cases of custody, is in very, very large favor of the mother. And in this instance, it probably should have been the father. And I think his philosophy of that approach towards our careers and grounded, like he desperately wanted us to be normal kids. And my mother wanted us to be more than or sort of

a bit more of a caricature of two, you know, normal kids, some extraordinary thing, which is beautiful in its own right. But, um,

I think it does a disservice to children who are also working to be treated as anything more or less than like their peers. Yeah, I mean, obviously that is telling. Like usually the mother would be getting custody. Were there more things like behind the scenes other than just like the forward facing? Like we disagree with your careers. Oh, absolutely. Okay. Absolutely. I mean, I think...

I've said this once in an interview and it was totally misconstrued, but I believe that celebrity and success and, you know, financial excess or surplus in a single generation is an elected trauma in very many ways. I have watched a lot of people come into success from much less in a single generation and they all have a very codified mindset.

Kind of sickness afterwards and it's one of this industry in general I believe cultivates an incredible amount of vanity and narcissism that can destroy people and it doesn't matter your age I've seen it when I was younger and I've seen it now as an adult but like that kind of narcissism that self-centeredness can end up really undoing people and

And so there was plenty, plenty behind the scenes. I think in very many ways, my brother and I were lucky mainly because we were young boys. Like the fascination when we were younger, at least on the Disney channel, was like of Miley and Selena and a lot of these girls because they were heavily sexualized, which is another huge fucking issue. But the fascination, which was young womanhood.

My brother and I in very many ways went through all of the same trappings except the lens wasn't on us as tightly, which I'm very, very grateful for. And I think was, you know, I think at the time was just coincidence, right?

And as I've grown older, I feel very blessed to not have had that sort of shown. But yeah, we went through a lot. And I think it also has contributed to my conflict with...

with this industry as I've grown up, like the philosophy of continuing within acting has been definitely shaped by how I've watched people torn asunder by it. I remember when you said earlier, like, I started this as a job to put food on the table for my family. Then there's other people that are like, I want to be an actress. I want to be an actor. Like, you didn't really have a choice. Are you in any way...

resentful of your parents that they put you in that position so young? No, no, I'm not. My parents did not come from too much. And I have now been granted a life of primarily financial stability and surplus in very many cases. That is the byproduct of working for 30 years and sort of trading my childhood. But I don't regret it at all.

I don't regret it at all. I know that there's definitely resentment. There's definitely some things I have to work through. But no, if I were given the same choice again, I'd probably do it again. The world, I feel like, can be pretty rough to child actors. Sure. And it's not fair, but I do feel like we hear more sad stories than happy. Sure. Were your parents ever...

checking in to make sure that you guys didn't go down a dark and dangerous path? Absolutely. I mean, my father primarily. Okay. My father's like my best friend. Yeah. He's a really, really solid dude. And he had such a rough upbringing that I think he was able to recognize empathetically when my brother or I were going through something.

Like, can you give us an example? Like, take us back to like you're in Zack and Cody, right? And you're going through it. You're working at Disney Channel. What is your dad saying to you guys in those moments? You know, funny enough, I get asked about Disney a lot because I think a lot of people want to sort of poke the bear and see, you know...

how atrocious the channel was. By the time my brother and I got to Disney Channel, we were good. It was a huge boon to us. It was, it was in very many ways, a life saving show. It provided us with an amount of stability and consistency and routine that really was needed for my brother and I at the time. Everyone has had a different experience there. I've had former Disney stars on and every single person's,

recount of what happened to them or what they felt from it is very different. Yeah, that's interesting to me too. Why? Because a lot of those kids came from privilege. You know, I find that a lot of the times it's much easier to complain about the business approach of a larger studio when you don't need the money as much, you know.

It's really intriguing. When you approach this career as a sort of passion and you're starting to learn the language of these major studios and the language is always money.

you start to become discontented. But if you start from a working kid background and you're like, yeah, this is money, baby. You're not as surprised or discontented when your boss or the studio chooses a money-based approach to your career. And I'm not delegitimizing anything they say. It is no doubt it is already incredibly conflicting to be a child who,

hoist it up to the criticism of an entire nation and also be working nine to five. But I, but I think, you know, I think it's important if you're learning about someone's own history to know the historian and, and their background, this Nepo baby argument as an example has been in my, and in, in my opinion, something my brother and I have been talking about since we were kids, but it's now just recently become a hot topic in the public. And, and,

you know, this is a major distinction. This kind of, this nepotism or elitism has existed within the industry for a very long time. And I find it's a lot easier to complain about the philosophy of a boss, like I mentioned earlier, when you come from a position of privilege where maybe you don't need the surplus as much as another child does. You mentioned that

When you got the Suite Life of Zack and Cody, it was a lifeline. Because I was asking you, like, how would your dad keep you guys from going down that bad path? So prior to Suite Life, where were you two at mentally? Oh, man, I don't think I've ever talked about this. Because in very many ways, I was lucky for it not to be discussed. But when we were given, when my father was given forced custody...

We had pretty much lost everything from the youngest parts of our career. That would be friends and Big Daddy and a lot of that. My mother was an incredibly wonderful and artistic woman, but she was financially the most irresponsible person ever.

Um, so we really didn't have much. We moved in with our father who, you know, was very blue collar dude. And we lived underneath this wonderful Russian couple named Helen and Vadim and like the back of their house and little baby Nikolai. Shout out little baby Nikolai. You're probably quite old now. The prospect of the consistency of,

Just the money alone was life-changing for not only my brother and I at the time, but also my father. So my father was in big support of this ball that was already rolling down the hill, you know what I mean? And he was guiding us with a very gentle but firm hand, uh,

towards a sort of moral compass that I think was needed for who I am today. My brother and I, you know, in very many ways we tried to stay out of trouble. We were a couple dorks that were far more interested in playing video games and Warhammer and our sort of board game stuff with our friends than going out and partying and stuff. And we also, you know, we were 13 but looked 8.

I was 16 and I looked 10. I had a bowl cut and, you know, I looked like a little Dutch girl. It was incredible. And I think that kept us out of a lot of trouble. It was phenomenal. Let me just say. I'm going to bring it back. Don't worry. Now that you have the hindsight of that pretty pivotal moment for you with your family, how does it make you feel now?

About what? Just your mom losing all the money that you worked for and then having to... I don't blame her. She's human. Okay. I think in very many ways, we are all more or less durable to the trappings of success and everyone has their own personal navigation through that stuff. And I think she was... I think if anyone knew the kind of woman she was, they could have said it would have gone the exact same way.

I am remorseful in very many ways that she wasn't able to get out of it, but I don't blame her at all because she's a human. And even more than that, she was an artist. So I think it's very funny because artists now, I mean, now we're holding them to a very high standard just publicly. But most of us only join the arts because we're pretty fucked up.

It's that this place is like a vortex, man. Yeah, it is. You get into this stuff because you're probably a pretty arcane person just to begin with. And I think I don't blame her in the slightest. Yeah. You know, how did booking the Suite Life of Zack and Cody change your life?

I mean money straight up. I'd love to say it was a more complicated thing, but the financial stability, I mean, my father and I, my father, Dylan and I, we moved to our own house a year afterwards. Um, and that gave us the kind of freedom and the base, the foundation in order to feel more at home and to lock in our private sphere of existence and, and to, to continue from there. But, uh,

Yeah, I'm not going to lie. The money was fucking great. Can you take us through like what was the day like on set? Yeah, it's awesome. It was great. I mean, I remember complaining around the water cooler as a child, but I look back now is like the easiest gig ever.

Tell us. So Monday was a table read day, which meant the whole cast and the producers and the writers and some of the crew would sit around a large table and we would read the script for the first time. We do a very light rehearsal. Tuesday would be our crew run through. So we would do the whole thing on the stage from front to back in front of the crew and the writers and then they would take their notes and

Wednesday was a producer run through. So we'd have the execs from Disney come down and they would watch the episode live as we were performing it on stage. And then Thursday we would shoot half the episode and Friday we would shoot the other half in front of a live audience. Did you guys have fun? Oh, we had a great time.

I can imagine like how close you obviously are with your brother, like the two of you. And because you said your characters kind of were able to morph a little bit to your personality. You did have Barry to sing. And vice versa. Yeah. We adopted quite a bit of that, of who they were as well as we aged. Who was your friend group at Disney? And do you still talk to anyone? Ooh, I was a fucking asshole on Disney, man.

I was a really angry kid. Okay. I was a super angry kid. And I think in the most cliche way, like angsty teen, angsty kid possible. I was atheist at the time. And I was doing all my Dawkins and Hitchens. And all the kids were Christians. So I was really getting off to the baits. And that's a fucking annoying kid.

That's a really annoying kid. Just like, I'm sure you guys knew one of those dickheads back in the day. That was me. You're like poking the bear. I was poking the bear. So you weren't wearing one of the purity rings? Absolutely not. Absolutely. In fact, I was so vocally opposed to that stuff that everyone, I mean, people, the kids thought I was quite radioactive, as I recall. I mean, I was not, you know...

I was not the most popular fellow. Did Dylan make friends? Oh, yeah. And all the girls loved him, too. I was so upset. Is he still friends with Disney people?

I don't think too much of us keep up anymore, but I think that's the nature of all of us growing. But I saw Miley as an example at, I think, Jimmy Fallon a little while ago, and it was a really nice little reunion. It's like high school friends that you graduate with, and you see them every once in a while, and you're like, oh, we used to be so close or something like that. I don't think it's more complex than that, though. I love that Dylan started as the bully in elementary school. Everyone loves the bully.

Contrary to popular belief. Yeah, girls love to bully, at least in high school. I guess if he's like a harmless bully. I don't know. Dylan was, I don't know. I was an intellectual bully, which was fucking lame. Yeah, but those are kind of the worst. It was the worst. I'm saying to you that I was a total piece of shit. When you look back at that version of you. I cringe. I cringe hard. Because imagine, it's one thing if like the guy looks cool. No, I had a bowl cut. You know, that's horrible.

I remember watching the show and being so like obsessed with you guys. And then when I got a tiny bit older, I was like, they need to cut their fucking hair. Yeah, you were fucking right. I wish you had just sat us down and been like, dude, get off this thing. But I loved it. My brother had the same swoop bowl cut. That was all the rage back then. When were you finally done paying the bills for your family? Oh, man. Three years ago.

Three years ago when I when I hit success with Riverdale. I've also like I love my father very much. My father, you know, put a lot of his life on hold in order to ensure that my brother and I were OK. And I he I owe him a lot for that. And if that comes through financial conversations, then so be it.

Like, I want to get my dad the fucking car he wants. I want to get my dad the house he wants. You know, I want to make sure he's all good. It's just my father, my brother, and I and our family. So, I mean, that makes it a little easier for financial stability. But, yeah, I don't really mind. You know, I...

What else is it for? Yeah. You know, like you – once you realize the lifestyle you want to acquire financially, like I don't think there's anything more noble than taking care of your family with the financial independence that you've been given. So are you not – don't have a relationship with your mom? Not at all. I mean, in truth, she lost her mind.

I think it was the consequence of some weird alchemy of addiction and mental instability. And it's probably the greatest wound in my life and also the greatest driving force for my continuing in this industry. But I miss her. I miss her a lot. She was an incredibly beautiful and artistic woman. Every once in a while, she'll reach out to me, some weird hieroglyphic text, some macabre

Lovecraftian text that I try to decipher and try to pinpoint where she is. But we have a very, very challenged relationship. And I think before she had been lost to whatever madness she's currently in now, she really believed

that I could be the best. And I think I still do it for her. That version of her, whatever that version of her was. To kind of keep her dream alive, whatever that dream is.

do you and Dylan have conversations about it kind of kind of kind of it's it's a it's a huge wound for the yeah yeah huge wound um so I'm just you know a guy sitting in a buccal wheelchair with some mommy issues one of many of your guests I'm sure oh I was gonna say like sadly it's like this is life right like we all have our family shit and I appreciate you sharing it because unfortunately it's

something that a lot of people experience where like keeping a family together it's way more rare than having a family that it's got its shit I tried for very many years I tried all the things that people said I should try and the things that I felt would be best to try and get her out of her station or whatever it was but you know what you can take a horse to water but you can't make a drink man

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I'm Michael Che. And I'm Colin Jost. And we've got a little secret. Actually, it's a pretty big secret. Well, now you've got to give the people something. No, I'm not saying a word. Oh, then people won't know to tune in. Come on, tell them a little. You like how we're hosting a comedy event streaming only on Peacock? Exactly. Or how it's called New York After Dark and it's a comedy show that only features drop-in comics? Boom! You nailin' it, dude. And how Michael Che's phone never... Whoa, whoa, whoa! Hey, hey, hey! New York After Dark. It's some kind of comedy thing. And it's streaming now. Only on Peacock. You love it.

I feel like at some point everyone experiences some type of mental health. Oh, yeah. Setback or not me, man. As we're like getting so deep. No, I'm fucking chill. Like I'm great. I'm good. Let's get to the sex, Alex. What's something that you've worked through? Oh, I mean, public criticism for sure. It's big.

I'm a people pleaser. And I'm also like, I think as a consequence of my incredibly strained relationship to my mother, the very first female voice in my life, I'm like a nurse. Like I'm always like, I'm one of those fixer guys. And that's not good. I've had to undo a lot of that in my late 20s. It caused a lot of...

a lot of pain to me, which is something I work through. Uh, and I have worked through in therapy and with friends and, and other people, but the criticism is interesting. Um, because, um, it's funny. And going back to the Disney thing, this is always something that gets brought up, which is,

wow, Disney just really took it out on you guys, didn't they? And I hate when people say that because it completely disqualifies how the audience contributes to so much of the instability that occurs. People...

People join in on the feast for crows as this sort of cacophony of criticism, and they don't ever hold themselves accountable for their own behavior as an individual contributing to a mass of criticism, which I find to be completely ignorant.

I know most artists I know hear the criticism. Almost all of them do. Myself included. And most of our natures will go, oh man, look at all these nice comments. This is wonderful. But we fucking will go to that one. It doesn't matter what it is. It can be about anything. What is the comment and the criticism that gets you? I find for boys on Disney Channel, we were raised with a very... A sort of Prince Charming...

And I think for the girls as well, there's this wholesome imagery that follows you around. And as I have aged and, you know, come into my own life,

Like advanced adults' feelings of sexuality and of my adulthood and my life and all this sort of stuff. And I'm revealed to be, through whatever medium, a sinful, dirty, little, hairless ape like the rest of us. There is a bit of a fall from grace that occurs with that for all of us.

But I think it's hard. I'm such a people pleaser that I take it hard personally when I feel like I am not helping people or making them feel better or being criticized for a humanity that I rarely try to show. Right. And this is such a, you know, this is such a woo-woo problem. But like...

I don't know. I did take criticism quite hard for a long time, especially as an employee, but also as like a child actor. I think that's something I've gotten over. I think, you know, my relationship to my family has been a very tense mental health conversation over time. But I've been sober for a year and some change now, which has been really great for me. And it's allowed me to do the kind of self-work that I think, and just the professional work, of course.

that has allowed me to really ask myself questions as an adult for the first time in my life and go, wow, maybe you feel this way, dude. Maybe you feel that way, dude. It's fucking great. Yeah, it is great. I'm like a full, I am a huge proponent for, you know, cognitive behavioral therapy and psychiatry and all that sort of stuff.

When you talked about that, because I think it is interesting to people that watched you so heavily on Disney Channel. And then you talk about this, like we have this image and this fall from grace. You kind of you and your brother when you went to college kind of really removed yourself from all of it for a little bit. Well, we it wasn't a removal. We actually did the same thing just in a different way. So if you think about it.

As a child, you're sold as this immature public commodity, right? Like this juvenile thing. And then the world sees you as like this infantile entity. And then you hit your teens and you start to have this sexual maturation and this adult maturation. You start to see yourself in relation to your environment far differently. And so it's really an identity crisis. It's you start to want people to see you as the identity that...

you see yourself as and many in that case take to public sexual display, take to drug use, take to these means of investing the conversation of their life, a level of adulthood that they are not being afforded by the public. And I think my brother and I sat with each other and just kind of decided the best way to do that would be

going away to school and coming out with a diploma and that's for us at least but in very many ways you know that's an arrested development because I found myself in my early 20s going through a lot of that same dilemma

And I think every single Disney star, I guess, except for you guys, it's like we watch them maybe get on stage and go in a sexual outfit and be like, I'm not a fucking kid anymore. And it's like shoving in our face. I'm an adult. I'm an adult. I'm an adult. Take me seriously. I'm not the little girl anymore. I think it solved the same issue to the public, but it didn't solve it within ourselves. Right. Like the publicity worked. Right. But it didn't do the healing part.

You know, you have to do the self work in order to heal from that. You have to have that open conversation with yourself in order to even grow past that. And I think I think I experienced that much of my early 20s after school because I got back into acting and the show Riverdale took off overnight and and reintroduced me to this buffet of decadency that I had. I had just as much potential as I did as a child to fuck up.

So I think that sort of stuff is really valuable if you're actually sitting with yourself and doing the work. Yeah. When you started talking about getting away from child acting, going to college and trying to kind of explore, it did make me think obviously about you and your sexuality. When did you start dating? Like how old were you when you had your first real relationship?

you want to hear about how I lost my virginity please tell us this is such a this is such a great story I feel like it says so much about me okay um I was 14 when I lost my virginity so this is still bowl cut guy all right so just you know if you guys are good individual um I was on a family trip in Florida and um I met this girl who was older all right so that's already dubious um

And the first night we kind of made out, and the second night, all my buddies had already lost their virginity at this point. I was 14, so that says another thing. We were down at the beach. This actually makes me nervous. It's so cringy. We were down at the beach. I, like, knocked on her hotel door. She came out, and we went down to the beach, and we were on some chaise lounges. And I looked at her, and I finally, my heart was beating like, and I finally mustered up enough courage to,

to deliver a line that my brother has never ever let down for me. I went, I looked at her and I was like, so, uh, are you like DTF? And, um, she goes, what? And I go, you know, down to fuck. No, no. I was 14. Okay. She looked at me and she was like, sure. So we went back to the hotel room. It's so cringy, but it's incredible. I look back now. It's so funny.

And I text my brother and my buddy Charlie who were staying. We were all staying in the same hotel room because we were fucking 14. Right. I was like, dude, you got to get out of the room, man. I've got a girl coming over. Like, you got to get out of the room, dude. And so we're walking down the hall. I got my arm around this girl. We're walking down the hall and I see my brother and Charlie come walking towards me. And as we pass each other, my mother just looks at me and goes, what the fuck are we supposed to do? And I looked at him and I said another line that he's never forgiven me for. I looked at him and I was like...

I don't know. Go play chess or something. Oh my. Yeah, lasted about 20 seconds and never talked to her again. And after that, I became truly a serial monogamist. What? A serial monogamist. I went from long-term relationship to long-term relationship. Pretty consistent. So the in and out moves like was not for you. You're like, I want to be with someone so I can get better at 20 seconds. Maybe let's ramp it up to 60 seconds.

Oh, yeah. No, well, actually, I mean, not only that embarrassing display. I actually, I mean, I love that story now because it's so stupid. It's so youthful that I think it's quite funny, but...

I ended up regretting it a little bit afterwards because I hadn't made it special at all. I sort of got it out of the way. And that's not to say it needs to be, but for my own personal approach to it, I was kind of like, eh. Did you lose it before your brother? I did, yeah. So he had no words of wisdom. No, actually, in very many ways, he looked at me and was like, well, I'm not doing that.

So it was cool. I got to be a guinea pig for him. But yeah, after that, I became a serial monogamist. Did you feel comfortable though in the beginning of hooking up with people or beginning to get into a relationship because of your fame? I've always been quite a paranoid person about it actually. Yeah, quite a paranoid person. I can see that. I think...

I think there has, there's always a sort of level of judgment and performance that goes into that first experience that I think was compounded for me quite a bit because of my own insecurity of like public discourse and all that. Um, and I sort of dropped that after college. Okay. I got my first real girlfriend, like, I mean, I had one at 15, but, uh, that was just young love. Um,

And then my girlfriend in college, after that, I had sort of come to terms with a lot of that stuff and was far more okay. But for years, that sort of conversation around...

My recognizability made it quite hard for me to connect to people. I was never a sort of one-night-stand guy ever. Couldn't really do it. Didn't really have too many super casual partners in my life. Haven't had too many partners in my life just in general, but like not really – haven't really crossed that bridge. And when you say you're super paranoid, do you think that spans past just like relationships like in general just because of your career? Oh, yeah. I mean I think –

I think as I've gotten older, what I've really been trying to unpack is, you know, the distinction between my public and private life. You know, my public life has been a mess of showing my awkward teen years and all this sort of stuff to the world. And I think...

I think it's a total natural consequence of my upbringing to feel a little nervous about vulnerability and connection in any way, shape, or form when it came to romantic partnerships or otherwise. I like...

I was very much the product of my circumstances. Now that is not a problem literally at all anymore because I've done the work for it. But yeah, when I was younger and in college, I had a girlfriend pretty much the whole time. So we were very close. Have you ever been cheated on? Yeah, by almost every single one of my girlfriends. Hold on. Emotionally, yes. Very, very much. And my first girlfriend physically. How do you find out about the emotional cheating?

Like everyone does. Texting. Oh, yeah. Oh, cool. I will say the current relationship I am in has woke me up to what real compatibility and trust looks like in a way that I have never had before. Never had before. And I think I was also younger and stupid and not the greatest partner either. Like I was no saint.

I mean, I was going through my own fucking traumas and shit and trying to reconcile that as a young 20-something. And, you know, now this is the first relationship where I can say, damn, like, I have real trust here. Yeah, I was going to say not to put it all on you, Cole, but, like, if there's that theme of emotional cheating, I'm wondering if you've been able to find within yourself, like... Oh, totally. Were you not giving... Totally, totally. Openly. I mean, I've come to terms with my own...

inability to be emotionally vulnerable over time. Um, and I don't blame, I literally don't blame any of my partners for anything that has happened ever, ever, ever. I, I think it takes two to tango in every relationship that you're in. And anyone that points the finger at another person and blames the entirety of, of some sort of, uh, miscommunication on them is probably not doing the self work. And in that way, I will say yes. Um,

There's also, you know, I think we've convoluted a lot of the modern romantic conversation where sometimes it's just fundamental incompatibility. Sometimes you're just incompatible with someone and, you know, you're trying to fucking grease a wheel that ain't broken and it just doesn't, you know, it doesn't actually work. And it's not more complicated, so to speak. It's just two people that just don't really work. So I don't know. I don't really blame anyone for anything. I agree.

I think I was in the right place at the right time for every relationship I've ever had. If all of your exes were in this room right now, what would they say about you? That probably most of my relationships had a stronger sexual foundation than an emotional foundation, for sure. Would your current girlfriend say that? No.

Progress. Yeah, it's progress for me. I think also that's what your 20s are for. Totally. I love it. We've had a very complicated relationship to mistake now.

in 2023 but most of us forget that your 20s are pretty much almost primarily all mistakes not mistakes because that you know it shouldn't feel regretful but it's definitely a learning process we're all fucking sinful things you know all of us are stupid and fucked up and selfish and

narcissistic but also beautiful and loving and loyal and caring and and I think as you get older you kind of tease out what makes you feel better and and what doesn't make you feel better and you know I'm 30 now I it's not that I'm trying to speak from an enlightened place because I know that I'm gonna continue to fuck up in my life but like I definitely think I learned a lot from those last relationships for sure you're gonna want to light the cigarette for this one great um thank you for giving me the

You had a relationship with a castmate on Riverdale. How did you navigate a breakup with someone that you work with? Ooh, it was really hard. It was really hard for both of us. And that's okay. I think the work thing got difficult because it was hard to suspend all of the way we felt about each other. And it didn't afford us the luxury of distance to really...

overcome that. I know we both did quite a bit of damage to each other in that we're good friends now, which is awesome. We work really well together now. But I think that was exactly where we both needed to be. We were in a foreign city working a very intense schedule, 14 hours a day, oftentimes six days a week.

And we really leaned on each other while also going through the elected trauma of this incredible overnight success. A ton of criticism, a ton of expectation. And I think we did the best we could, really. I really do think we did.

And I'm very grateful in very many ways. I was able to go through it with someone who was going through the exact same set of circumstances as me. But also, in very many ways, all the cliches about dating someone you work with are very true. Do you think it lasted longer because you were working together? Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, there was a lot of pressure towards other people, really. I think if I had loved myself a little more, I probably...

probably would have left a little earlier, but I just felt like I had to take care of a lot of people around me, which was not good for me. I probably should have exercised a bit more selfishness in that situation. Yeah, that's a theme for you. I also, I think the complicated thing was I was so private.

I'm private with all my relationships. I'm private with my current relationship in very many ways. That we didn't make a big deal when we split. So afterwards, I was photographed with, as a single man, dating other women. And I think it caused people to think there was something dubious going on.

And I took a moral stance that I was never going to talk about it. It didn't need to be said. But I have realized now in hindsight that I probably should have said something almost right away. So you're saying the timeline looked a little murky of like people didn't know you broke up and then we see these pictures of you with another woman. Oh, yeah, absolutely.

And then they're like, wait, are you cheating on her? But you guys had already ended. Because I didn't think the public needed to be afforded the luxury of my own heartbreak or whatever the hell that was. But I'm realizing that that gray area created a lot of rumor and gossip that would end up affecting me and my mental health quite a bit afterwards.

Oh, really? So in an inverse way, the silence and mystery of that gray area created a fertile petri dish of bullshit that was my own mistake. Why do you think it affected you so much? Because I am a sucker for validation and I want people to think I'm a good guy, like all of us. Yep. You know, I think all of us have aspirations to be, you know,

morally stand up people and when people go hey that person's a fucking piece of shit all of us are affected by that and I don't think that's a consequence of my youth or anything any more than the next person I just think you know I have a very complicated relationship to the public which is how much I let them in and how much I don't let them in and you know I a lot of things probably should have been done differently in the past but that's who I am and it's made me who I am now so I don't really regret it too much

Why did the relationship end? I won't go into that too much, but I will say it was mutual. Can I tell you something? Please. I promised myself today that if you fucking said the word mutual, I was going to call you out because think about this. I'm speaking as a twin, so I'll oftentimes say we and mutual and other things too. No. No, please call me out. Someone had to have made the first step to end it. I left. You left. I did. Thank you. Yes, I left. But to be honest, when you're in a relationship for that long...

and someone leaves, it's not like someone's like, what? Yes. It's not a surprise. So I'm always, you know, I don't like to say like, oh, I split. It's not like, you know, Paul Simon, 50 ways to leave your lover. It's like, you get it. It was time. Yeah, it was time. And I think...

I think in very many ways, this was right before COVID. So it also gave us the space because we got locked down, you know, which I, which I think was good. But yeah, you keep calling me on my, on my mutual bullshit. Mutual. I was like that motherfucker. If he walks in here, no fucking, you want the tea. No, that's okay. I get it. I get it. Okay. How did you and your current girlfriend meet? Friends of friends, which is great. Yeah. The first time I met her, um,

She was actually in a five-year relationship. Wow. And we didn't speak again for like two years. And by the time we met again, she was single. And it was very funny because I was having a party at my house and she came through and we started talking and joking and then one or two people left and then...

two or three people left and then it was just us talking and we were just talking about relationships and life and stuff like that and it was it was a practically it was practically like a handshake agreement and honestly from that moment on we didn't stop spending every day with one another it's like it is she's my best friend we get along so well we do everything together uh the only reason i'm allowed on the show on valentine's is because she loves you so uh

I fucking love it, Cole. It's great. I'm earning major brownie points for her right now. Oh my God. You have to understand. She's like keep talking. She's going to watch this and be like... When I told her that I could be on the podcast, she was like, oh yeah. Honestly, it's been two years and some change and it's felt like a fucking week. It's felt like a week. It's incredible. Wow. It's incredible. I honestly...

I've never experienced this level of compatibility and it makes me look back on, on my youth and go, well, you really didn't know. Right. Which is, which is nuts. I mean, and as a consequence of our relationship, my life has just improved. I've, I've gotten sober. I've, I've questioned my existence in a way that, that I never have before. My, I've had my best financial years, um,

my career is doing better. It's like when, when the private sphere is locked in, everything else comes from that foundation. And it is in no small part. Thanks to her. You turned 30 last year. I did. Was it a moment of reflection for you personally? How'd you feel? I don't know. You know, when you're a kid, you don't really see anyone past 25. And I like, like everyone's 25, right? Even if they're like 60, you're like, Oh, you're 25. Yeah.

When I was young, I thought by 25, I would have it all worked out. I'd have the house and the white picket fence and the kids and the Labrador retriever and all that bullshit that we grew up believing. And my father was 27 when he had the two of us. Wow. And when I hit 30, I had some puby facial hair and some long hair pulled into a fucking hipster man bun like a total cliche, some Silver Lake cliche. And I was standing on the beach and

on the same sand that my father had stood on when he was 30, but two two three-year-old twins were running around him when he was 30. And he had the same hair and the same pubic facial hair, and we look very similar. And I said, wow, our lives are really fucking different. Really different.

I don't know if I've fully come to terms with it yet, but I feel more confident and more self-assured than I ever have before. And I think all of us have had delayed gratification with the aging process in our generation than our parents' generation. Yeah. Like they were just fucking all gas, no brakes to pretty much every fucking thing that was happening in their life. Yep. They were like, fuck it, you know, I'm 22. It's time to have six fucking kids. And you're like, damn. Whoa.

Damn. I agree. All of us now, you know, we're 30. We're like, I just got it together. I lived through two recessions and fucking all this shit that we've gone through that most of us have a kind of arrested development in very many ways that now at 30, I can say I'm breaking out of. And most of our generation is breaking out of now in our 30s. I cannot thank you enough for coming on. I feel like this was...

exciting for me because I've watched you for so long so I know so many people are going to be like oh my god I feel like I really got to know Cole today in a way that elevates everything I feel like I'm it's exciting to watch you on tv but it makes me that much more invested in your career and where you're going and I'm just so happy for you and I can't wait to see what's next and thank you thank you for coming thank you for letting me fill this studio with four cigarettes

Yeah, I have an interview tomorrow. The person's going to be like, what the fuck? What the fuck? Smells like an old lady's house in here. Thank you for coming on, Cole. Thank you for having me.