For KJ Apa, clarity did not return all at once when RIVERDALE ended.
“Honestly, the first step was getting sober,” the actor said during a recent episode of the “Wildmen” podcast with actor Dylan Sprouse and writer-producer Brendan Columbus.
Apa spent years playing Archie Andrews, but once the hit series wrapped, he felt untethered. He did not know whether he liked acting anymore or even belonged in the entertainment industry.
“I just had so much cloudiness,” Apa explained. “I had so many things that I was doing that was so unhealthy that kind of bred throughout that show.”
The pressures of fame, isolation and maintaining his on-screen physique all fed the problem, he said. Apa remembered craving the validation of paparazzi attention, then feeling disgusted when he received it.
At the time of the July 21 interview, Apa said he had been sober for a year and a half. He did not list every substance covered by that statement, but he spoke openly about periods of drug use and efforts to stop smoking marijuana.
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In one sobering memory, Apa recalled that a close friend learned he had begun using drugs again and grew worried enough to confront him. He described that moment as a wake-up call.
Yet the RIVERDALE star’s struggle was not limited to substances. He said the same compulsive pattern shaped his relationship with food, including binges followed by self-induced vomiting while he worked to maintain his on-screen physique.
“Anything that makes me feel good, I will abuse,” Apa admitted. “It’s something that I’ve learned about myself.”
That recognition now forms part of his recovery. Apa said he no longer treats the addictive part of himself as something mysterious or invisible.
“I’ve identified it,” he said. “I know what it is and now I know how to talk to it.”
Apa did not explicitly connect his sobriety to faith in this conversation, but faith has surfaced in his work and public comments before. In 2020, he starred as Christian recording artist Jeremy Camp in the faith-based movie I STILL BELIEVE, which followed Camp’s love for his first wife, Melissa, through her battle with cancer.
Apa later said the performance still brought tears to his eyes because it reminded him of his younger self. He also said he believed God had anointed the project and that he had never felt prouder of his work.
Now, Apa is heading back to the big screen with JIMMY, which opens in theaters Nov. 6. The biographical drama stars Apa as beloved actor and World War II veteran Jimmy Stewart, tracing the years from Stewart’s Academy Award win through combat service and his return home for IT’S A WONDERFUL LIFE.
The transformation demanded plenty from Apa. He told USA Today that he lost weight to echo Stewart’s lanky frame and worked closely with a dialect coach to capture his unmistakable voice.
There is no tidy finish line in Apa’s account of recovery. Instead, there is honesty, the concern of good friends and a growing understanding that freedom begins by naming what has taken control — then choosing, one day at a time, not to let it rule.
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