KJ Apa was fortunately unscathed after crashing his car in late September, but he says he learned his lesson.
The “Riverdale” star opened up about falling asleep behind the wheel in a new interview with Esquire. “That was just a one-off accident, and it was a mistake on my part,” Apa admitted. “I should have pulled over and gone to sleep instead of battling my way home. But I learned from it. It was a blessing in disguise.”
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“I came out unscathed, and I thank God that I’m okay—it could have been a lot worse,” the 20-year-old actor continued. “The schedule didn’t change. It’s still a requirement for the actors to drive to work, which is fair enough.”
Apa was thankful of the hard work the “Riverdale” crew do. “The crew works longer than we do, and they have to drive back and forth to work every day,” he stated. “It puts things in perspective for actors on other shows; when you’re driving home, you’ve got to be mindful and make sure your mind’s right and that you’re not tired. I was really lucky the production was there for me and helped me the whole way, which made me feel looked after.”
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The breakout actor also talked about the intense physical training he has to keep up for his many, many shirtless scenes. “I have to maintain a pretty tight physique, being shirtless pretty much every episode,” he explained.
“I try to get to the gym every day. It takes a lot of stress out of stuff. It’s a long season,” Apa added. “We’re doing 22 episodes in Season Two, and we’re about halfway through now. It’s crazy to think that right now last year we were finished. To think that we have 11 more episodes is a lot and overwhelming.”