Riverdale, one of the CW's most divisive teen dramas, features lots of smooching, but star Lili Reinhart says things never got all too hot and heavy onset thanks to one specific rule.
Speaking on Josh Horowitz's Happy Sad Confused podcast (as reported by Entertainment Weekly), Reinhart revealed that, no matter how many kisses the teens of Riverdale have shared (and really, there have been quite a few kisses), there's always been some measure of restriction on the series: no kissing with tongue.
Reinhart wasn't offering up that information just for laughs, of course. She was discussing a fundamental issue with Riverdale for her as a performer: because the series is a teen drama at heart, she wasn't allowed to explore her own adulthood and maturity in the show. As she says, "You can only be so much of an adult on a CW show, because you're not even really allowed to kiss with tongue."
Riverdale is finally coming to an end, more than five years later. After countless murders, a few inexplicably superpowered Archie Comics characters, four musical episodes and more tongue-free kissing than perhaps any other show on television, the series' final season is expected to air in 2023, bringing some closure to the longest single chapter in Reinhart's career so far.
Reinhart says the end of Riverdale represents the beginning of a new period in her career -- one in which she just might have the opportunity to kiss with tongue onscreen. She plans to start taking on more adult roles, reflecting the fact that she has, in fact, gotten older since Riverdale first aired. When the series first hit the small screen, Reinhart was 20, and coming off of a run of film and television roles as a child actor. Now, she's 25, and she says she's ready to take on what she calls "roles that you have not seen me in." She took on one such role in the recent Netflix film Look Both Ways, which sees Reinhart playing a college graduate who contends with two alternate lives: one in which she becomes a mother and one in which she focuses in on her career. Look Both Ways has received middling reviews from critics, but Reinhart's performance as a woman on the cusp of true adulthood has received plenty of praise.
Riverdale is on its way out the door, but the first six seasons are streaming on Netflix. Audiences eager to see what's next for Reinhart's career can also watch Look Both Ways on the service.
Source: Happy Sad Confused via Entertainment Weekly