Fun
Frisky
Nostalgic
Intense
Adventurous
Choked Up
Curious
Romantic
Weird
The American drinking age can be an adjustment for young foreigners, and K.J. Apa is no exception. Apa was born and raised in Auckland, New Zealand, where the drinking age is 18, but moved to the U.S. (where the drinking age is 21) in 2016 to begin filming the CW drama, Riverdale. In other words, Apa was working professionally in American television for two years without being legally allowed to partake in professional drinks with his coworkers, which surely must have been frustrating. But according to The Last Summer director William Bindley, who recently chatted with Decider about putting his young cast together, Apa had a trick he would sometimes turn to in order to sneak into bars, anyhow.
While filming The Last Summer, a teen rom-com about a group of recent high school graduates finding their place in the world, Apa did finally turn 21. But the young actor still had about a week to go when Bindley brought Apa and The Fosters‘s Maia Mitchell, who plays Apa’s love interest, out to production a few days early to run lines. Bindley wanted to take everyone out for beers, which was no problem for Mitchell, who is four years older than Apa. But that was not the case for Apa.
“K.J. was like, 10 days from being 21,” Bindley said. But according to the director, the Riverdale star had a plan that had worked for him in the past. “He was like, ‘Don’t worry about it, my license is from New Zealand, and people can never read it, so they’ll let me in.'”
Unfortunately, the New Zealand license failed to fool the bartender this time around. “It didn’t work at all,” Bindley said with a laugh. Ah, well. Luckily, the two stars did get to hang out, regardless of whether or not alcohol was involved.
“You really have no idea whether two actors will have chemistry,” Bindley said, but, “immediately they were bantering back and forth and ad-libbing. They really connected.”
Bindley also assures Apa fans that, bar shenanigans aside, the star is “very mature for his age.” Oh, and he also might have stolen his American accent from Matt Damon. “I kept saying to him how he sounds like someone when he does an American accent. Then he went on some spiel from Good Will Hunting. I was like “OK, I see how he does that!’”
