KJ Apa and Madelyn Cline Discuss Highs and Lows of Fame (Exclusive)

“You’re definitely a golden retriever,” KJ Apa tells his costar Madelyn Cline as they discuss whether they give off golden retriever or black cat energy over plates of Spanish cuisine and black coffee. 

Hours before the premiere of their Prime Video film The Map That Leads to You, the stars are having an intimate lunch with PEOPLE at Malagón in Charleston, S.C., where Cline is currently filming her hit Netflix series Outer Banks. 

As they share an arugula salad with peaches, a bone-in steak and beef cheeks, a go-to favorite of Cline’s who grew up just outside of Charleston, the two candidly discuss everything from bonding on set to life purposes. Even as they pick off each other’s plates, their chemistry is undeniable as they refer to each other by nonsensical nicknames and toss around inside jokes at the drop of a hat. 

Apa, 28, tells PEOPLE that things were instantly “easy” between them as soon as they met. “We just hit it off immediately … I mean, nothing is serious with us,” he says, with Cline, 27, quickly affirming. As they catch up on their lives since wrapping filming in Terrassa, Spain, last year, she playfully points out that she’s never seen Apa with arm hair.

He explains to me that he continuously has to shave his arms for projects to help with covering up his many tattoos, before pulling back the collar of his teal button-down shirt to reveal faded ink on his right shoulder. He’s currently in the process of getting most of his tattoos removed. 

This same playful chemistry, and several of Apa’s tattoos, are on full display as they play Jack and Heather, two strangers who form an undeniable bond while traveling across Europe in the film, which also stars Sofia Wylie, Madison Thompson, Orlando Norman and Josh Lucas. 

For millennials, the project feels adjacent to a Disney Channel crossover episode given their shared background on hit teen dramas. Both Apa and Cline had their meteoric rises to fame on shows with just as massive followings, which they later point out can come with both highs and lows. 

For Apa, who played Archie Andrews on Riverdale from 2017 to 2023, the journey ultimately led to a lot of self-growth and discovery. 

When The CW series first premiered, the New Zealand native was just 19 years old and completely new to Hollywood, scoring the coveted role after a four-month worldwide talent search. When he wrapped the series, his whole life had changed: he was 26 years old, he had over 15 million followers on social media and he was a new dad.

Apa first welcomed his son, Sasha Vai Keneti, in September 2021, alongside his then-girlfriend Clara Berry, amid filming for the show’s sixth season. In fact, he tells PEOPLE, his costar Charles Melton was in the delivery room when Berry gave birth and eventually became Sasha’s godfather. 

A year after Riverdale wrapped its seventh and final season, Apa notes he went through a major identity crisis as he said goodbye to the hit series that he spent over six years of his life on. At the time, he was also adjusting to life as a dad while going through a breakup, after splitting from Berry in early 2024. 

“When I finished that show, I went through a year of really having to regather who I was, like re-remember who I was,” he says. “I definitely had this crisis of identity with a whole lot of other things that I was going through. Being a dad, my son being one year old at the time, going through a breakup with his mom and navigating all of that while trying to pick up the pieces of who I was.” 

“But I look back and I’m so grateful for it because I asked for this life,” he continues. “I asked to be here and this is what it all comes with. And I am grateful for it and I’m glad that I went through it.” 

For Cline, who landed her breakout role as Sarah Cameron on Outer Banks in 2020, she’s going through her own transformational period right now as she films the Netflix show’s fifth and final season.

Though she notes the process has been incredibly “emotional,” she admits it feels like the right time to say goodbye, to both the show and Charleston. 

“It’s happy, sad,” Cline says about leaving behind her hometown when the series wraps. “I love Charleston. As long as my parents are here, I will probably always come back to Charleston. It is very much a part of me [but] home isn’t here anymore. I get homesick for L.A. or even New York. For me, home is where your friends are and that’s what makes me happy.” 

“So I will miss it in a way, but I think we’re all filled with such gratitude and we’re very, very happy and truly so lucky for the experience,” she explains of her and her costars’ feelings about the final season, before adding, “But I think we all kind of feel like it’s time and we’ve been playing these characters for so long. We’re all very excited to step into some different shoes.” 

Despite their shared background, Apa admits he doesn’t have any advice to give Cline as she prepares to say goodbye to the hit series that catapulted her into fame. 

“I really don’t. It’s similar, but it’s different,” he explains before giving more backstory on how the end of Riverdale affected him at the time. 

“I just think from my experience, I remembered feeling so resentful to this thing that had given me everything and I felt guilty for that,” he admits. “I think a lot of the identity crisis stuff that I was thinking about and going through at that time came from these feelings that I had that I didn’t feel were justified because I had to be grateful. And I allowed myself to just be like, ‘You know what? I don’t have to be grateful all the time. I’m allowed to be f—— pissed off.’ And people go, ‘You’re so lucky. You should be blah, blah, blah.’ I think the biggest thing for me is I had to just constantly remind myself that it was going to end because I really could not imagine an end of my life outside of that show. I really couldn’t.”

“So when it finally happened and you don’t have that call sheet every day or someone telling you where you got to be, what you got to do, you kind of have to start making decisions for yourself,” he continues. “And that’s when I really felt like my life kind of began from 17. It’s a weird one. I felt like my emotional growth was stunted as soon as I started on that show.” 

Cline points out that the high pressure of their jobs can certainly take a toll after a while. 

“We have people who are herding us all the time,” she explains. “It’s like you show up and then you get whisked over this way and that way. Sometimes it feels like we can’t make decisions for ourselves, which I know is not true, but when you have this one thing after another, there’s the schedule, and this is what you have to do, you get so used to it after a while, it feels like you’re on autopilot. And after a while, you’re so used to doing it, it does kind of become your identity. Stepping out of it now, I’m like, ‘Oh my God, who am I? What do I want?’” 

“These next couple of years will be very interesting, but also we’ll always look back upon this experience with a lot of fun and a certain fondness,” she continues. “But it’s interesting too because it has been high highs and low lows. I have experienced so much, we felt so much, and just experienced so much of the human experience. I’m eternally grateful for it. What a blessing, what a privilege.” 

Apa adds that one of the biggest lessons he’s learned from being a person in the spotlight is not to take any compliments too seriously. 

“This industry is very quick to praise you when you’re hot and then just as quick to turn its head when you’re not,” he explains. “That was also something else when I came off Riverdale, is you experienced all of this attention at a really unnatural level, and it affects you in a way where you end up looking for it in other places when you’re not getting it.” 

“I’m scared,” Cline interjects. 

“Sorry, I’ll speak for myself,” Apa continues. “It’s weird. It’s like I’m the same person I was before I started the show and then I’m on the show and suddenly all these people are paying attention to me, but I haven’t actually changed as a person. So what is the fame and what is the attention? That was something that I couldn’t quite figure out because KJ was still the same guy. And so I think now when people are complimentary about anything, I really don’t — I mean, I acknowledge it — but it doesn’t go anywhere in my soul, in my body or anything. It lands and then it gets thrown away.” 

For Cline, the biggest lesson has been that there truly is “no arrival” to making it in Hollywood. “You’re on a stair climber,” the Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery actress shares. “Sometimes it’s really tough. Sometimes it goes really fast, sometimes it’s slow. Then you catch a moment, and it’s amazing, but then you have to continue. It’s more of a journey for sure.” 

As their new film releases on Aug. 20, both actors find themselves at a crossroads in their careers. While Cline is coming off a huge summer following the release of I Know What You Did Last Summer, Apa is preparing to play Jimmy Stewart in a new biopic titled Jimmy, which begins filming in Ireland in just a few weeks.

Though he doesn’t share all the ways he’s prepping for the role, notably how he’s perfecting Stewart’s distinctive accent, Apa points out that he’s poring over archival footage of the acclaimed actor, who notably starred in hit films like Rear Window and It’s a Wonderful Life. 

“I’m really lucky because there’s hours of really well-known footage of someone, and that comes with its pros and cons,” he explains. “That comes with a huge amount of critique. And it comes with the ability for me as an actor to have so much external work to work with for the character. All of the internal stuff comes from biographies and interviews and stuff like that,” he adds, noting that he’s also conversing with Stewart’s daughter, Kelly Stewart-Harcourt, who serves as an executive producer on the upcoming film.

“I’m working with a few people who are helping me with capturing the essence,” he adds. “It’s my interpretation of Jimmy. I’m not trying to imitate who he was. Everyone has their own idea of who Jimmy is. I feel less stress or pressure when I know that my job is to interpret who I believe Jimmy was. And I think that we can all say that he was a very honorable man. He’s a patriot. He loved his country and he wanted to do good. He wanted to do something worthwhile and something that was good. I think that’s why he enlisted. He wanted to do something that was meaningful that could actually help people. That’s kind of where I’m at with that. Ideally, I’d have more time to prepare for it because it came so quickly, but I know everything happens for a reason.” 

Like the characters they play in The Map That Leads You, Apa and Cline are still mapping out their lives as they go.

That’s one part of the movie that Apa resonated with most. As his character Jack follows his grandfather’s journal throughout Spain, his character becomes introspective about the meaning of life and a person’s purpose in it. He points out that at the time of filming, he was reading the religious Hindu book Bhagavad Gita, which largely shaped his character as he had conversations with director Lasse Hallström.

“It talks about a thing called Dharma, which is like a sacred duty or your purpose on Earth,” he explains. “And I looked at that for Jack. I think a lot of the conversations that the three of us had around that informed some of the conversations that the characters were having about life, about duty, about purpose, about God or the universe. And I feel like that kind of became the beating pulse of the story.” 

“I don’t know if it’s we are heading toward our purpose. I think in every moment we are actively engaged in our purpose,” he adds. “I think the point of a lot of these conversations is that we are already here and we’re already doing it and not to think in the past or think into the future. There’s a saying of when you’re thinking too much into the future, it’s anxiety. And when you think too much in the past that you’re getting closer to depression. And the safest place for us to be is right here, right now.” 

With that thought process in mind, Apa and Cline admit they don’t create lofty “bucket list” career goals for themselves. In fact, their goals veer more personal than professional. 

“I want to spend time with my family,” Apa lists off. “I want to spend time with my son. I want to eat good food. I want to sometimes smoke a cigarette. I want to sleep in sometimes. I want to drive my car. I want to talk to my mom on the phone.” 

For Cline, who is anticipated to wrap Outer Banks filming by the end of the year, she has simpler goals in mind.

“I want to sleep,” she says. “Sleep is a big one. I’m definitely not sleeping enough. I kind of want to just f— off. I really want to f— off and turn my phone off.”

The Map That Leads to You is on Prime Video Aug. 20.