will feature a time jump several years into the future. Ahead of Wednesday's premiere, star KJ Apa opened up about the experience of playing an older version of his character. Get push notifications with news, features and more. + Follow Following The 23-year-old actor, who plays Archie on the CW teen drama, told Entertainment Weekly that it's been "refreshing" to play a character who is closer to him in age. "It's nice, honestly, it's really refreshing," he said. "Coming back to the season, that was something that I didn't realize it'd be nice to be able to play, to add that certain level of maturity to the character that wasn't necessarily there before."