One of Cole Sprouse's first memories is throwing sticks at rollerbladers in Central Park with Adam Sandler
The former Disney star tells Q’s Tom Power about taking baby steps — literally — into the industry
Most of Cole Sprouse's earliest memories take place on a stage or a film set. If that sounds like an exaggeration, you need to know that the 31-year-old actor, who became a teenage megastar with his twin brother Dylan on Disney's The Suite Life of Zack & Cody, has been acting since he was eight months old.
In a recent conversation with Q's Tom Power, he says he has "very spare few memories" from the sitcom Grace Under Fire, which the brothers appeared in as infants. And he doesn't remember much from the diaper commercials at all. When his consciousness really kicked in, however, was during Big Daddy.
"Some of my first memories were [of] Adam Sandler and filming in those first days," Sprouse says. That was really when I realized, 'Oh, this is a job that's pretty unique.' And I was throwing sticks at rollerbladers in Central Park, and it was just fun. It was fun for a kid to do."
His first inklings of fame happened then, too. People started calling him and his brother "Julian" (the name of their Big Daddy character) when they'd see them on the street. But that was "pre-social media," he says, which "feels like a bigger conversation."
Sprouse — who scored another hit as Jughead on Riverdale, and today, stars as the Creature in the horror comedy Lisa Frankenstein — is one of those rare stars who's managed fame on either side of the social media revolution. And despite the challenges of teenage stardom, he's grateful to have joined the industry during a relatively more simple time.
"I'm kind of a perfect example of this in terms of diaper commercials and direct-to-DVD, back of Blockbuster stuff," he says. "Those were the years that my brother and I both cut our teeth — you know, got our 10,000 hours [of] Malcolm Gladwell professionalism in — but we were able to do it in a much more anonymous way."
WATCH | Official trailer for Lisa Frankenstein:
Sprouse — who boasts 32 million followers on Instagram — even thinks he's better at his craft because he was able to learn it outside the public eye. "Now a lot of the acting that most actors my age and younger have to do when they're cutting their teeth is visible to a global stage," he says. "That creates a really interesting dilemma when trying to build the illusion of a kind of perfect career."
While actors assume the image of royalty, he says, every professional will have a "training wheel period," which is neither glamorous nor glorious. "Acting, like music, like painting, like photography, like anything else, is a trainable discipline that you can get better at over time."
The full interview with Cole Sprouse is available on our podcast, Q with Tom Power. Listen and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.
Interview with Cole Sprouse produced by Vanessa Nigro.
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