‘Riverdale’: Casey Cott Previews Kevin’s “Explosion” In The ‘Hedwig’ Musical Episode

For most of Season 4 of The CW’s Riverdale, Casey Cott’s Kevin Keller has been standing on the sidelines, still reeling from falling in with an evil cult in Season 3. But as of this week’s new episode, “Chapter Seventy-Four: Wicked Little Town,” he’ll be taking center stage — literally. A now yearly tradition, Riverdale is once again tackling a musical episode, with Kevin in the lead; though this year’s pick, Hedwig and the Angry Inch, is anything but traditional.

“I had seen it on Broadway, there was a revival a couple years ago, and then I had seen the movie, and I was definitely familiar with some of the music,” Cott told Decider about discovering the show would be adapting Hedwig. “I gave myself a quick refresher, listened to it, had an idea what I wanted to and then shot that to [showrunner] Roberto [Aguirre-Sacasa] after he asked… It was pretty quick. I was really excited when I heard we were doing it, it was a really unique opportunity, so I was pumped.”

Cott is referring to Aguirre-Sacasa texting to ask his requests for songs, as we discovered when we talked to the showrunner, as well as episode writer Tessa Leigh Williams about the making of the Riverdale/Hedwig musical episode. Cott’s two requests? “Tear Me Down” and “Wig in a Box,” both of which appear in the episode. However, there’s a bit of catch to those requests: both require, at least in part, transforming into Hedwig herself.

A little side-bar here about Hedwig (which is currently available to stream, at least the movie version). Originally performed Off-Broadway in 1998, with music and lyrics by Stephen Trask and a book by John Cameron Mitchell, the story follows an East German rock star named Hedwig, who got a botched back alley sex change operation years earlier that left her with the “angry inch” of the title. And becoming Hedwig involves prodigious amounts of drag.

“It was pretty crazy because usually my hair and makeup takes like 30 minutes or so,” Cott said, “but this took about two and a half hours.”

Happily, Cott also noted that the extra time to prepare allowed him to “focus” on the numbers they were about to perform, as well as review the complex choreography in his head. “The second I put [on the Hedwig costume] I was transported to a new human being. But also, we have an incredible team that work on these episodes and help get little movements here and there, or little positions here and there. My hat’s off to the crew because they make everything a lot easier for me.”

And that’s great for Cott, but the episode itself isn’t easy for Kevin. “There’s been this build-up of Kevin being pushed down, pun intended, of him just being torn down over and over and over again, and being tossed from friend to friend or situation to situation,” Cott said. “And finally, he has a show that he feels passionate about that he wants to do for his variety show, and the principal looks at him and says, ‘Everyone is great, everybody can do what they want to do except for you, yours is inappropriate.’ And that explodes into, ‘I’m so sick of this. This is not how it’s gonna be, and I’m gonna show you that this is why it’s okay.’ So it’s this explosion, a declaration from Kevin that he’s not gonna deal with people talking to him like this anymore.”

You can watch the scene in question where Kevin confronts Mr. Honey (Kerr Smith) for yourself, below. And head back to Decider right after the episode for much more spoiler heavy talk with Cott.

Riverdale airs Wednesdays at 8/7c on The CW.

Where to watch Riverdale