Who plays hiram lodge

Mark Consuelos’ Hiram Lodge will terrorize “Riverdale” no more, as Wednesday’s Season 5 finale marked the actor’s — and his character’s — exit from The CW show, the broadcast network confirmed to TheWrap.

Consuelos had been playing the series regular role of the villainous Hiram Lodge, the father of Camila Mendes’ Veronica Lodge, for four seasons. Hiram first appeared in the Season 2 premiere of The CW series, having been imprisoned during the first season, when his then-wife Hermione Lodge (Marisol Nichols) and daughter Veronica moved to Riverdale.

Consuelos’ exit from “Riverdale” comes at the end of the show’s first season following a seven-year time skip that jumped over the post-high school years for lead characters Archie (KJ Apa), Betty (Lili Reinhart), Veronica, Jughead (Cole Sprouse), Cheryl (Madelaine Petsch) and Toni (Vanessa Morgan).

Hiram left the show by literally being exiled from Riverdale, something “Riverdale” showrunner Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa said was planned so that there is a chance Consuelos could one day return to the show in some form.

“The other thing we considered was killing Hiram off. And we had fun imagining the ways that might happen,” Aguirre-Sacasa said in an interview with Deadline Wednesday. “The two versions of Hiram’s death we were seriously entertaining late into the breaking of the episode were that Archie would take Hiram into the woods…and only Archie would come back, like something out of ‘The Sopranos.’ And the strong implication (never confirmed) would be that Archie had murdered Hiram and buried his body somewhere in Swedlow Swamp. The other thing we talked about is that Veronica and Archie would take Hiram to one of his construction sites and entomb him in wet cement in the building’s foundation. In the end, though, our love of Mark Consuelos and our hope that he’ll always be a part of ‘Riverdale’ won out…by a very narrow margin.”

Earlier during Season 5, an entire episode was dedicated to exploring Hiram’s backstory and what turned him into the coldhearted mogul he is today. In that installment, titled “Citizen Lodge,” Mark Consuelos’ real-life son, Michael Consuelos, played the role of Teen Hiram, a part he originated in a previous flashback episode.

Prior to Season 5, Consuelos’ co-stars Nichols and Skeet Ulrich — who played Hiram’s ex-wife Hermione and Jughead’s father, F.P. Jones, respectively — both announced they were exiting the show as series regulars, though they have since reprised their roles in guest appearances.

“Riverdale” will return with its sixth season Nov. 16 on The CW.

Riverdale has recently aired another of its flashback episodes, with the cast yet again getting to play the younger versions of their off-screen parents.

In "Chapter Eighty-Eight: Citizen Lodge," streaming now on The CW in the U.S. and Netflix around the world, we learn the story of how Hiram Lodge (usually played by Mark Consuelos) went from a humble shoeshine boy to the big bad of Riverdale Season 5.

Many fans will have noted that the casting of young Hiram Lodge was almost uncanny. Here's why young Hiram Lodge looks so much like the older version.

Young Hiram Lodge on Riverdale is played by Michael Consuelos

That name might be unfamiliar to many viewers of the Archie Comics series. After all the actor has only appeared in one short film (The Bensonhurst Spelling Bee in 2012) and provided voices for kids shows Go, Diego! Go! and Duck Dodgers.

What might be more familiar, however, is the actor's surname. The reason young Hiram is the spitting image of the older one is is because Michael Consuelos is the eldest son of Mark Consuelos.

The 24-year old actor is the first of three children that the elder Consuelos had with wife Kelly Ripa. Their second child Lola was born in 2001, while Joaquin was born in 2003.

Michael Consuelos previously played the younger version of his dad in another Riverdale episode. In 2018, he starred in Season 3 episode "The Midnight Club."

Riverdale has become somewhat of a family affair for the Ripa-Consuelos family. In 2019, Kelly Ripa also cameoed on The CW show as Mrs. Mulwray, the mistress of Hiram.

In the lead-up to "Citizen Lodge" airing, Michael Consuelos posted a picture of him and his father on set on Instagram, captioning it, "Dad telling me to go home and change before anyone notices we're pretty much matching."

Asked by Decider how he got into his father's role, the young actor said: "I worked on my voice. That was a big thing for me, speaking with confidence, because Hiram, even as an unsure, young guy, he's very firm. He stands for what he believes in and he makes you believe what he's talking about. I needed to work on that.

"I threw my dad in there, but tried to make it my own just to show that Hiram isn't exactly the same guy. He became who he is. He's kind of Archie-ish, I think, in the beginning. Kind of like the boy next door, nice guy type. He's Archie if he went down a really dark path."

Michael Consuelos is not the only Michael set to play his father's gangster character on screen this year. This episode comes out a few months before James Gandolfini's son Michael Gandolfini appears in The Sopranos prequel movie The Many Saints of Newark as a young Tony Soprano.

Riverdale airs Wednesdays at 8 p.m. ET / 7 p.m. CT on The CW and Thursdays on Netflix.

Mark Consuelos' time on Riverdale as a series regular has come to an end, PEOPLE has confirmed.

The 50-year-old actor has played Hiram Lodge, the villainous father to ​​Camila Mendes' Veronica Lodge, on seasons 2 through 5 of the popular CW teen drama.

Executive producer and showrunner Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa announced his exit in a statement shared with PEOPLE. Deadline was first to report the news on Wednesday, ahead of Riverdale's season 5 finale, titled, "Riverdale: RIP."

"So tonight's episode is Mark's swan song playing our hunky villain Hiram Lodge on Riverdale after four insane, glorious years," Aguirre-Sacasa said in the statement. "From the moment Mark joined us, he was up for literally anything, a hundred percent committed to making Archie's life a living hell."

He continued, "And what's funny is, Mark couldn't be more different from Hiram. A classy pro and the sweetest guy, always looking out for everyone. We wish Mark the best and hope this isn't the last we've seen of Hiram Lodge."

Consuelos also bid farewell to his character in a statement of his own.

"First and foremost, I would like to thank Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa for this incredible opportunity," he said. "Never before has playing a character that was so bad, felt so good. Huge thanks to the Riverdale fandom, to the brilliant crew and amazing cast, whom I consider dear friends and family."

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Conseulos' time on Riverdale has been a family affair — his eldest son Michael, 24, has made several appearances on the series playing a younger version of Hiram Lodge, first in 2018 and again this past August.

"Tonight I have the great honor of sharing the screen with my son @michael.consuelos and the always brilliant @melton they absolutely killed it," Consuelos captioned a series of photos of him and Michael ahead of the August episode.

He added a special shoutout to Aguirre-Sacasa "for giving me and my family a memory that will last a lifetime. #riverdale"

Michael, whom Consuelos shares with wife Kelly Ripa, also teased his recent Riverdale appearance in an Instagram post of his own. In the photo, the young adult looked like his dad's twin, wearing a black suit with a tie and reading glasses on the set of the show.

"Son? Is that you??" Ripa, 51, joked in the comments.

Consuelos and Ripa, who tied the knot in 1996, also share daughter Lola, 20, and son Joaquin, 18.