[2][3][4] He was born 15 minutes after his twin brother Dylan Sprouse[5] and was named after jazz singer and pianist Nat King Cole.

[8] Cole and his brother, Dylan, began acting at the age of eight months following a suggestion from their grandmother, Jonine Booth Wright, who was a drama teacher and actress.

[12] Some notable roles he shared with his brother include the characters of Patrick Kelly in the sitcom Grace Under Fire from 1993 to 1998, Julian in the 1999 film, Big Daddy, and young Pistachio Disguisey in 2002's The Master of Disguise.

[11][17] On February 9, 2016, Sprouse was cast as Jughead Jones in The CW's teen drama series Riverdale, based on the characters of Archie Comics.

In 2019, Sprouse starred in Five Feet Apart, a romantic drama which was released in March; he plays a cystic fibrosis patient who falls in love with a girl with the same disease.

[27] Sprouse has opened up about the dysfunctional relationship he and his brother have with their mother, claiming that the justice system had to intervene in their adolescence and give their father full custody due to her lacking the mental stability to be a parent.

[28] He has said that the entertainment industry appealed to his mother's drug addiction and narcissistic behavior, and "in very many ways encourages the worst qualities of you as a person ...

As a child actor, he received three Young Artist Award nominations for his roles in Big Daddy and The Suite Life of Zack & Cody.