Coming just in time to close out 2020, the fourth and final part of Netflix's popular Archie Comics adaptation Chilling Adventures of Sabrina is poised to bring Sabrina Spellman (Kiernan Shipka) and her friends back to save the world from the sinister eldritch terrors. Along the way, Sabrina will have to decide if she should rekindle her romance with ex-boyfriend Nick Scratch (Gavin Leatherwood) as the fate of reality hangs in the balance.
In a roundtable interview attended by CBR, Shipka and Leatherwood discussed bringing the series to a close, changing up the stakes and type of horror on the show as well as if Sabrina should ever meet the cast of fellow Archie Comics property Riverdale.
As Sabrina and Nick face off against the eldritch terrors, one sequence in Chilling Adventures of Sabrina Part 4 has both characters directly channeling The Sound of Music to stop the supernatural evil and save the world in a song-and-dance sequence. For the actors, the scene was one that toed the line of outright camp if not executed correctly, going with the flow on the day of filming.
"When you read a scene like that on paper," Shipka explained, "you don't know what level they want; you don't know what level of demonic possession being summoned out of whilst singing Sound of Music they want. And you kind of just show up with blind faith [...] in lovely scene partner Gavin and Chance [Perdomo] [...] to really just trudge through that scene. I had so much fun, though, it was one of those times where I could channel all my tired exhaustion feelings and just apply it to a scene. [Laughs] But I had a lot of fun."
"With anything, you look for the truth in it," Leatherwood added. "With that moment, it can very easily being really goofy, but I feel like something we were able to conjure up in that scene was at least an attempt to find the truthful sincerity and what that song really means to Sabrina and kind of stepping back into that role of a partner that Nick can be for Sabrina every now and then."
In response to a question from CBR, Shipka and Leatherwood shared what they both especially wanted to bring to their characters this season, with the former wanting to emphasis Sabrina's bravery this season. For Leatherwood, it was a bit of the opposite: Chilling Adventures of Sabrina Part 3 saw Nick endure a traumatic ordeal and Leatherwood strove to bring a bit more levity back to the character in Part 4.
The talk then turned to what each would miss the most about working on Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, with both concluding that it was the big scenes that brought most of the ensemble cast together. Shipka noted the vibes on set during those group scenes were lovely and energetic, while Leatherwood agreed that the energy and chemistry getting the ensemble together really were special.
"He was totally an emotional pretzel. That's where we see him right at the start," Leatherwood observed about Nick, who start Chilling Adventures of Sabrina Part 4 fresh off the trauma he endured in the previous episodes. "With anything, you want to bring truth to the character as best as you can, or at least take a good, strong stab at that. I really just focused on some level of empathy to have with the character [...] and to sort of read the context clues from the character and what they've been through and just spent a lot of time sitting with what those kinds of experiences might do to someone's psyche in general and doing everything possible in my personal life to remain as free in the moment on the sets where certain scenes called for that kind of display of trauma or what have you. I truly think if there's anything you're sort of holding onto personally as an actor or as a human is somehow going to manifest in your character so you have to show up sort of free and ready to play. You want to be a pit bull and not a poodle."
In response, Shipka goodnaturedly pointed out poodles are one of the smartest dog breeds, with Leatherwood laughing and taking back his previous analogy. The discussion then turned to the evolution of horror over the course of the series, with Part 4 taking the terror cosmic as the stakes dramatically increase and how that's impacted the cast's performances.
"It's been fun. I feel like in the first part, we embraced camp and horror and paid homage to a lot of classical horror films and, at the end of the day, that's still the foundation of our show," Shipka explained. "But as you grow, you kind of want to do more, you want to do more than what you started with, and I think that going into a bit more of a cosmic, thrilling direction was very fitting for us. I just think it's where we landed naturally, we played around in a lot of different spaces, and I think the fact that we had the time to play around in so many different spaces is such a nice thing; we had a lot of variety and that's just a super cool thing. But that exorcism and all those Rosemary's Baby nods in the first couple episodes are still so close to my heart. This show wouldn't exist without Roberto [Aguirre-Sacasa] and his love of classical horror movies."
Chilling Adventures of Sabrina Part 3 introduced an alternate timeline doppelgänger incarnation of Sabrina Spellman in Sabrina Morningstar, a duplicate that embraced her demonic destiny and claimed the throne of Hell. Part 4 reunites the pair of identical teenage witches, with Shipka pulling double duty once again.
"It was super fun! I feel like when Sabrina split, Sabrina Spellman I wanted to remain the Sabrina Spellman we know and love, the character I love and know how to play," Shipka explained. "And Sabrina Morningstar was this interesting thing to tackle as an offshoot of Sabrina: It's who Sabrina would be in another life, and I think we all have a vision of who we would be in another life, in another position. And I kind of wanted to tap into that, to tap into some of Sabrina Spellman's traits and exacerbate them into Sabrina Morningstar. I think that Morningstar is feisty and flirty and fun, and it's so much fun implementing different mannerisms and different vocal cadences to sort of distinguish the two and playing opposite myself was quite interesting. It's not a situation you would expect to find yourself in but, alas, got to save the world somehow, got to do it!"
In response to a question from CBR about how they personally see each of their characters at the end of the road, Shipka saw Sabrina Spellman as a passionate and intensely loyal friend. For Leatherwood, Nick's character arc entirely hinged on his relationship with Sabrina.
"I feel like Nick would not be who he is without Sabrina, he's so driven by love," Leatherwood explained. "Nick is like a lantern that was never turned on until Sabrina came into his life and since she brought that light, he's sort of saw the world in a whole new way. Before, where lust was more of his driving factor -- his lust for knowledge and being the best and his lust for power and strength -- was all at the forefront until Sabrina flipped that world on its head. And as he went through it all, he discovered the power of love and how much more powerful love is than anything else."
As the conversation wound down, the inevitable talk of a planned crossover between Chilling Adventures of Sabrina and Riverdale began. While not confirming if there were any plans in place for her to reprise her role on the popular CW series, Shipka hinted that the troubled small town could use its own teenage witch to cover its string of murderous incidents.
"Honestly, I just think Riverdale could use a witch," Shipka explained. "They're going through a ton of stuff and they need some celestial whatever kind of vibes! They need a bit of extra power, they need someone who knows reincarnation, necromancy. They need that in their world, and I don't know, I just think it would be a fun, fragrant world if the two collided at some point."
Arriving Dec. 31 on Netflix, Chilling Adventures of Sabrina Part 4 stars Kiernan Shipka as Sabrina Spellman, Ross Lynch as Harvey Kinkle, Michelle Gomez as Mary Wardwell/Madam Satan, Jaz Sinclair as Rosalind Walker, Lachlan Watson as Theo Putnam, Gavin Leatherwood as Nicholas Scratch, Tati Gabrielle as Prudence Blackwood, Chance Perdomo as Ambrose Spellman, Lucy Davis as Hilda Spellman, Richard Coyle as Faustus Blackwood and Miranda Otto as Zelda Spellman.