Meet the New Sabrina Spellman of Chilling Adventures of Sabrina

Kiernan Shipka talks making the teen witch her own in the new Netflix series

By Lauren Piester Oct 22, 2018 2:00 PMTags
Watch: Kiernan Shipka Reveals How She Transformed Sabrina

There's a new teenage witch in town. 

With the debut of Chilling Adventures of Sabrina this Friday, Kiernan Shipka brings new life to the plucky half-witch from Archie Comics, a life that's very different from the one she lived in Sabrina the Teenage Witch. This new Sabrina lives in a much darker world, with much, much darker witch rules to live by and much bigger, much scarier stakes if she screws it up (which the young witch is wont to do). 

The 18 year-old Shipka, best known for playing Sally Draper on Mad Men, sat down with E! News when we visited the set of the Netflix drama and gave us a few important things to know about the youngest Spellman. 

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Meet the Cast and Characters of Chilling Adventures of Sabrina

She has never really watched Sabrina the Teenage Witch

"I actually didn't really know that much about the old Sabrina the Teenage Witch," she says. "I was a little too young for viewing when it was out, and I was sort of excited to take a crack at something that was iconic and interesting, but sort of have a completely different take on it that was new and hopefully fresh and fun and exciting, so this Sabrina is my Sabrina." 

However, she plans to watch it eventually, and isn't actively avoiding the 90s series. 

Balancing witch life and mortal life is hard. 

Sabrina is doing just fine being both a witch and a mortal, up until her 16th birthday when s--t gets real. 

"That is definitely one of the main sort of conflicts in Sabrina's life, is how exactly to manage both worlds, because for a while there, she was doing it, but then once it comes time to sign her name in the book of the beast and kind of commit herself a bit more, challenges arise." 

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Sabrina's still making some serious magical mistakes. 

Shipka may not have watched the original series, but her Sabrina is just as mistake-prone as Melissa Joan Hart's was. Her mistakes may be much bigger mistakes, however. 

"Another challenge that Sabrina goes through is learning how to use her power, and she exercises that ability quite a bit, and sometimes it turns out well and sometimes it doesn't, and that's been something that's been really truly fun to play, because it's a slew of different emotions and feelings." 

She is allergic to Salem. 

Sabrina herself isn't allergic to cats, but Shipka is, which makes filming with Salem rather difficult. 

"Salem and I have got some problems. We don't always get along on set," she says. "I'm allergic to cats, straight up. I break out in hives all over my face. At this point, I'm just sponsored by Zyrtec, but we're making it work." 

Shipka's also still hopeful for a miracle. 

"I'm hoping though that I grow out of the allergy. Like i'm really holding out hope that someday I'm gonna wake up and it's just not gonna be a thing." 

For more from Shipka, click play above, and then stay tuned all week long for more Chilling Adventures of Sabrina videos leading up to the premiere. 

Chilling Adventures of Sabrina premieres this Friday on Netflix.