Why Chance Perdomo's Ambrose Spellman Can Never Be Replaced

Why Chance Perdomo's Ambrose Spellman Can Never Be Replaced

There are characters who are memorable because they are well written. There are characters who are memorable because they have great storylines. And then there are characters who become unforgettable because the acotr playing them gives them something that could have never existed on the page.

Ambrose Spellman was one of those characters.

When Chilling Adventures of Sabrina premiered in 2018, Sabrina Spellman was obviously supposed to be the center of its strange, gothic universe. She was the teenage half-witch caught between the mortal world and the Church of Night. Zelda was intimidating. Hilda was lovable. Father Blackwood was sinister. Prudence was magnetic.

And then there was Ambrose.

Within handful of episodes, Sabrina's mysterious warlock cousin living under house arrest in the Spellman Mortuary became one of the most fascinating people in Greendale.

A huge part of that was Chance Perdomo.

Perdomo didn't simply make Ambrose cool,\. He gave him contradictions. Ambrose could be mischievous without seeming cruel, seductive without becoming a caricature, ancient without seeming old, and powerful while remaining remarkably tender.

Most importantly, Perdomo made Ambrose feel alive.

That makes his death at only 27 years old even more difficult to comprehend.

Perdomo died following a motorcycle accident in March 2024. His representatives said that no other individuals were involved in the accident. His death came while his career was continuing to rise, particularly following his role as Andre Anderson in Gen V.

But for those of us who first knew him as the impeccably dressed warlock wandering around the Spellman Mortuary and affectionately calling Sabrina "cousin", Cnance Perdomo will always be Ambrose Spellman.

And I don't believe anyone else could ever truly replace im.

Ambrose Spellman Could Have Been a Completely Different Character

On paper, Ambrose sounds like exactly the kind of character who could become insufferable.

He's hundreds of years old. He's incredibly intelligent. He's sexually confident. He's mysterious. He's a powerful warlock. He practices necromancy. He has traveled extensively, studied at numerous universities, and participated in an attempted attack on the Vatican.

He's basically a walking collection of "mysterious supernatural bad boy" characteristics.

Yet Ambrose rarely feels like one.

Instead, Chance Perdomo gives an extraordinary warmth.

Ambrose frequently seems amused by the insanity happening around him.There is often a little smile hiding underneath his dialogue, as though he's already lived through enough bizarre supernatural catastrophes that Saprina accidentally summoning another one barely registers.

But when something genuinely matters, that playfulness disappears.

Suddenly Ambrose becomes serious.

Protective.

Sometimes frightened.

Sometimes angry.

And occasionally heartbreaking.

Perdomo once described what attracted him to Ambrose as the character's "duality." He saw Ambrose as an old soul inhabiting a young man's body-someone with tremendous warmth and love for his family who nevertheles carries darker, tortured pieces of his past.

That understanding is visible throughout his performance.

Ambrose never feels like one thing,

Neither good nor bad.

Neither comic releif nor tragic figure.

Neither young nor old.

He is all of them simultaneously.

Ambrose Was Literally Created with Chance Perdomo In Mind

Perhaps one of the most fascinating pieces of Ambrose's history is that Chance Perdomo originally auditioned for another resident of the Archie universe: Jughead Jones on Riverdale.

He didn't get that part. Cole Sprouse did.

But Perdomo apparently made an impression on Riverdale and Chilling Adventures of Sabrina creator Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa.

Perdomo later explained that Aguiree-Sacasa remembered him and wrote Ambrose with him in mind.

Think about that for a moment.

Ambrose Spellman as we know him exists partly because Chance Perdomo walked into an audition for an entirely different character and was memorable enough that someone thought "I need to create something for this actor."

And watching Sabrina, it makes perfect sense.

Ambrose doesn't feel like a role Chance Perdomo stepped into.

He feels like a character Chance Perdomo helped define.

He Made Centuries of History Feel Like They Were Hiding Behind His Eyes

One of my favorite things about Ambrose is the sense that he has lived an entire series we never got towatch.

Sabrina's life unfolds in front of us.

Ambrose's life largely happened before we met him.

He has traveled.

He has studied.

He has loved people.

He has lost people.

He has participated in radical political movements.

He has committed crimes.

He has accumulated knowledge Sabrina couldn't possibly possess.

And then he spent decades confined to the Spellman property.

Perdomo somehow communicated that history without Ambrose constantly announcing how old and experienced he is.

There's simply a weariness to him sometimes.

He can be sitting in the Spellman kitchen looking impossibly young while simultaneously seeming like someone who has seen far too much.

That contradiction is incredibly difficult to portray.

Perdomo understood it.

Ambrose could flirt and joke like a young man and then suddenly deliver advice with the gravity of someone who had watched generations come and go.

You believed both versions.

Then There Was the Way He Said "Cousin"

If you watched Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, you know.

"Cousin."

That one word praticcally became an Ambrose Spellman catchphrase.

And somehow Chance Perdomo could make it mean about fifteen different things.

Cousin, what have you done?

Cousin, this is an absolutely terrible idea.

Cousin, I am reluctantly going to help you with this absolutely terrible idea.

Cousin, please don't die.

Sometimes it sounded affectionate.

Sometimes exasperated.

Sometimes mischievous.

Sometimes genuinely frightened.

It was such a tiny acting choice, but it became part of Ambrose's identity.

That's charisma.

You can't manufacture it.

Ambrose and Sabrina Felt Like Real Family

One of the most beautiful elements of Perdomo's performance was his relationship with Kiernan Shipka's Sabrina.

Ambrose isn't simply Sabrina's cousin.

He's her confidant.

Her adviser.

Her partner in supernatural crime.

And occasionally the exhausted family member wondering why this teenage girl apparently wakes up e very morning and chooses chaos.

Sabrina makes some spectacularly questionable decisions throughout the series.

Ambrose knows they're questionable.

And then he helps her anyway.

That's family.

Their scenes work because underneath the spells, demons, Satanic rituals and apocalypti disasters, there is genuine affection between them.

Ambrose never needs to constantly tell Sabrina he loves her.

You know.

It's in the way he looks at her.

The way he worries about her.

The way he warns her.

And, inevitably, the way he follows her into whatever supernatual catastrophe she's created this week.

That warmth seems to have extended beyond the screen.

Following Perdomo's death, Kiernan Shipka remembered him as a uniquely creative, loving and caring person who constantly made her laugh. She described his humanity as a gift to the people around him.

Knowing that makes their chemistry as Sabrina and Ambrose poignant.

He Made Ambrose's Queerness Feel Effortless

Ambrose was also significant of the way Chiling Adventures of Sabrina presented his sexuality.

He is pansexual.

And the show doesn't treat that fact like a shocking revelation.

Ambrose simply exists.

He loves.

He desires.

He has relationships with men and women.

His sexuality is part of his identity without becoming the entirety of his identity.

Perdomo spoke about the importance of that representation while the series was airing, particularly the opportunity to portray a queer person of color whose relationships were allowed complexity rahter than being relegated to the margins of the story.

Ambrose wasn't written as a lesson.

He was a person.

A complicated, occassionally reckless, deeply loveing, sexually confident warlock who happened to be pansexual.

For a mainstream supernatural series aimed heavily at a younger auididnce that representation mattered.

Ambrose Could Be Dark Without Losing His humanity

It would have been easy to make Ambrose sinister.

His history certainly gives the writers plenty of opportunities.

This is a man who was placed under house arrest after participating in a plot against the Vatican.

He knows necromancy.

He understands violence.

He's intimately familiar with the darker corners of the supernatural world.

Yet Ambrose never feels fundamentally evil.

Perdomo himself once characterized Ambrose as having more of an open heart than a truly nefarious nature.

That's exactly what comes across onscreen.

Ambrose has darkness.

But darkness isn;t the same thing as cruelty.

That's an important distinction in a series obsessed with questions or morality.

Some of the supposedly righteous characters in Sabrina are cpaable of extraordinary cruelty.

Amrbose lives somewhere in the gray space.

And Perdomo seemed completely comfortable there.

His Relationship with Prudence Showed Another Side of Him

Then there was Prudence.

Tati Gabrielle and Chance Perdomo had tremendous chemistry, but Ambrose and Prudence were interesting for reasons beyond romance.

Both characters carry wounds.

Both are powerful.

Both have complicated relationships with authority.

Both have spent significant portions of their lives looking for belonging.

But they expres those wounds differently.

Prudence frequently turns pain into armor.

Ambrose often turns pain into humor.

Together, they expose pieces of one another that other characters rarely see.

Ambrose becomes more dangerous around Prudence.

Prudence becomes more vulnerable around Ambrose.

Their journey involving Father Blackwood particularly highlights something fundamental about Ambrose: beneath all his wit and confidence is someone who understands what it means to desperately search for family.

That vulnerability makes him more than the stylish warlock providing commentary from the sidelines.

It makes him human.

Ambrose was Funny Without Being Comic Relief

This may be one of the most underrated aspects of Chance Perdomo's performance.

Ambrose is funny.

Not sitcom funny.

Not "insert joke here" funny.

His humor comes largely from hisdelivery.

A raised eyebrow.

A pause.

A look.

The exhausted expression of a man who knows Sabrina is about to do something incredibly dangerous and has already accepted that he's somehow going to become involved.

In a show as melodramatic as Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, and I say that lovingly, that humor was necessary.

Ther series contains Satan, cannibalistic witches, demons, murder, resurrection, apocalyptic prophecies, alternate universes, eldritch terrors and seventeen catastrophes caused by Sabrina believing she can definitely handle something she absolutely cannot handle.

Someone needed to raise an eyebrow occasionally.

Ambrose did.

But the show never reduced him to comic relief.

That's the difference.

Chance Perdomo Made Ambrose Cool Without Trying To Make Him Cool

This is perhaps the simplest way I can explain his appeal.

Ambrose is just cool.

The clothes, the accent, the confidence, the intelligence, the witchcraft, the dry humor.

The fact that he can casually discuss necromancy over breakfast as though he's explaining how to make coffee.

But the character never seems desperate for the audience to notice any of those things.

That's because Perdomo possessed natural screen presence.

Whenever Ambrose enters a scene, you notice him.

Not because he's demaning attention.

Becuase you want to watch him.

That;s a quality actors either have or don't have.

Chance Perdomo had it.

He Made A Supporting Character Feel Essential

Remove Ambrose from Chilling Adventures of Sabrina and something fundamental disappears.

Zelda brings authority.

Hilda brings tenderness.

Sabrina brings reellion.

Ambrose brings balance.

he can exist comfortably between worlds in away almost nobody else can.

he understands abrina's rebellious instincts because he has them himself.

He understands Zelda's caution because he's lived long enough to know actions have consequences.

He can participate in the Spellman's madness because while simultaneously standing slightly outside it and recognizing exactly how insane everyone s behaving.

He is the bridge.

And Chance Perdomo made that role seem effortless.

Gone Too Soon

Chance Perdomo died in March 2024 at just 2 years old following a motorcycle accident.

There is something particularly heartbreaking about looking at the career of someone that young because you're not simply mourning what they accomplished.

You are mourning everything they never had the opportunity to do.

Perdomo already made an impression as Ambrose Spellman.

He earned a BAFTA nomination for his performance in the BBC film Killed By My Debt.

He went on to appear in the After films.

Then came Gen V, where he played Andre Anderson and reached another enormous universe.

His career was still unfolding.

There should have been decades more.

More characters.

More performances.

More opportunities for him to surprise us.

Instead, we're left with the work he completed.

Thankfully, Ambrose Spellman is part of it.

Chance Perdomo Will Always Be Ambrose Spellman

There are roles that can be recast.

Technically, Ambrose Spellman is one of them.

He's a fictional character.

Another adaption of Sabrina could eventually feature another Ambrose.Another actor could put on the clothes, learn the dialogue and call Sabrina "cousin."

But it wouldn't be this Ambrose.

Because Chance Perdomo didn't merely portray the character.

He became part of the character's DNA.

The mischievous smile.

The warmth.

The sadness.

The intelligence.

The effortless sexuality.

The vulnerability hiding underneth all that confidence.

The way he could make Ambrose seem simultaneously 20 something and ancient.

And yes, that wonderfully exasperated "cousin."

Those things belong to Chance Perdomo.

Chilling Adventures of Sabrina gave us a world filled with memorable witches, warlocks, demons and monsters.

But among that darkness, Chance Perdomo gave Ambrose Spellman something much more difficult to create.

A soul.

And that is why Ambrose Spellman can never be replaced.

Rest in Peace to the Deceased.