# Ambrose Spellman
**Ambrose Spellman** is a fictional warlock and one of the main characters of the Netflix series *Chilling Adventures of Sabrina* (2018–2020), created by [Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa](https://www.edgepedia.org/roberto-aguirre-sacasa) for the [Archie Comics](https://www.edgepedia.org/archie-comics) universe[1](https://bi.org/en/bi-characters/ambrose-spellman/). He is [Sabrina Spellman](https://www.edgepedia.org/sabrina-spellman)'s cousin from England, played by Chance Perdomo, and lives under a Witches Council house arrest at the Spellman family's funeral home in Greendale[1](https://bi.org/en/bi-characters/ambrose-spellman/) • [2](https://www.sceneandheardnu.com/content/2018/12/3/review-the-chilling-adventures-of-sabrina). Witty, puckish, and pansexual, he serves as one of Sabrina's partners in crime and, in the Netflix series, absorbs the sardonic commentary role that the talking cat Salem filled in earlier adaptations[3](https://riverdale.fandom.com/wiki/Ambrose_Spellman) • [4](https://www.elitedaily.com/p/is-ambrose-in-the-sabrina-comics-sabrinas-cousin-plays-a-major-role-12988244).
| Key fact | Detail |
|---|---|
| First appearance | Archie's TV Laugh-Out #1 (December 1969); the character's comic debut in a Sabrina solo series is *Sabrina, the Teenage Witch* #1 (1971), created by Frank Doyle and Dan DeCarlo[5](https://comicbooks.com/character/cousin-ambrose) |
| Screen debut | *Chilling Adventures of Sabrina*, Netflix, 2018; portrayed by Chance Perdomo[1](https://bi.org/en/bi-characters/ambrose-spellman/) • [2](https://www.sceneandheardnu.com/content/2018/12/3/review-the-chilling-adventures-of-sabrina) |
| Backstory | After his father was killed by witch hunters, he was raised by his aunt Hilda; he painted with the Surrealists, taught stage magic to Harry Houdini, and published his first poetry collection at 17[3](https://riverdale.fandom.com/wiki/Ambrose_Spellman) |
| House arrest | Confined indefinitely to Spellman Mortuary after attempting to blow up the Vatican; he refused to name his co-conspirators[4](https://www.elitedaily.com/p/is-ambrose-in-the-sabrina-comics-sabrinas-cousin-plays-a-major-role-12988244) • [1](https://bi.org/en/bi-characters/ambrose-spellman/) |
| Characterization | A necromancer described as witty, puckish, and pansexual; unashamedly pursues both men and women[3](https://riverdale.fandom.com/wiki/Ambrose_Spellman) • [1](https://bi.org/en/bi-characters/ambrose-spellman/) |
| Familiar | In the TV series his sentence forbade a familiar until Father Blackwood gave him a mouse named Leviathan; in the Chilling Adventures comics he has two cobra familiars[3](https://riverdale.fandom.com/wiki/Ambrose_Spellman) • [4](https://www.elitedaily.com/p/is-ambrose-in-the-sabrina-comics-sabrinas-cousin-plays-a-major-role-12988244) |
## Role in the Netflix series
Ambrose lives in the attic of Spellman Mortuary, the funeral home he shares with Sabrina's aunts Zelda and Hilda, and he cannot leave because of a binding spell[3](https://riverdale.fandom.com/wiki/Ambrose_Spellman). His confinement is the engine of his first-season storyline: an academic analysis of the series describes his central arc as the desire to leave the Spellman house and be free of his indefinite imprisonment, and the show depicts a depression fueled by loneliness and isolation that surfaces during the sleep demon Batibat's attack on the house[6](https://openrepository.aut.ac.nz/server/api/core/bitstreams/7c0d4cbe-4f23-47d8-ade7-1bab107163b3/content) • [3](https://riverdale.fandom.com/wiki/Ambrose_Spellman).
He acts as Sabrina's confidant and co-conspirator. In the pilot he helps her hex Principal Hawthorne with Hilda's spider familiars, and he explains to her that after the Dark Baptism a veil will fall between her and the mortal world, advising her to forget her mortal friends[7](https://riverdale.fandom.com/wiki/Ambrose_Spellman/Part_1). His romantic plots run alongside this: he has a fling with Prudence Blackwood, Sabrina's nemesis at the Academy of the Dark Arts, and he dates the warlock Luke Chalfant, whom he meets at the funeral of another warlock; the relationship with Luke allows his house arrest to be lifted[1](https://bi.org/en/bi-characters/ambrose-spellman/).
Commentary on the series has followed his arc beyond the confinement. A Blavity essay notes that although Ambrose begins the series as a disempowered warlock whose freedom is muzzled by his house arrest, his independence fully emerges as season two progresses, alongside the show's other Black protagonists[8](https://blavity.com/entertainment/a-new-black-magic-how-the-chilling-adventures-of-sabrinas-black-protagonists-get-free). A contemporary review called him "by far the best character on the show," describing him as clever and wicked, smitten with a boy met at a mortuary funeral, and desperate to reach the outside world[2](https://www.sceneandheardnu.com/content/2018/12/3/review-the-chilling-adventures-of-sabrina).
## Comics origins
The character is much older than the Netflix series. Cousin Ambrose debuted in the Archie Comics universe at the start of Sabrina's solo spotlight, appearing in *Archie's TV Laugh-Out* #1 in December 1969 and in *Sabrina, the Teenage Witch* #1 in 1971, created by the [Bronze Age](https://www.edgepedia.org/bronze-age) team of Frank Doyle and [Dan DeCarlo](https://www.edgepedia.org/dan-decarlo); the character has 124 cataloged appearances stretching to 2026, and Frank Doyle wrote 40 of those issues[5](https://comicbooks.com/character/cousin-ambrose).
The comics version differs sharply from the screen Ambrose. In the original comics he is a middle-aged man in a suit and mustache who only sporadically visits the Spellman house, with a weakness for trends and a certain pomposity but devotion to his cousin Sabrina[4](https://www.elitedaily.com/p/is-ambrose-in-the-sabrina-comics-sabrinas-cousin-plays-a-major-role-12988244) • [9](https://www.distractify.com/p/how-is-ambrose-related-to-sabrina) • [10](https://comicvine.gamespot.com/spellmans/4060-41684/). He did not appear in the 1990s live-action sitcom, where Spellman masculinity came from the cat Salem[4](https://www.elitedaily.com/p/is-ambrose-in-the-sabrina-comics-sabrinas-cousin-plays-a-major-role-12988244). For the *Chilling Adventures of Sabrina* comic books, Aguirre-Sacasa re-envisioned him as a younger, more sarcastic presence with two cobra familiars, and the Netflix series built on that version[4](https://www.elitedaily.com/p/is-ambrose-in-the-sabrina-comics-sabrinas-cousin-plays-a-major-role-12988244).
## Backstory and characterization
The show's backstory places Ambrose's origin in England. As a young warlock he lost his father to witch hunters and was raised by his aunt Hilda, moving from university to university in search of a father figure[3](https://riverdale.fandom.com/wiki/Ambrose_Spellman). His résumé before his arrest is deliberately extravagant: poetry published at 17, painting with the Surrealists, teaching stage magic to [Harry Houdini](https://www.edgepedia.org/harry-houdini), and finally falling in with [Aleister Crowley](https://www.edgepedia.org/aleister-crowley) and his followers, which led to the Vatican plot[3](https://riverdale.fandom.com/wiki/Ambrose_Spellman) • [1](https://bi.org/en/bi-characters/ambrose-spellman/).
His wit is written as armor. Bi.org's character profile observes that he is always ready with a quip and a double entendre, but that this cleverness often seems to hide depression and loneliness[1](https://bi.org/en/bi-characters/ambrose-spellman/). A queer-studies conference paper describes him as the series's most prominent queer character, a pansexual warlock whose relationship to home and the outside is central to his story[11](https://bpb-eu-w2.wpmucdn.com/campuspress.stir.ac.uk/dist/8/289/files/2020/08/QueerFearsProgrammeFinal2019.pdf).
## Crowd-sourced personality ratings
The Open-Source Psychometrics Project's Statistical "Which Character" Personality Quiz, which has collected ratings from more than 3 million volunteers, aggregates crowd-sourced adjective ratings for Ambrose Spellman on a 1-to-100 scale against a database of 2,125 characters[12](https://openpsychometrics.org/tests/characters/stats/CAS/4/). His highest-rated descriptors are friendly (93.4, rank 73), egalitarian (92.5, rank 38), high IQ (91.7, rank 167), knowledgeable (91.5, rank 76), and beautiful (91.1, rank 203)[12](https://openpsychometrics.org/tests/characters/stats/CAS/4/). Among users who self-identify with a Myers-Briggs type, ENFJ respondents report the highest average match with the character at 71.9 percent, followed by ENFP at 71.3 percent[12](https://openpsychometrics.org/tests/characters/stats/CAS/4/). Within the quiz's dataset of ten *Chilling Adventures of Sabrina* characters, Ambrose ranks third in notability at 64.6, behind Sabrina Spellman (90.9) and Zelda Spellman (71.75)[13](https://openpsychometrics.org/tests/characters/stats/CAS/).
## References
1. [Ambrose Spellman, Bi Characters (bi.org)](https://bi.org/en/bi-characters/ambrose-spellman/)
2. [Meredith Fuentes, "Review: The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina," Scene+Heard, December 3, 2018](https://www.sceneandheardnu.com/content/2018/12/3/review-the-chilling-adventures-of-sabrina)
3. ["Ambrose Spellman," Archieverse Wiki (Fandom)](https://riverdale.fandom.com/wiki/Ambrose_Spellman)
4. [Kristen Perrone, "Is Ambrose In The Sabrina Comics? Sabrina's Cousin Plays A Major Role," Elite Daily, October 26, 2018](https://www.elitedaily.com/p/is-ambrose-in-the-sabrina-comics-sabrinas-cousin-plays-a-major-role-12988244)
5. ["Cousin Ambrose," ComicBooks.com character page](https://comicbooks.com/character/cousin-ambrose)
6. ["A Teenage Gothic American Dream," AUT Open Repository thesis](https://openrepository.aut.ac.nz/server/api/core/bitstreams/7c0d4cbe-4f23-47d8-ade7-1bab107163b3/content)
7. ["Ambrose Spellman/Part 1," Archieverse Wiki (Fandom)](https://riverdale.fandom.com/wiki/Ambrose_Spellman/Part_1)
8. ["A New Black Magic: How 'The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina's Black Protagonists Get Free," Blavity, May 17, 2019](https://blavity.com/entertainment/a-new-black-magic-how-the-chilling-adventures-of-sabrinas-black-protagonists-get-free)
9. ["How Is Ambrose Related to Sabrina on 'Chilling Adventures of Sabrina'?," Distractify](https://www.distractify.com/p/how-is-ambrose-related-to-sabrina)
10. ["Spellmans (Team)," Comic Vine](https://comicvine.gamespot.com/spellmans/4060-41684/)
11. [Queer Fears programme, University of Stirling, 2019](https://bpb-eu-w2.wpmucdn.com/campuspress.stir.ac.uk/dist/8/289/files/2020/08/QueerFearsProgrammeFinal2019.pdf)
12. ["Ambrose Spellman Descriptive Personality Statistics," Open-Source Psychometrics Project](https://openpsychometrics.org/tests/characters/stats/CAS/4/)
13. ["Chilling Adventures of Sabrina characters personality data for the Statistical Quiz," Open-Source Psychometrics Project](https://openpsychometrics.org/tests/characters/stats/CAS/)
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*Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Film and television › Series and fictional screen worlds › Fictional worlds and series reference apparatus › Fictional universes, characters, and attribute reference › Individual fictional characters (comics, film, television, and novels) › Comic book characters*
*Initially written Sep 17, 2026 · Reviewed: Sep 19, 2026; Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Sep 19, 2026; Oct 25, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026*
*Copyright 2026 EdgeChat AI, a subsidiary of Biostate AI.*
License: Edgepedia Community License 1.0, https://www.edgepedia.org/edgepedia/license