Netflix’s ‘Sabrina’: First Look At Salem Revealed

With more casting announcements being released each week, the upcoming Sabrina series gets even closer to reality, with filming for the pilot reportedly kicking off last month. The new iteration of the series’ showrunner, Robert Aguirre-Sacasa, recently shared a photo of Sabrina‘s feline friend Salem.

The showrunner shared a photo of the majestic animal with the caption, “Ladies and gentlemen, meet #Greendale’s latest resident. All hail, Salem!”

Mad Men star Kiernan Shipka is taking on the role of the teen witch, with this new series being a much darker interpretation of the character than the popular sitcom from the ’90s.

An empowered young woman, half-human, half-witch, Sabrina is just beginning her dark education as a sorceress, even as she tries to maintain a normal life as a sophomore at Baxter High. Intelligent, compassionate and brave to the point of recklessness, Sabrina is all that stands between us and the forces of darkness that threaten our world.

ComicBook.com recently caught up with the actress who shared some insight on the series’ approach to the character.

“After I read the script, I became immediately obsessed with the role, with how Sabrina is portrayed and how badass the whole thing is,” Shipka confessed. “It’s going to be really dark and really cool, and have this very like macabre take on everything. I’m really pumped to be a witch. Who wouldn’t be?”

One of her first leading feature film roles came in the horror movie The Blackcoat’s Daughter, in which she and another student stay at a boarding school for winter vacation when a series of horrifying events begin to unravel. The actress clearly has a passion for embracing darker roles following her tenure on the popular AMC drama.

“I mean, I love The Crucible, and I love kind of the like dark Rosemary’s Baby vibe of things,” Shipka said. “And this is the direction that it’s going to go, which is really fun.”

Aguirre-Sacasa also created Riverdale, inspired by Archie Comics, which has became a highly-praised series and reinvention of the source material.

“I’ve really been lucky to fall into some pretty incredible things,” Shipka admitted. “I don’t know how I got this lucky, I really don’t, but certainly have been super fortunate. I always am pinching myself.”

The upcoming Sabrina series is set to debut on Netflix before the end of the year.

[H/T Twitter, WriterRAS]