By
Anna Jube
Photography by
David Cortes
Styling by
Sean Knight

Grooming by Saisha Beecham at Cloutier Remix.

CHANCE PERDOMO ASKS HIMSELF TOUGH QUESTIONS


Chance Perdomo is energetic. If the characters he plays—his latest as Sabrina’s cousin Ambrose in Netflix’s The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina—are too, it’s because they are where he channels that energy, and it shows. Perdomo was born in Los Angeles, from where he is calling on a Sunday afternoon spent with his family. The young actor has a lot to say—about his latest role, his upbringing, his career. In regards to the latter, he launches almost immediately into an analogy. “Imagine a puddle of coins,” he says. “Every aspect of a personality is a coin with heads and tails. When you have a lot of energy, it’s a tornado on one end. What you get on the other end is a toss-up.” For him, this “tornado” meant that acting started as an outlet and turned into a trajectory for potential success. “I have a lot of energy,” he explains. “I used to get into trouble a lot when I was younger. When I discovered acting I was able to focus my energy obsessively, actually. My grades kicked up. My social skills kicked up.”

After moving to Southampton in England as a toddler with his mother, he went to Redbridge Community School before attending Peter Symonds College in Winchester. He’d planned to start his law degree after Symonds, but instead, while working in a shoe shop for cash during school, he found a community of actors and theater groups. “I decided to take a leap of faith and become an actor,” he says. After moving to London, he found the National Youth Theatre, got discovered, and started auditioning for about a year and a half without a role. Finally, he joined the Identity School of Acting in London and “things kicked off.” Sabrina marks his first American production.

Coat by Calvin Klein 205W39NYC from Barneys New York. Sweater by Dries Van Noten from Barneys New York. Trousers by Maison Margiela from Barneys New York. Hat by Yohji Yamamoto from Barneys New York.

While recalling the beloved Nineties show with a heroine of the same name, the new Sabrina is a bit darker than your average family-friendly teenage witch television series. Created by Riverdale’s Greg Berlanti, the story follows Kiernan Shipka as Sabrina, a young witch whose heritage is wholly, unapologetically Satanist. The strong-willed sixteen-year-old (a true millennial heroine) finds herself caught between the world of her family and her humanity—the world she shares with her friends and her boyfriend, played by Ross Lynch. Perdomo portrays Sabrina’s 170-year-old cousin Ambrose in his 22-year-old body. Housebound for a crime he committed more than a hundred years ago, Ambrose is an enigma: Almost nothing is revealed about him from the start of the show. He is a little mischievous, but more tender than he probably appears, and offers his advice as often as Sabrina needs it (and which she rarely takes).

All this plays out alongside subtler issues, like Ambrose’s pansexual identity, which—apart from one male love interest and participation in an all-night orgy—isn’t discussed or enhanced in the narrative. It’s simply wrapped up in the motives that drive him. “The fact that [Ambrose] is a person of color and pansexual is a narrative that hasn’t necessarily been explored,” Perdomo explains. “It very much moves the story and drives him to do what he does, without being a buzzword or focal point. Why waste time sitting there explaining [his sexuality] word for word? You’re in that world as it is.” According to Perdomo, what ultimately matters to Ambrose is his family. He’s vital to Sabrina in this way. Sometime during the second season, he promises more revelation into his character: “It’s going to reach a fever pitch at some point.”

Left: Top by Balenciaga from Barneys New York. Trousers by Maison Margiela. Hat by Yohji Yamamoto from Barneys New York.Right: Vintage t-shirt, stylist's own. Trousers by Maison Margiela. Sneakers by Nike.

As Sabrina gets closer to being forced to actually choose between her humanity and her place in the world of magic, Ambrose’s own past and inner demons begin to unfold. But by the end of the first season’s finale, viewers are still not sure they know anything about him—except that there is more than meets the eye. “There is a lot of material in Ambrose’s past,” Perdomo says. “It doesn’t lend itself well to give it all away. He’s quite a tortured soul actually—he’s been through a hell of a lot.”

Prior to Sabrina was a based-on-a-true-story role that showcased Perdomo’s fervent desire to do a character justice: his portrayal of Jerome Rogers in this spring’s BBC Three film Killed by My Debt. Set in England, Killed by My Debt follows Jerome as he tries and fails to pay off a driving violation charge. Unpaid, the charges accumulate until his vehicle, his only means for making what little money he can, is impounded. With no way out, he ends his own life. “Jerome Rogers, God rest his soul, actually lived,” Perdomo says. “There is a bit of a dramatic or artistic license to be taken with any role, but that said, I studied speech patterns, I frequented spots he liked to hang out in, I went to the location he was found. I tried to immerse myself in Jerome’s world as much as I could to understand how he lived and who he was.” And with a performance on Perdomo’s part that even Rogers’s family approved of, the film spurred ongoing conversation in the United Kingdom over such severity in the country’s penal system surrounding debt, triggering outrage and activism in some for whom it hit close to home. For Perdomo, the role was gratifying: “Playing someone who is and was real, it’s definitely a mad level of pressure, but provided you focus on the work and not on the peripherals, you’ll be able to do more than you thought otherwise.”

Coat by Maison Margiela from Barneys New York. Sweater by Sies Marjan from Barneys New York.

Perdomo’s ability to focus on the work comes from his time at the Identity School of Acting. There, “they focused on a ‘know thyself’ philosophy,” he explains, “finding who you are, knowing who you are, so you can stand aside and bring the character forward.” If he does ever get stuck in his head, he has a formula that works. “There is a certain song I’ll listen to on repeat, a beautiful classical piece,” he says. “It was from a movie I’d seen and it was one of the most beautiful things I ever heard. It calmed me down and I kept listening to it. I was like, ‘Holy shit, it works.’”

For Perdomo, this is all about more than simply acting well. With a rare magnetic quality and an innate ability to captivate, he says it comes down to three driving factors. “One,” he asks, “am I serving the character?” He looks for what it is that moves them—their universal emotions. “If you can understand what drives your character, your audience can too.” Then he asks whether or not he’s serving the story and, last, whether or not his character is serving the story. He believes that with at least two out of these three things, he’ll always be achieving something more than just filling the role. The result is a strong personal identity, combined with a humble awareness of the fact that he was lucky to find an outlet for his pent-up, boyish energy. “If a kid in the United States has a lot of energy, he’s put on medication and told to sit down. But I very much believe…” He pauses. “If you’re able to find what that child really loves, he’ll probably make a very good living out of doing that and have a very different life than what he’d have otherwise. I’m very grateful it worked out that way for me.”

The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina is now streaming.

All clothing by Maison Margiela from Barneys New York.





By
Anna Jube
Photography by
David Cortes
Styling by
Sean Knight

Grooming by Saisha Beecham at Cloutier Remix.

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