Gavin Leatherwood Believes In Magic — And The Power Of A Good Face Mask

Gavin Leatherwood has habitually thought in magic. Touring nationwide as a young actor in Cathy Rigby’s stage rendition of Peter Pan, he learned card tricks and sleight of hand from a choreographer on set, and he admits he was “hell-bent” on pursuing the craft. Performing “just attempt to blow my friends’ minds,” it seems his practice paid off: because the conflicted, bad-boy warlock Nicholas Scratch in Netflix’s Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, Leatherwood proves he’s got the supernatural skills to go toe-to-hoof with the devil himself — on screen, at least.


“Nick’s character arcs are just really fun to play,” Leatherwood tells MTV News about the role, which whips between the highest highs and lowest lows all of the characters on the popular show, making it a “incredibly rewarding” part for the 25-year-old.


Between Parts 1 and 3, Nick goes from promising prodigy at the Academy of Unseen Arts; to the flirtatious, sex-positive boyfriend opposite Kiernan Shipka’s Sabrina Spellman; to a handsome holding cell for Satan. Even right after Sabrina and her crew rescue him by luring the demon into the body of their former headmaster, Father Blackwood, Nick is tormented by what mirrors legitimate, lingering trauma. It pushes him to self-medicate with bender of narcotics (dragon’s tears, to be precise) and sex: In what is maybe the season’s most provocative moment, Leatherwood plays the submissive bottom to a troupe of demonic dominatrixes. As you may expect, those tactics didn't make Nick feel better. "To seek comfort in anything other than love and connection is a waste of time," he says.


The season left fans with plenty of questions: Are Nick and Sabrina going to work it out, or does Sabrina have lingering feelings for her mortal ex Harvey? And what the hell are the “eldritch terrors” everyone’s been talking about? The crew wrapped Part 4 in February soon after 10 months of filming in Vancouver, Canada. While the release date has nevertheless to be reported, Leatherwood promises there’s a lot to look forward to — including bigger, more elaborate bad guys plus a changing connection between Nick and the weirdest sister, Prudence Blackwood.


MTV News: Where did you grow up? 


Leatherwood: I grew up in Southern California. Then we moved Whenever I was 18, I had just graduated high school, and we moved up to Oregon and we had been there for a while. I have been back and forth for a while. I even lived here in New York for several months before it chewed me up and spit me out.


MTV News: What do you mean?


Leatherwood: Just like, getting mugged while sleeping on a train, taking a nap. Sleeping on a bench for a night. It was a whole roller coaster of a thing, nevertheless an amazing learning experience. I can come back right now with a little bit more ease.


MTV News: Were there any movies or TV indicates to you grew up loving that you feel like influenced your objectives as an actor?


Leatherwood: I grew up with my older sister, and we watched Lizzie McGuire, That's So Raven, and Friends. And I remember seeing a young Leonardo DiCaprio on Titanic and feeling like, “I aspire to be that guy." Hercules was a big Disney movie that I loved. I used to sing: "I have often dreamed of a far-off place, with an excellent warm welcome." I pictured going on a journey, and the journey was acting, and the objective was to do that. It's a really surreal thing to have these last two years under my belt, or just in life, and looking back for a moment. I'm doing the thing I set out to do.


MTV News: And right now you play Nicholas Scratch on Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, right now 4 Parts in. What has been your preference thing about portraying that character?


Leatherwood: It's fun to just play all these different levels of him and continue to add more to his personality. He's completely dynamic, and I love the challenges he's faced so far. Once we first visualize him, he's this collegiate, studious student, and he's attracted to Sabrina, along with a little bit of a flirt. In Part 2, we visualize that break down a little, and his heart becomes a little bit bigger, like the Grinch. Once it grows, he gets a little bit warmer and fuzzier. Then in Part 3, shit hits the fan.


MTV News: He's had some incredibly dark moments in Part 3. How did you prepare for that?


Leatherwood: know while you think lovely thoughts to feel joyous? I did the opposite. To understand the structure of where he was coming from, what he had been going through, doing what I could to empathize with his character, and essentially putting myself in the shoes of what that could be like, and just imagining it. I did write a little about it. I feel like you do all this homework and then, any time whenever you get on set, you ball it up and chuck it away. You just attempt to play that moment as honestly and authentically as possible, which I'm still learning about how to do.


MTV News: How do you recover from that mindset and prioritize self-care?


Leatherwood: That's an enormous priority for me and should be for every actor who's doing things that are emotionally hard. It requires a lot of face masks, baths, critical oils, and good relaxing music. Some days it's mindless TV or going out with companions and dancing — just something to order kind of disrupt the pattern of what you've been doing.


MTV News: What were some of your preference moments on set while in Part 3?


Leatherwood: I really loved doing the impromptu music video. It was Luke [Cook], Kiernan, Chance [Perdomo], Sam [Corlett], and Miranda [Otto]; and Lucy [Davis], who'd a terrible fever that day. We're walking down the halls of Baxter High, and we're all dancing and being dumb. It's fun to have one-on-one scenes with Kiernan because we get to get into it, however as soon as we have those big groups, it's really, really fun.


MTV News: Are there scenes you struggle with?


Leatherwood: I feel like the simpler scenes are just something that I struggle with as an actor, because I'm attempting to do so several different things, and oftentimes it requires letting it all go and just being present in the moment, not trying anything. Getting emotional ... I don't do that in my common life, so to have the possibility as a character is really fun.


MTV News: Nick had one of the most memorable moments of Part 3 in the scene with the sex demons. What was that like, and were you intimidated? 


Leatherwood: I try not to be. On the day, I met the two actors playing the sex demons, who were lovely and cute people. Then they got ready for a number of hours and came back, and [the makeup] was a little bit intimidating, although you have got to trust each other, know what the scene is, and have fun with it. Don't take it also seriously, right? We were all laughing. There really are so several outtakes from that day. You have horns coming out of you in each direction and we're connected by chains. That's something that I don't think you really visualize in the shots that they use — is that we're all connected, by belts, on the back of me, to her neck, and to his arms, and so they were pulling me and stuff.


MTV News: At the end of Part 3, there was this opinion that there may still be something between Sabrina and Harvey. Although is there anything left between Nick and Sabrina in Part 4?


Leatherwood: he'll will constantly have that love for Sabrina, and I don't think it's going anywhere. Nevertheless Nick and Prudence had a little bit of a moment on the steps outdoor of the Academy, as well. They're connecting and communicating for what feels like for the initial time in a while. Nick's been having a lot of communication issues, especially with Sabrina, as the fate of the world rests on her shoulders and he doesn't feel like a priority. He feels like a burden. In the moment of beginning up to a longtime friend in Prudence, we're seeing a piece of him slowly come back.


MTV News: What about the “eldritch terrors” — what can we expect to be able to see from them in Part 4?


Leatherwood: We're seeing a new form of a villain. We think Satan was nasty, although we have some terrors coming that are much more cerebral, trippy, and fascinating, and we face one each and every episode during Part 4.


MTV News: What do you hope viewers will take away from watching Nick? 


Leatherwood: I would love viewers to learn from his coping mechanisms, how they were ineffective. Life inevitably throws us curve balls things happen, along with a typical way to cope with that is to seek comfort in outdoor things, like illegal substances and sex demons or what have you. It's not a legitimate way of dealing with your emotions. Truly, what Nick needed in Part 3 was connection, someone converse with. We visualize a glimmer of hope at the very end if he sits with Prudence. To seek comfort in anything other than love and connection is a waste of time.


MTV NEWS: So, don't do drugs.


Leatherwood: Don't do illegal narcotics and don't friend yourself with a sex demon, green and pink and horny — I mean that in the physical sense.