Melissa Joan Hart Says She ‘Wouldn’t Want to Touch’ a Sabrina Revival: ‘It Ended Perfectly’

In October, Netflix will debut The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, a darker adaption of the Archie comic from the team behind Riverdale. Kiernan Shikpa stars as Sabrina Spellman, and Melissa Joan Hart — who played the beloved character in ABC’s Sabrina the Teenage Witch — appreciates that the streaming service will take a different approach.

“I think it’s smart that they’re doing a completely different version because it kind of was the perfect sendoff,” Hart tells PEOPLE in this week’s issue (on stands Friday( of her sitcom’s 2003 finale. “There’s no way to improve on that. You’re only going to be disappointed.”

Because of that, the actress, 42, says, “I’m glad they’re not doing a reboot of Sabrina. I don’t think there’s a better way to end that show than the way we did with her riding off with Harvey on a motorcycle to the No Doubt song. I think it’s so perfect that I wouldn’t want to touch it with anything.”

Hart (left) as Sabrina; Shipa as the witch in the Netflix show.
Hart (left) as Sabrina; Shipa as the witch in the Netflix show.

But Hart is game for revisiting one of her other early roles.

“A Clarissa reboot, that’s the right one to do, because that’s the one that maybe there’s some questions about,” she says of Clarissa Explains It All. “Maybe we can pick up where we left off and see what happened to them.”

Nickelodeon greenlit the series’ return back in March, but details remain murky.

RELATED VIDEO: ‘Riverdale’ Spinoff Focused On Sabrina The Teenage Witch In Development At The CW

“The contracts have been negotiated over and over again for years,” Hart explains. “The original showrunner is involved, but there’s nothing happening yet. It’s really, really preliminary talks about what can happen. I’m kind of in a holding to see if it’s going to happen or not.”

If everything works out, Hart knows some aspiring actors who’d want to come on board: her sons Mason, 12, Braydon, 10, and Tucker, 5, with her husband, musician Mark Wilkerson.

“Now that they know there might be a Clarissa thing happening they’re like, ‘Do I get to play your son?’ They’re kind of fighting over that,” the Long Island native says. “I’m like, ‘No, you don’t actually act!’ ”

Hart with talking cat Salem, voice by Nick Bakay, in 1997.
Hart with talking cat Salem, voice by Nick Bakay, in 1997.

In the meantime, Hart keeps busy by taking on parts she’s passionate about, producing, directing and fulfilling her favorite role — mom.

  • For more on Melissa Joan Hart, pick up the latest issue of PEOPLE, on stands Friday

“I like that I’m in a place now where I can pick up a series here and there, direct, produce, and still live a suburban life being a soccer mom,” says the star of God’s Not Dead 2(available now as part of the trilogy’s DVD three-pack). “I want to be Betty White. I want to be Glenn Close. I want to keep working through the decades, but I also really just want to be a mom. I have that duality, which is all I ever really wanted.”