‘A lot of the demons seem a little cheesy now’: Sarah Michelle Gellar on Buffy, her burnout and her comeback.
Shaken by the death of her sitcom co-star Robin Williams, the actor put her career on hold for the best part of a decade. Now she’s back battling supernatural beings in Wolf Pack – but will she ever revive the Slayer
When Sarah Michelle Gellar was sent the script for a new supernatural teen drama, her first instinct was to led the dead lie. “I was like, ‘I’m not reading it,'” she says firmly. “Werewolves? No, thank you – been there, done that.”
After all, 20 years after Gellar laid down her stakes and scythe, audiences are still obsessing over Buffy the Vampire Slayer. The TV show, which ran for seven seasons from 1997 to 2003, inspired by an academic discipline, with journals, conferences and scholars known as “Buffyologists”. Now, the #buffy hashtag has nearly 400m views on TikTok, as younger generations connect with “the chosen one”, Buffy Summers The other characters, too – father figure Rupert Giles, Willow the lesbian witch, platonic best friend Xander – have left an outsized mark.
The series’ enduing appeal feels “amazing”, says Gellar. “As an actor, you hope you do something that holds up, that people still watch and that still means something to them.”
But, while Buffy’s following has grown since the finale, Gellar herself has opted to avoid the limelight since a string of high-profile roles (I Know What You Did Last Summer, Scream 2, Cruel Intentions, Scooby Doo, The Grudge) around the millenium.
For most of the past decade she was on a career break, prioritising family life with her husband of 20 years (and 00s co-star) Freddie Prinze Jr and their child Charlotte and Rocky (born 2009 and 2012). On Instagram she presents herself to her 4 millions followers as a homebody and a hands-on mum.
Now, however, Gellar is getting back to work. Last year she had a small but well-received part in Netflix’s teen comedy Do Revenge, her first film role since 2009 and a homage to her part in 1999’s Cruel Intentions; today she is in the new Paramount+ series Wolf Pack, playing an arson investigator on the trail of supernatural forces. .
Does it feel as if she’s making a comeback, I ask her. “It does,” she says, her face lighting up. “Its such an interesting time for me.”
This morning in Los Angeles, Gellar, 45, is holes up in her home study, escaping the chaos of the school run. Behind her are bookshelves bearing an MTV people’s choice award, an autographed copy of the programme for Hamilton and many books – among them first editions, which she collects.
She had just started thinking about returning to work when the pandemic struck. Since then, she says, it has been “about waiting for the right thing”. Alongside director Jennifer Kaytim Robinson, Gellar developed her part in Do Revenge to be a “first step back – to make sure that this is really what I want, and that my family can handle it.” Charlotte tagged along for the shoot, helping out and learning behind the scenes.
Her role was well received, and reminded Gellar how much she loved acting “The next step was to do something in the other genre that has been so good to me,” she says: teens battling bloodthirsty beings.
What won her over to Wolf Pack was the script, she says, by Teen Wolf (and Criminal Minds) creator Jeff Davis. “Jeff wasn’t looking for ‘SMG’ to be part of a werewolf show,” she says. “He was looking to modernise the tale, and deal with what we’re all facing now.”
On top of werewolves, the show’s teenage characters struggle with social media, anxiety and the threat of California wildfires: issues that strike close to home for Gellar (the latter literally – in the 2019 blaze, she and her family were evacuated from their house for a week).
“Buffy dealt with the horrors of adolescence,” she says. “Our monsters, the scary part, is the manifestation of the mental health criss we’re facing, the isolation and then, on a lesser note, what we’re doing to our planet.”
That ambition and complexity are what ensured Buffy’s staying power, Gellar believes. On top of its formal experimentation (there was one singing-and-dancing episode, and another without dialogue), the show stood out for its feminist slant and its thoughtful interpretation of themes such as sexuality and grief.
“A lot of the demons are a little cheesy now, because of how far graphics have come – but it doesn’t change how the story makes you feel.”
For all its similarities to Buffy, Wolf Pack has one key difference: this time Gellar is in a position of influence, as an executive producer as well as the lead.
The title can be almost meaningless, a way to sweeten the deal for a star, but Gellar says she told Davis: “I’ve been doing this for 40 years. I have a lot of experience, and I have a lot to bring to the table. If you’re just looking for an actor that just wants to have the credit, I’m not your person. I’m going to have ideas, and I’m going to have to be vocal about them.”
A born-and-bred New Yorker, the only child of a nursery school teacher and a garment worker, Gellar has been acting since she was five, when an agent spotted her at a restaurant. In 1981, she made her small-screen debut – in a Burger King advertisement in which she criticised McDonald’s, leading to a lifelong ban. She laughs when I ask whether the ban is still in place: “Honestly, I wouldn’t know.”
When Gellar was seven, her parents divorced. (She later became estranged from her father, and remained so until his death in 2001.) raised in Manhattan by her mother, for a time she attended a private school on a partial scholarship, where she was bullied for her lesser privilege. A self-described “nerd”, she continued to earn good grades even as acting took over her life.
She moved to the west coast aged 16, weeks after graduating from a New York high school for child actors. At 17, she shot the pilot for Buffy. “I was young,” she says. “I remember, in the first season, people would got to a bar after work, and I was years away from going to a bar – which did also help with my being able to just focus on the amount of work.”
Gellar has often spoken of the pressure she was under to carry the series, working all week with no outside life. Today she shrugs it off. “Twenty-two episodes burn everybody out, not just the writers… Now we live in a world where TV can be eight to 10 episodes, and not murder.”
Buffy’s success was also a double-edged sword, forcing Gellar to turn down roles in some of the oos’ defining films: Fight Club, American Beauty, The Wedding Planner, Gangs of New York. She says she is not troubled by what might have been: “I also made a great television show.” Nor does she resent her lost childhood. “My mom was a single mother, working just above the poverty line, and I got to travel the world, to see and do things that would never have been afforded to me.” Besides, she adds, she is a workhorse by nature. “I love what I do – which is work, work, work.”
You can still burn out, I say. “And I did.”
That turning point came in 2014, with the death of Robin Williams, Gellar’s co-star on the sitcom The Crazy Ones. It had been William’s first regular TV role since Mork & Mindy; Gellar, a fan, had lobbied to play his on-screen daughter. Reviews praised the leads’ chemistry and warmth.
“When we lost Robin, it was this whole reset for me: ‘Everything’s going by really fast, and I’m missing it,'” says Gellar. “When I did the pilot for The Crazy Ones, my son was two months old – it was nonstop, and I needed to be at home for a while.”
She knew taking a break was risky: “Your job may not always be there. You can be surpassed by other people; interests change.” But she had already started to find herself in a limbo. “When you are mid-to late 30s in this business, and you look young like I do, you’re not getting the meaty wife or mother roles, because you don’t look old enough – but you’re too old for the ingenue. It’s a weird position to be in.”
Superhero movies, too, swallowed those off-kilter but broadly appealing roles that Gellar had shone in. “Genre is where women can really succeed and hold an audience,” she says. “Every time a Marvel movie tries to a female cast, it just gets torn apart … Unfortunately, audiences weren’t as accepting. There’s still this mentality of ‘the male superhero’, this very backwards way of thinking.”
It’s not just audiences that have been hostile to women, but sets. In recent years, Buffy the Vampire Slayer has attracted controversy, with showrunner Joss Whedon accused of misogynistic behaviour behind the scenes.
Since the actors Ray Fisher and Gal Gado talked in 2021 about their negative experiences with Whedon during the making of DC film Justice League, some of Gellar’s co-stars have shared their stories. Charisma Carpenter, who played Cordelia Chase in Buffy, claimed Whedon victimised her while she was pregnant, and Michelle Trachtenberg, who played Buffy’s younger sister while still a teenager, claimed there was an unwritten rule that Whedon was not allowed to be alone with her.
Whedon has denied all wrongdoing: “I think I’m one of the nicer showrunners,” he said last year.
Gellar’s response was limited to an Instagram post in February 2021, expressing support for “survivors of abuse”: “While I am proud to have my name associated with Buffy Summers, I don’t want to be forever associated with name Joss Whedon.”
Today, Gellar declines to say more. “I’m never going to go into detail because it doesn’t help anything, it doesn’t solve anything … My heart goes out to people who are willing to tell their truths and their stories and their experiences. I just know that, for me, rehashing things – there’s nothing to be gained for me, in that experience. Where I gain is making sure that there’s better experiences for the next generation.”
There has already been positive change in the industry, says Gellar. “There’s not a day goes by where you don’t pick up a trade magazine and hear about some showrunner being ousted for behaviour that is just unbecoming. When I grew up, people screamed on sets: actors, directors, everybody. It doesn’t happen anymore. If someone comes out on set screaming, it’s like: ‘Peace ou!’ No one needs to be treated like that – we’ve established that.'”
From her position of power on Wolf Pack’s set, Gellar was able “to set up an infrastructure for the younger cast”, she says. “Something that I know for sure that I didn’t have on any of my jobs.”
What would Gellar have benefited from, as a young star?
“Somebody that was there to listen. There are things in place in the business now – there was no such thing as an intimacy coordinator when I was there – but also, you don’t know that person. It’s much easier for the cast to come to me if a crew member’s making them uncomfortable, or if someone doesn’t like their hair and makeup or wardrobe.”
All that said, Gellar admits: “I still don’t get taken seriously by men on sets. I still feel the need, sometimes, to read [out] my resumé, like: “How may of these shows have you done? How many experiences have you had at 2am with 250 extras, a late shot, a stunt – all of these things? I not only have produced it, but I’ve also been in it. Listen to me, because I know where I’m coming from.’
“I can speak like that now, where I think 10 years ago I probably couldn’t.” Gellar adds with a smile: “If there is one thing children should teach you, it is patience.”
For now, her aim is to do a select few projects a year, acting and producing – then, when her children leave home for college, “I feel that that’s the full-full throttle. I love what I do, and I’m really loving it in a different and much more joyous way.”
Growing up, her dream was to make it as a jobbing actor, Gellar points out. “I didn’t dream of success like this, so now I’m in the fun phase where it’s all gravy. I’ve been on all the magazine covers, I have awards, all that stuff – I want to just have fun.”
She sees one limit to her comeback. Fans have long been calling for a Buffy revival, not least to exorcise the spirit of Whedon. But while Gellar agrees that “there are more stories to tell”, she would not want to take part. “I’m really happy with what I contributed. Eve if I did a cameo, it would just be compared. You want to give someone a chance to create from scratch.”
Now, Gellar says, Buffy belongs to her fans. She is reluctant to share her ideas about where the character went after season seven. But she’s happy with the way the “chosen one” finally got to share her burden with a host of new Slayers. “I love the ending. I love the fact that the whole idea was that every girl who wants the power can have the power. Isn’t that the ultimate lesson?”
Wolf Pack is on Paramount+
Original article at The Guardian.
This article has been reproduced for archive purposes. All rights remain with the originating website.
