Sarah Michelle Gellar Talks ‘Buffy’ 20 Years Later and Why She’s Ditching Her Tesla

Photo by Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP

Sarah Michelle Gellar spoke to The Hollywood Reporter’s senior writer Mikey O’Connell for a candid and wide-ranging interview for the magazine’s cover story, addressing topics from her time as the star of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, her thoughts on the industry today, and why she plans on ditching her Tesla.

“Two decades after her character’s retirement, the woman behind Buffy the Vampire Slayer still can’t help but come to the rescue,” wrote O’Connell to start the article, describing how Gellar had helped fix a tech problem with his iPhone so he could record the interview, soon segueing into how the former child star takes seriously her responsibility to look out for younger actors on set now that she’s stepping back in front of the camera.

Gellar made a splash when her casting in the Netflix film Do Revenge and Paramount+ series Wolf Pack were announced, and she serves as executive producer on the latter, giving the now-45-year-old a chance to not only shape how her own role is handled, but how the other actors are treated on set.

The former vampire hunter has lost none of her ability to “gleefully kick ass,” wrote O’Connell, “though that’s not all Gellar desires from an anticipated comeback.” This time around, “she wants to create safer sets than those she experienced growing up and to be valued for the discipline that sometimes got her labeled ‘difficult’ when she was younger.”

Distributing her phone number to the young co-stars with a promise to discreetly handle any concerns, Gellar tries to make good on her word. She describes one scenario where a crewmember made someone in the cast uncomfortable, offering back rubs. He was gone as soon it was brought to her attention. “I hope that I’ve set up an infrastructure, a safety net for these actors that I didn’t have,” she says. “My generation just didn’t have that.”

The interview also delves into revelations that have come to light about “abusive behavior” from Buffy showrunner Josh Whedon. Gellar and fellow castmate Seth Green both shared anecdotes about how difficult the set could be, and how she dug in her heels to protect the rest of the cast:

Seth Green, another Gellar confidant and an early Buffy castmember, recalls his friend taking heat when she tried to use her status as No. 1 on the call sheet to make the days less grueling. “That show was just hard,” says Green. “We were working crazy hours, and a lot of things that got pushed weren’t necessarily safe or under the best conditions. Sarah was always the first one to say, ‘We agreed this was a 13-hour day and it’s hour 15 — we’ve got to wrap,’ or, ‘Hey, this shot doesn’t seem safe,’ when nobody else would stick up for the cast and crew. I saw her get called a bitch, a diva, all these things that she’s not — just because she was taking the mantle of saying and doing the right thing.”

Such vigilance from lead actors is now celebrated, if not expected, on film and TV sets. When Gellar was coming up, it was discouraged. But she stood her ground. “If people think you’re a bitch, it’s almost better,” Gellar observes, unprompted by my subsequent conversation with Green. “There’s less expectation that way.”

Gellar demurred from directly attacking Whedon or spilling new dirt, but did say that when her children (Charlotte, age 13, and Rocky, age 10), wanted to watch Buffy, she “skipped around a lot” on the last two seasons (which include what O’Connell summarizes as “a controversial storyline in which her optimistic heroine suffered a season-long depression and took comfort in hate sex with a vampire who ultimately attempted to rape her when she broke things off”), calling it not “appropriate” for them to see and “I just don’t want to rewatch it.”

Charlotte has expressed an interest in going into acting, but Gellar and her husband Freddy Prinze, Jr. have blocked her from following in their footsteps until after she graduates high school. They seemed adamant about both avoiding the “nepo baby” accusations and shielding both their children from the harsher tones of the spotlight, not allowing either of them to have social media accounts of their own.

Gellar told the Reporter that she’s allowed Charlotte to accompany her on sets, and has gotten advice from her Do Revenge co-star, Maya Hawke, the daughter of Uma Thurman and Ethan Hawke who rose to fame after a memorable supporting role on Netflix’s Stranger Things.

Gellar’s 13-year-old daughter is “just not going on camera while she’s living under our roof. There’ll be different expectations for her, so she needs to learn everything there is first.”

There are also a short few lines that include a frank comment from Gellar about her plans to ditch her Tesla SUV, apparently due to new owner Elon Musk’s antics, but she did also call the car a “lemon“:

We pass by her car, a Tesla SUV she parallel parked — Gellar has no patience for valet — and which she disarmingly declares “a lemon.” She laments the purchase, rolls her eyes at the mention of Elon Musk and announces her intent to unload it and go back to driving a Prius.

Read the full interview at The Hollywood Reporter.