Sarah Michelle Gellar

Picture via 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 journal’s cover story, addressing issues from her time as the star of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, her thoughts on the industry lately, and why she plans on ditching her Tesla.

“Twenty years after her personality’s retirement, the lady in the back of Buffy the Vampire Slayer nonetheless can’t assist however come to the rescue,” wrote O’Connell to start out the article, describing how Gellar had helped fix a tech downside with his iPhone so he may report the interview, soon segueing into how the former kid superstar takes critically her duty to seem out for youthful actors on set now that she’s stepping back in front of the digital camera.

Gellar made a splash when her casting in the Netflix film Do Revenge and Paramount+ collection Wolf Percent were introduced, and she or he serves as executive producer on the latter, giving the now-forty five-12 months-outdated a chance to no longer handiest shape how her own position is handled, but how the opposite actors are treated on set.

The previous vampire hunter has lost none of her means to “gleefully kick ass,” wrote O’Connell, “although that’s no longer all Gellar needs from an anticipated comeback.” This time round, “she desires to create safer units than those she experienced growing up and to be valued for the self-discipline that every now and then bought her labeled ‘difficult’ when she was youthful.”

Distributing her phone number to the young co-stars with a promise to discreetly deal with any issues, Gellar tries to make good on her word. She describes one state of affairs the place a crewmember made someone in the cast uncomfortable, providing again rubs. He used to be long gone as soon it was once brought to her attention. “I’m hoping that I’ve arrange an infrastructure, a safety internet 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 mild about “abusive habits” from Buffy showrunner Josh Whedon. Gellar and fellow castmate Seth Inexperienced each shared anecdotes about how troublesome the set could be, and the way she dug in her heels to protect the remainder of the solid:

Seth Inexperienced, every other Gellar confidant and an early Buffy castmember, recalls his friend taking heat when she tried to use her standing as No. 1 on the call sheet to make the times less grueling. “That express was once just hard,” says Inexperienced. “We had been working crazy hours, and a number of issues that received pushed weren’t necessarily protected or beneath one of the best prerequisites. Sarah was all the time the primary one to assert, ‘We agreed this was a thirteen-hour day and it’s hour 15 — we’ve acquired to wrap,’ or, ‘Howdy, this shot doesn’t appear secure,’ when nobody else would stick up for the solid and crew. I noticed her get called a bitch, a diva, all these items that she’s no longer — simply because she was taking the mantle of saying and doing the precise thing.”

Such vigilance from lead actors is now celebrated, if now not anticipated, on film and TV units. When Gellar used to be arising, it was discouraged. However she stood her floor. “If individuals think you’re a bitch, it’s virtually higher,” Gellar observes, unprompted via my subsequent dialog with Green. “There’s much less expectation that manner.”

Gellar demurred from immediately attacking Whedon or spilling new grime, but did say that once her youngsters (Charlotte, age thirteen, and Rocky, age 10), wanted to observe Buffy, she “skipped round quite a bit” on the closing two seasons (which embrace what O’Connell summarizes as “a controversial storyline wherein her confident heroine suffered a season-lengthy depression and took alleviation in hate intercourse with a vampire who not directly attempted to rape her when she broke things off”), calling it not “acceptable” for them to see and “I simply don’t need to rewatch it.”

Charlotte has expressed an passion in going into performing, however Gellar and her husband Freddy Prinze, Jr. have blocked her from following of their footsteps except after she graduates high school. They seemed adamant about each avoiding the “nepo baby” accusations and protecting both their youngsters from the harsher tones of the highlight, no longer allowing either of them to have social media accounts of their own.

Gellar advised the Reporter that she’s allowed Charlotte to accompany her on units, and has gotten advice from her Do Revenge co-megastar, 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-yr-old daughter is “simply not going on camera while she’s residing beneath our roof. There’ll be completely different expectations for her, so she must research the whole lot there’s first.”

There are additionally a short few traces that embody a frank remark from Gellar about her plans to ditch her Tesla SUV, it sounds as if due to new owner Elon Musk’s antics, however she did also call the car a “lemon“:

We pass by means of her automotive, a Tesla SUV she parallel parked — Gellar has no endurance for valet — and which she disarmingly pronounces “a lemon.” She laments the purchase, rolls her eyes on the mention of Elon Musk and proclaims her intent to unload it and go back to using a Prius.

Read the entire interview at The Hollywood Reporter.

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