Sarah Michelle Gellar, best known for her seven years on Buffy the Vampire Slayer, has re-emerged on screen with a new show, and a bit to say about the legacy of her cult series.
Speaking to The Hollywood Reporter, Gellar, 45, who shares two children with husband of 20 years Freddie Prinze Jr, admits the on-set Buffy days weren’t always an ideal workplace for the teen superhero.
The US television series, created by writer and director Joss Whedon, ran from 1997 to 2003 and was seen at the time (some say it still is) as the biggest pop culture influencer on television.
The New Yorker once wrote that Whedon’s Buffy turned “television into something radical and groundbreaking … forging a mythic, feminist-inflected meld of horror, comedy, and teen drama”.
Fast forward almost 20 years and some of the show’s co-stars broke their silence in 2021, revealing the sinister secrets, the toxic workplace environment, bullying and alleged misconduct by Whedon.
Now, it’s Gellar’s turn.
“I’ve come to a good place with it, where it’s easier to talk about,” said Gellar, who was cast when she was 18 years old.
“I’ll never tell my full story because I don’t get anything out of it. I’ve said all I’m going to say because nobody wins. Everybody loses.”
Prinze is open to sharing a bit more: “She had to deal with a lot of bulls–t on that show for all seven years it was on.
“The stuff they pressed upon her, without any credit or real salary, while she was often the only one doing 15-hour days … yet she was still able to get the message of that character out every single week and do it with pride and do it professionally.”
What Gellar does take away from those years as she returns with more high-school horror in Paramount+ series Wolf Pack, which she stars in and is the executive producer of, is to know how to protect her younger co-stars (and her daughter) from industry abuses.
“I hope that I’ve set up a safety net for these actors that I didn’t have.”
So what happened on the Buffy set?
On December 14, Gellar broke her silence about the Buffy years at TheWrap Power of Women Summit in Los Angeles.
“For so long, I was on a set that I think was known for being an extremely toxic male set, and so that was ingrained in my head that that was what all sets were like, and that women were pitted against each other – that if women became friends, then we became too powerful, so you had to keep that down,” she said.
Early Buffy co-star and long-time friend Seth Green talked about difficulties on set, telling THR: “That show was just hard.”
“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.”
Gellar said: “If people think you’re a bitch, it’s almost better. There’s less expectation that way.”
Of the name calling, she said, “There was a time when I had a reputation of being … ‘difficult’.
“Anyone that knows me knows it came from the fact that I always put in 100 per cent. I never understood people who don’t.”
In February 2021, Gellar’s former co-star Charisma Carpenter accused Whedon of “hostile and toxic behaviour” on the sets of the show and its spinoff Angel.
“Joss has a history of being casually cruel. He has created hostile and toxic work environments since his early career. I know because I experienced it first hand. Repeatedly,” she alleged on her Instagram.
Michelle Trachtenberg, under 18 throughout her three seasons on the series, also alleged that there was an unwritten rule that Whedon was “not allowed” to be alone with her, according to THR.
Gellar made no specific claims of her own at the time, other than to post a message of support on Instagram.
Buffy’s legacy
It’s enormous.
On one front, Buffy inspired a whole generation of superhero TV shows, including The Flash, Arrow and Supergirl.
It also inspired and motivated Gellar, who after returning to the spotlight after eight years, is determined to make sure her workplace is safe and sets a tone for the younger cast, with four newcomers between the ages of 19 and 21.
At first she was reluctant to come back full throttle, with Gellar saying she wasn’t going to read the Wolf Pack script from show runner Jeff Davis.
“I liked Jeff’s work, but I wasn’t going to do a werewolf show. But they convinced me to give it a look, and I loved what he was doing in the pilot,” she said.
“It reminds me of Buffy, not the show itself, but the way it addresses the horrors we are facing today – anxiety, the stress of daily life, feeling isolated.”
Gellar has also handed out her phone number to the young stars with a promise to discreetly handle any concerns, THR reported.
She describes one scenario to THR where a crew member 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 said.
“My generation just didn’t have that.”
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Gellar remains optimistic about her Buffy years despite its “problematic creator” and is drawing on her experience to make a better workplace for her Wolf Pack pack.
“I’m not the only person facing this, and I hope the legacy hasn’t changed.
“I hope that it gives the success back to the people that put in all of the work. I will always be proud of Buffy. I will always be proud of what my cast-mates did, what I did.
“Was it an ideal working situation? Absolutely not. But it’s OK to love Buffy for what we created because I think it’s pretty spectacular.”
Wolf Pack premieres on January 26 on Paramount+
