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 let 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 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.
