Sarah Michelle Gellar Still Grapples with 'Buffy' 's Legacy, Sharing Her 'Full Story'

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Published on January 18, 2023 04:46 PM

More than 25 years after Sarah Michelle Gellar landed her signature role playing Buffy Summers on Joss Whedon's Buffy the Vampire Slayer, the actress has complicated feelings about her seven seasons on the show.

In fact, Gellar doesn't think she'll ever tell the "full story" of the toxic environment Whedon allegedly created on set.

"I've come to a good place with it, where it's easier to talk about," Gellar, 45, told The Hollywood Reporter in an article published Wednesday. "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."

"She had to deal with a lot of bulls--- on that show for all seven years it was on," confirmed Freddie Prinze Jr., Gellar's husband of 21 years. "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."

Gellar noted, "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 castmates 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."

Emma Caulfield also corroborated a feeling of "resentment" on set from Whedon, 58.

"It was obvious that Sarah lacked the support to be the leader she needed and wanted to be," Caufield said. "There was a tremendous amount of resentment and animosity [toward her] from a certain someone — and I suppose now we can all guess who."

Costar and longtime friend Seth Green also confirmed the difficulties on set, telling THR: "That show was just hard."

He explained, "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."

According to Gellar, "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 percent. I never understood people who don't."

In this latest phase of her 42-year acting career, though, she admits, "I've mellowed a bit ... I think because I got burned out."

Back in February 2021, Charisma Carpenter— who played Cordelia Chase from 1997 to 2004 on both Buffy and its spin-off Angel — also spoke out against Whedon.

Carpenter, 52, said she felt empowered to speak out after actor Ray Fisher came forward with allegations against Whedon in 2020, claiming the director "was gross, abusive, unprofessional, and completely unacceptable" while they worked together on Justice League in 2017.

In a lengthy, emotional statement posted on social media, the actress accused Whedon of abusing his power during their time working together, including making repeated threats to fire her and efforts to "alienate" her from her peers, as well as placing added work stress on her while she was pregnant — leaving her with what she called a "chronic physical condition" triggered by the trauma.

Gellar issued a public statement via Instagram at the time, writing, "While I am proud to have my name associated with Buffy Summers, I don't want to be forever associated with the name Joss Whedon.... I stand with all survivors of abuse and am proud of them for speaking out."

More recently, Gellar spoke more freely about how her time on the male-dominated Buffy set had impacted her career.

"For so long, I was on a set that I think was known for being an extremely toxic male set," Gellar shared at the Power of Storytelling: Producers Roundtable at the TheWrap's Power of Women Summit in December 2022. "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."

"Now that I've had this opportunity to work with so many more women and men that support women as well, I realized how easy an experience it can be," she said, "but … unfortunately we're still in that place where all of those departments a lot of times need to be women for us to have a voice."