Sarah Michelle Gellar Talks About Why This Pitch for the BUFFY Reboot Made Her Say Yes
Buffy the Vampire Slayer star Sarah Michelle Gellar has been pitched reboots and remakes of the series plenty of times over the years, but it wasn’t until she heard this most recent idea that she was ready to make her comeback official.
The actress appeared on SiriusXM Hits 1’s The Morning Mash Up with Buffy co-star Alyson Hannigan last week, where Gellar said it was the reboot’s director, Chloé Zhao (Eternals), and creators Lilla and Nora Zuckerman’s (Poker Face) decision to make the series a continuation of Buffy Summers’s story rather than telling the same story again that won her over.
Gellar said, “Everyone was just trying to redo it. And they [the Zuckermans] had a continuation of where it goes now. And, you know, as Alyson and I now have teenagers, and it’s – you see the circle of what’s needed.”
“Absolutely,” said Hannigan. “We used to play teens, and now we have teens.”
The new Buffy series is currently in pre-production at Hulu. Gellar is reprising her beloved role alongside a new Slayer protagonist. Ryan Kiera Armstrong (Skeleton Crew) will star alongside Gellar in the new role, though details about Armstrong’s character and the nature of her relationship with Gellar’s Buffy remain tightly under wraps.
Both Gellar and Hannigan reflected on why Buffy has endured since it went off air in the early 2000s, and why it merits a continuation over two decades later. Gellar said:
“You realize all these years later that the show still translates. Because sometimes you watch a show that you loved and you see it now, and you’re like, ‘Okay’, but it doesn’t have the same meaning.
“And Buffy is still hitting people who are watching it for the first time, and they’re seeing themselves, and they’re seeing their friends, and they’re finding their chosen family.”
Hannigan was quick to agree that her Buffy castmates became akin to family working on the series. Gellar then went on to share that in such a polarized political and media landscape, her hope is that the Buffy reboot series will provide its viewers with comfort and connection.
She said, “I think, more than ever right now, as we get more and more divided, we need that chosen family. So I hope to provide a new chosen family.”
Are you looking forward to the new Buffy the Vampire Slayer reboot?