- Sarah Michelle Gellar is returning to television with lead roles in Other People's Houses and Sometimes I Lie.
- Here, the former star of Buffy the Vampire Slayer opens up about her earlier jobs, politics, and why she's not on Twitter.
Sarah Michelle Gellar earned her stripes as a ‘90s and early aughts favorite when she scored an Emmy for her performance in All My Children, and later starred in Buffy the Vampire Slayer plus films like Cruel Intentions, Scooby-Doo, and The Grudge.
It’s been five years since she last appeared in a regular role on the small screen alongside Robin Williams in the short-lived CBS series The Crazy Ones, following 2011's Ringer. She’s kept busy since, launching Foodstirs, an organic baked goods company, in 2015. The venture landed her on the cover of Entrepreneur magazine, and by 2018 she had inked deals with Whole Foods, Starbucks, and Amazon as distribution partners. All of that success outside of Hollywood might have kept acting on the backburner, but Gellar is officially returning to TV as the lead in two new projects: Other People’s Houses, a FOX dramedy based on Abbi Waxman’s book, and Sometimes I Lie, a limited series (also based on a book) being developed by Ellen DeGeneres’s production company.
Now, she’s only interested in work she firmly believes in—which is why she’s most recently partnered with Colgate Optic White to offer tips for finding work-life balance. As a mom of two—Charlotte, 10, and Rocky, 7, with her husband Freddie Prinze Jr.—she knows a thing or two about practicality. "I pride myself on sharing things that are accessible. It’s great if there’s this fabulous hand creme that I love that’s $1,000 a teaspoon, but that doesn’t mean anybody else can have it,” she tells OprahMag.com. “So what are those experiences that I can share that everybody has that access to? This is one of them.”
As a card carrying member of a Sarah Michelle Gellar fan club that does not technically exist, my love for the actress began in my youth, back when I’d teach slaying lessons on the middle school playground to ward off incessant calls of “fa*ggot” from my peers, and back when I had two life-sized cutouts of her at my Hollywood-themed Bar Mitzvah. (If that’s not hom*osexual idolatry, I truly don’t know what is.) A mutual friend precipitated a meeting between her and I years later, and since then we’ve kept in touch. I emailed her after interviewing her husband in 2017, and when Stacey Abrams recently delivered a Buffy shoutout, I was the first to alert SMG (as I call her).
So when the opportunity presented itself to chat with her in real life, after some prolonged gay shaking, I tucked my fandom in and swerved my journalist hat to the forefront. First up, I asked about the new TV gigs.
You’re teaming up with Ringer creators Eric Charmelo and Nicole Synder again for Other People’s Houses on FOX. What made you say yes to returning to TV?
I think we had more stories to tell. I think with Ringer I was just burnt, right? We had initially pitched it as 13 episodes, but in those days nobody was doing that. And I just couldn’t sustain that. I couldn’t be the storyteller that I wanted to be. But the best experiences of my life are working with Nicole and Eric. So what is that story that we could tell where I could still function as a human being? And then I read that book and I was just like, “This is it.” And now it’s just like "ridic fab," as Eric described it to you.
And how did Sometimes I Like come about?
I read thrillers all of the time and I go through them—two, three a week. But that book had so many twists and turns that I didn’t see coming. I was like, “That never happens. I need to find this author.” And she was literally in her shed at her property in England where she writes and didn’t want to take my phone calls and had a very bad taste about Hollywood. And I had to convince her that I needed to be a part of this. And she finally gave me three months to sell it and find the right people. And I brought it to Ellen [DeGeneres] and her company and they loved it. [The show is this] beautiful take on the toxicity of female relationships and how it’s not always about being supportive, and how convoluted and just how co-dependent they can be.
I wrote about your iconic Buffy hairstyles and you tweeted in response, “I see a lot of hair DON’TS.” Is there a single costume that stands out?
Leather pants. I mean, I learned to wear leather pants on Buffy. I called them my fighting pants. If Buffy had the leather pants on it was time to fight.
Recently, Stacey Abrams drew a parallel between the political undertones of Buffy’s final season and the times we’re living in today. What was your reaction?
I couldn’t believe that. I was shocked.
You don’t usually speak out on politics.
Well, that’s where I come in politically. I have my opinions on politics, right? And people that know me at a dinner table know how I feel. But at the same time I’m respectful of other people’s opinions. I didn’t go to college. I don’t have a political science degree. I don’t feel like I should be preaching. But when things really do affect me, I stand up for them. And I think at the end of the day, everybody has that potential to make a difference. And I think so often we say “What am I? I’m just one person. I couldn’t make a difference.” But you could be that one vote. And for Stacey Abrams to say that, somebody that I respect and admire so much, emotionally, politically, what she represents and what’s she’s accomplished.
Netflix Canada tweeted a “correct ranking” of the Scream films, placing Scream 2 at number one because you starred in it.
So it says, “Evan spends too much time on Twitter”? Yeah. I get it.
Maybe so! But there’s a photo from a scene featuring you, Rebecca Gayheart, and Portia De Rossi that does not ultimately appear in the film. What was that scene and why was it cut?
Cause it was obviously too great for the film. [Gestures as though she has no idea.]
You have no clue?
I’m in that picture?
You are in that picture! Well, what do you think of that ranking: Scream 2, Scream, Scream 4, Scream 3?
Scream 4? You know how Shannen [Doherty] on that episode of the 90210 reboot was like, “There was a season 6?” That’s my response. I’m going to quote Shannon Doherty for that one.
The pilot for the planned Cruel Intentions TV series leaked in 2016, but it never aired. Will it ever?
For me, once I tell a story it’s done. I was at a certain place in my life at that time while telling that story—and that place doesn’t really exist anymore. I think now those stories work better when you’re introducing new characters and new people to a philosophy and to an ultimate thread without having those characters.
Last month, Christina Aguilera called your 2002 SNL parody of her "Dirrty" music video "so epic." What was your favorite part of shooting that?
Did she really? I thought she didn’t like it! I was so excited. Chris Kattan’s humping my leg and Maya Rudolph was, like, licking my leg. I was like, “I have arrived.”
What inspired your recent appearance at New York Fashion Week in September? It’d been 12 years.
Is that how long it was? Only Christian [Siriano] would get me out. I’m so busy and I love fashion, but I’m not a fashion icon.
I don’t agree.
Love you. [Laughs] I don’t work in that industry. But I love Christian so much and I love what Christian represents. I love that walking down that runway were women, were men, skinny girls, plus-size girls. Maye Musk walked down that effing aisle and owned it. And again, it’s about representing everybody. And I want things that are accessible to everybody.
You have not been on Twitter—apparently I’m doing all of the tweeting—since 2017. Any chance of a resurrection?
Actually, Evan’s going to be tweeting for me moving forward. It’s too much work! My [new] handle is @evanrosskatz.
You were once active on Twitter.
But I wasn’t on Instagram.
True. But people are really clamoring for you on Twitter.
I haven’t deactivated it. I know that I’m at a point in my life right now where I can’t dedicate the time that it actually needs because as you know I do it all myself. And Twitter takes a lot. I wouldn’t want to answer one person and not the other and it just became very overwhelming to me. That being said, it doesn’t mean that there isn’t a time in the future when it could happen.
What’s your favorite thing about Instagram?
I think what’s nice is being able to dictate my narrative. No one tells my story now but me and I’m in control of that. Never before was that option open to people like me and I can give enough so people feel like they’re seeing what my life actually is really like, whether it’s my home life, my work life, my friends. But I’m still able to go home at night and have a life that is separate from all of that. And it allows me to have that duality that I need to be able to function.
Fabulous. Anything you want to add?
No, I’m just getting my lawyer to reenact the restraining order. I hope you’ve asked every question.
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