I feel old. I feel like I finally got
to the place where I look around, and crew members are younger
than me. I don’t understand why that happened.
NOXON:
Yeah. Don’t talk to me about feeling old. (laughs) It’s unacceptable.
GELLAR:
That’s, that’s what it is. It certainly went up. I think that WB’s
demographic was much more young female. You know, wrestling—it brings
in the men.
NOXON:
More female. Yeah.
Q:
How aware are you of the cultural impact of “BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER”?
It’s become a pop culture phenomenon in so many ways. Did you ever imagine
this on Day one?
NOXON:
You wanna take that? (laughs)
GELLAR:
I think that we were all aware that we were doing something incredibly special.
I think that we were aware that we were doing something different. I don’t
think you ever have any understanding of any impact that it makes. Especially
because I think we live in our own little world here. We come at 6 in the
morning and leave at night. And all of a sudden, it hits you when you go
into a store and there will be all this Buffy merchandise. Or you’ll
be in another city, and there are taxicabs.
NOXON:
Or Buffy Fruit Rolls. (laughs)
GELLAR:
Or Buffy chew---the lollipop.
NOXON:
Yeah.
GELLAR:
So I think it sort of happens very shockingly. Does that make sense?
NOXON:
When I first got this job, which was after the first 13, I called my Mom to
tell her. This is my first paying writer gig. I had done small thing, but
this was my first big paying gig. I called my Mom and there’s this
long pause, and she said, “Oh, Honey, next year you’ll do better.” (Laughter)
GELLAR:
What’s so amazing is the same thing happened to me. In fact, Kiefer Sutherland
told me, “Oh, don’t worry, you’ll get another pilot next
year.” (laughs)
NOXON:
Everybody thought it was a—
Q:
What’s been your favorite moments?
GELLAR:
You have to take this one—I always bomb on this question. What’s
your favorite episode? I always bomb on this one.
NOXON:
Well, Sarah’s favorite moment
GELLAR:
Yeah, thank you.
NOXON:
Was something I wrote, coincidentally.
GELLAR:
Yeah, that one.
NOXON:
Yeah, let me thing.
Q:
The musical.
GELLAR:
She didn’t write that one.
Q:
Oops.
NOXON:
I didn’t write that one.
GELLAR:
She didn’t write that one.
NOXON:
No.
GELLAR:
No.
Q:
Was the musical a fun thing to do? A scary thing?
GELLAR:
Daunting, intimidating. I’m a perfectionist, I come from a long line
of lots of preparation, and certainly that was not the case with this. If I
had my druthers, we would have gotten it about two years ago and been in classes
for a year and a half, maybe six weeks of rehearsals? It’s not too much
to ask, instead of four days. That’s the beauty of the show, that we
have the ability to try different things, and to test them out, and hopefully
we succeed.
Q:
What about the Spike thing?
GELLAR:
That hasn’t changed.
NOXON:
She kicks him the head. That’s right.
GELLAR:
Foreplay.
NOXON:
She kicks and then she kisses.
GELLAR:
Basically, I look at it, you know when you’re little, like my Goddaughter
came to me the other day and she was crying because the little boy pulled her
pigtails. I said, “But that means he has a crush on you.” So it’s
sort of the same thing, just as an adult, you just beep. Please don’t,
right as she says that jokingly. Let me just clarify that one.
Q:
Growing up, your Mom took you to dance classes (ballet, jazz, modern), but
you also took karate.
GELLAR:
Yes!
Q:
How did that come about?
GELLAR:
There are no boys in jazz and ballet! Well, at least not the ones that I wanted
to play with at that age!
Q:
How far did you get with the karate?
GELLAR:
I got to my brown belt. I was also ice skating, and going to school and working
professionally. Something had to give, and for some reason my mother wouldn’t
let it be school.
NOXON:
That’s weird.
GELLAR:
So go figure.
Q:
Joss Whedon is obviously a major part of “BUFFY.” How’s the
relationship with him evolved over these six seasons?
GELLAR:
I’m still trying to figure out what some of these words mean. From the
day I started, I went to my audition, and I had the line, “What’s
this stench?” I had no idea what that meant. To this day, I’m all, “Is
this some word that I don’t know?” You understand Joss speak a
lot better than me.
NOXON:
Right, right.
GELLAR:
That’s writer’s shorthand.
NOXON:
It’s mostly made up. I mean, it really is. We make up a lot of stuff,
yeah.
Q:
How do you keep it fresh?
GELLAR:
I think the storylines are always moving. We try something, and once it’s
done, we move on. Sometimes we try external villains and sometimes there are
internal villains, and this time it happens to be our demons. The nice thing,
it’s sort of the movie in that sense that our seasons really do have
a beginning, a middle, and an end. It starts again. It’s almost like
telling a new story every year. Specifically, this year we’ve all felt
that there’s been all different. I mean, hey, we finally got a new (Bronx).
Five years, we finally got a new set.
NOXON:
That looks on camera exactly like the old (Bronx). But at least it’s
different.
GELLAR:
But it’s different for us.
NOXON:
I would say to that also the fact that Joss created a world that has so many
different layers. Most shows after six years, if they’re just straight
melodrama, have kind of played out the possibilities. If they’re just
straight science fiction or fantasy, they’ve sort of played out those
possibilities. We’re able to toggle back and forth from one episode,
which is about a giant troll to an episode which is more about the melodrama.
In terms of the franchise, that just gives it so much life as a writer. You
have a lot more to play with.
GELLAR:
I think they’ve let us grow. They certainly haven’t tried—every
other show, I talk to my friends and they’re like, “Yeah, we’re
still in our sophomore year again of high school or college.” But we
have progressively every year gotten older and moved forward. I think that’s
really important. Most shows, it’s like, they’ll bring on the young
ones, and then that’s it, and it goes to them. But instead, they’ve
let all of us progress. We’ve seen Buffy go from being a teenager and
not knowing what her job was, to trying college, to basically she’s a
single mother right now. I think that’s one thing, we’ve all gotten
to grow.
Q:
How are you to new people when they join the cast? Like Michelle when she first
arrived.
GELLAR:
Well, I’m very protective of Michelle. This is a girl I’ve known
since she was 8 years old, so I’ve always been incredibly protective.
That doesn’t change. I’m still like, “Don’t curse around
her!” Then I have to remember that she goes to high school, she knows
every word better than I do.
Q:
What do you think will be the lasting impact of “BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER”?
GELLAR:
Me!
NOXON:
(laughs)
Q:
As she said jokingly.
GELLAR:
Right. I have an answer to that one.
NOXON:
Okay, go for it.
GELLAR:
I think we kicked the mold. We were really one of the first shows that showed
a female kicking butt, and I think we paved the way for young heroines, for
shows that can revolve around a three-dimensional female character. If you
look at how the trends have gone since then, I really feel like we started
that.
NOXON:
I got a question from a journalist who was writing about all the new female
heroines on television. She was asking, “Where do you think this started?” I
oh, so modestly was like, “I think it started with Joss Whedon wrote ‘BUFFY
THE VAMPIRE SLAYER’.” There have been other shows like Xena and
other shows that had strong women, but not someone who wasn’t out of
the fantasy. Even if Sarah plays a supernatural character, she is in fact
a real girl. She has all the concerns of a real girl, she gets boy crazy;
all the stuff you weren’t able to reconcile before. You either had
to be idealized like Wonder Woman, or Ally McBeal who was a ditz, a lawyer
ditz on a highly rated show that I respect very much.
GELLAR:
Loveable, don’t forget loveable.
NOXON:
But we sort of said, “ You can be both human and fallible, and you can
be the star and the hero.” So that’s definitely what he did.
Q:
It’s a great achievement. You should be really proud. |
