Sarah Michelle Gellar: 'I’ll Never Tell My Full Story' About Working With Joss Whedon

[shangri__la]

Sarah Michelle Gellar: ‘I’ll Never Tell My Full Story’ About Working With Joss Whedon on ‘Buffy the Vampire Slayer’ https://t.co/G7SdlEh3t1 pic.twitter.com/UEkXdY28VT
- IndieWire (@IndieWire) January 18, 2023
Sarah Michelle Gellar will not speak about certain experiences with Joss Whedon on the set of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Gellar has decided to

Comments

[a_files06]

OP can you add the part about her watching s1-5 with her kids and her despising and refusing to revisit S6 with them at this age or ever.

[purpleflwr]

Lol I did a rewatch starting on Halloween and stopped at the musical episode. Not only is it not a fave of mine at all, the show just went to downhill from there.

Fuck Marti Noxon for trying to figure her own abuse that she did on her boyfriend and using it as a map for spike and Buffy.

[hazypink]

Yeah season 6 and 7 is such a disaster after the musical episode. I can still find things to like about it but overall is feels like the writing just nosedived in the weirdest ways

[silverstarry]

I'm a completist so I bought the DVDs for S6 and S7 when they came out but I really had no intention of watching those seasons again. A few years after the show ended, I did a complete rewatch of BtVS and AtS. I thought that maybe with some distance, I would like S6 and S7 better but nope. I did one more complete rewatch about 10 years ago and came to the same conclusion. Now I've just accepted that I can do a rewatch through S5 and then pick a few episodes from S6 and S7 (OMWF, Tabula Rasa, and sometimes random episodes like Storyteller).

[le_lane]

Not OP. But for those who don't want to read the entire THR article:

"Still, Gellar does have opinions. During the first year of the pandemic, she decided that her children were old (and interested) enough to watch the series. Her curation of their rewatch reveals some of her more complicated feelings about Buffy. 'We watched seasons one through five,' says Gellar, referencing the episodes that originally aired on The WB - before studio 20th Century Fox, battling with the late network over licensing fees, sold it to a higher bidder (the now-also-defunct UPN) for another two seasons. 'We skipped around a lot on those last two,' she adds, alluding to a controversial storyline in which her optimistic heroine suffered a season-long depression and took comfort in hate sex with a vampire who ultimately attempted to rape her when she broke things off. 'I have trouble with six. It wasn’t appropriate for them at the time, and I just don’t want to rewatch it.'"

[stf_ugh]

Season 6 was like so shockingly dark to me at the time lol watching the show from then onwards definitely did become more of a sad experience than a fun one for me. (BUT Ive always had the ~unpopular opinion~ of loving Willow as the Big Bad tbh lol. I Didn’t love everything about the season obviously, a lot I despised, but I liked the idea of having one of the BB’s be one of their own)

[thatgum_youlike]

ngl i also loved willow as the big bad and that s6 finale was gutwrenching

[le_lane]

I feel the same about Dark Willow. I just hated Warren and the storyline with the other two. I honestly wish they introduced full-on Dark Willow earlier and that they didn't have to kill off Tara to spawn her. But her descent into using dark magic was a pretty decent storyline to me.

[stf_ugh]

Completely agree, I would’ve liked it just to have been her having just going off the deep end with magic and then Tara being the one to bring her back in the end.

Edit: omg yeah The Trio stuff really made my skin crawl I found that whole bit very disturbing. And I hated how they brought Jonathan into it tbh like that episode with him being the hero is one of the best and they should’ve left him at that. And honestly? Hated how they eventually brought Andrew into the fold like yeah he said funny stuff but still fuck him ultimately lmao.

[vanouria]

I also really liked Willow as a villain! and I like that they brought it back to her friendship with Xander at the end

[sweet_ali]

I thought AH was pretty terrible at playing “bad”, but I also liked Willow being the big bad. It fit her character really well and her need for control and power and fixing everyone. I wouldn’t have minded if she had died without the broken crayon, but that show didn’t kill off mains, just significant others of mains ;)

[evilfirepixie8]

That makes me a little sad as S6 was my favorite season Buffy-character-wise, specifically for it's depression and self-harm metaphors (heroes! They're just like us mentally ill pleebs!), but I get it - it was not the character she signed up for and I assume getting in that headspace is rough for an actor.

[mishane]

omg i need to run read this interview now

it was always my dream to do a re-watch of this show with my future daughter but i don't think we're going to have children so i'll just have to do a re-watch with someone else, preferably someone who has never watched it before.

ETA: also it must be so WEIRD to be SMG and watch Buffy with your kids. and to be her kids! your mom is this great female icon, so strange

[diablo_dancer]

Thanks for posting this quote. Season 6 and 7 are my favourite seasons but I completely get why she wouldn’t want to revisit them, especially with her kids.

[sweet_ali]

I can understand her perspective on this and her not wanting to revisit such a dark time with her kids there.

That said, though S6 was messy, I liked that it explored Buffy’s trauma and depression after being resurrected, being betrayed by her friends, and having to grieve her own life while being forced to live and pay bills and be an insta-guardian to a teenager. The idea behind it all was much better than the execution, but I dislike when it’s dismissed as if it’s all bad.

I love SMG and she has every right to her opinion, but she also has always preferred Buffy to be happy and punny and strong, which, again, is her right. But i like seeing my heroes struggle, too, and not be as punny and make bad choices. S6 made Buffy even more human and, despite its messiness, I can still appreciate it for what it was.

[a_files06]

I think the Spike of it all ruined it for her. She probably would've preferred to have Buffy explore her grief without the sex