Sarah Michelle Gellar Has A Brutally Funny Reason She Won’t Return To Buffy the Vampire Slayer (And Yet She Did Anyway)
Here's a revival I'm not sure we needed.
Sarah Michelle Gellar used to joke that if she ever went back to Buffy, it would be Buffy with a walker. Cut to now: she is actually returning to the stake and the snark for Hulu. Surprised? Same.
"It was not a place that I ever saw myself, so it definitely felt very surreal," Gellar told Variety. "But this is why you never say never, and I'm sure I said 'never' many times, and I've learned my lesson because I'm sure someday you're gonna go back and find all the times I said, 'No, never. I'm too old. It'll be Buffy with a walker.'"
So what is this new Buffy?
Hulu is doing a revival (call it a reboot if you want, but functionally it sounds more like a sequel series) set in New Sunnydale. Buffy is back, but now she is the mentor: she takes a new teenage Slayer named Nova under her wing. Ryan Kiera Armstrong plays Nova.
This season was developed by Gellar with filmmaker Chloe Zhao and writing duo Nora and Lilla Zuckerman. The Zuckermans are the head writers. That creative combo is not one I had on my TV bingo card, but I am listening.
The cast you will want to clock
- Ryan Kiera Armstrong as Nova, the new Slayer
- Faly Rakotohavana (Unprisoned) as Hugo
- Ava Jean (Law & Order: SVU) as Larkin
- Sarah Bock (Severance) as Gracie
- Daniel Di Tomasso (CSI: Vegas) as Nova's single father
- Jack Cutmore-Scott (Frasier) as Mr. Burke
Will it still feel like Buffy?
Gellar says the new show is built for longtime fans, with nods and Easter eggs baked in, but it is also designed to be an easy entry point if you never watched the original. That balance is tricky, but the premise — Buffy guiding the next generation — is a clean way to do it.
Quick refresher on how we got here
Buffy the Vampire Slayer started as a 1992 movie starring Kristy Swanson. The TV version, made at 20th Century Fox Television, took things in a darker, sharper direction and recast Buffy with Gellar. The series launched in 1997, ran seven seasons, and wrapped in 2003, with two seasons of the spin-off Angel overlapping during that run.
If you want to revisit the original adventures, the entire Buffy the Vampire Slayer series is streaming on Hulu right now.