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Buffy Summers
(Sarah Michelle Gellar)


Buffy Anne Summers arrives in Sunnydale, California after being kicked out of a number of schools for unruly behaviour. At her last school she burned down the gymnasium: naturally no-one believed her story that it was full of vampires, and she was expelled. Around this time Buffy's parents, Hank and Joyce, divorced, and Buffy blames herself for the break-up.

Buffy is not your average teenager. She is a Slayer, destined to fight the forces of evil. She arrives in Sunnydale unaware that the town's school sits above a porthole of psychic energy, a gateway to another dimension, populated by demons - the Hellmouth. She soon discovers that this attracts vampires and other foes from miles around.

Buffy lives with her divorcee mother, Joyce, who is blissfully unaware that her daughter is killing vampires when she's not studying algebra. Buffy leads a strange double existence, balancing her responsibilities as the Slayer with her desire for an ordinary teenage life. Guided by her Watcher, Rupert Giles, and supported by the academically-gifted Willow Rosenberg, and her friend Xander Harris, Buffy usually manages to cope with school life and Sunnydale's vampire population. Buffy's been less fortunate in matters of the heart. Her duties make it difficult to form long-term relationships. Buffy finds herself irresistibly drawn to the mysterious Angel, and is initially horrified when she discovers that he is a vampire...

In Prophecy Girl Buffy was forced to confront her deepest fears. Knowing that her encounter with The Master might end her life she fought against her natural impulse to simply quit. She confronted The Master's lair, but was bitten and died. She was found and revived by Angel and Xander, who gave her the kiss of life.

Emmy Award-winning actress Sarah Michelle Gellar is a veteran of television, theatre and the big screen, having worked for nearly 18 of her young 23 years. In addition to starring in The WB's "Buffy the Vampire Slayer," Gellar starred in two feature films last season and recently launched a new role as a spokesperson for Maybelline cosmetics.

In March of 1999, Gellar starred with Ryan Phillipe and Selma Blair (The WB's "Zoe...") in "Cruel Intentions," a modern-day retelling of "Dangerous Liaisons" set in Manhattan. A major departure form her role on "Buffy the Vampire Slayer," she portrayed a conniving manipulator who conspired to destroy the life of anyone who gets in her way. She also appeared last season in the romantic comedy "Simply Irresistible."

In 1998, Gellar starred in two feature films written by Kevin Williamson ("Dawson's Creek") ­ the blockbuster hit "Scream 2" and "I Know What You Did Last Summer." She won a Blockbuster Award for Best Supporting Actress for her role in "I Know What You Did Last Summer" and was also nominated for an MTV Movie Award. Sarah won in the 'Best Screen Kiss' category at the MTV Movie Awards 2000 alongside Selma Blair, for their kiss scene in 1999's 'Cruel Intentions'. It was the first same-sex kiss ever to have won the award. Sarah was also nominated for the 'Best Female' category.

Her work in "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" requires adeptness in the martial arts, a challenge that Gellar has been devoted to since before landing the role. Having studied the Korean art of Tae Kwon Do for four years and earning a brown belt, Gellar spends her free time continuing her training with the series' stunt coordinator.

The versatile actress won an Emmy Award in 1994 for her role on the daytime drama "All My Children." Also, she played a young Jackie Kennedy in the critically acclaimed miniseries " A Woman Named Jackie."

Sarah has also feautured in FHM Magazine's top 3 beautiful women twice in a row, winning first position in 1999.

A New York native, Gellar currently resides in Los Angeles. She was born on the 14th April 1977.


A Premiere Magazine article about Sarah Michelle Gellar

'Sarah Michelle Gellar's New World Order' by Steve Pond

October 2000

1. Only make movies that matter to you (goodbye teen movies, hello indie world)
2. Have an actual personal life (which includes Freddie Prinze Jr.)
3. Embrace the Internet (and start your own website)

The websites are out there by the dozens, every bit as plentiful as those legions of the undead she battles every Tuesday night. They have names like "Just Sarah" and "Buffy is GOD!!!" and "The Sarah Michelle Gellar Experience," these painstaking compendiums of boilerplate and minutiae, photo galleries and video clips, dissections of her career and fanciful suggestions (or entire fan-written episodes) about just what she should do on upcoming episodes of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. And, in a way, all of this might have been predictable: Combining two of the Internet denizens' primary preoccupations - an attractive young woman and a fantasy - sci-fi television show - Sarah Michelle Gellar may well be the ideal Net Babe.

"My agents have been hounding me for years, saying, 'You don't understand how downloaded you are!' " Gellar says with a laugh as she sits in her trailer on the Santa Monica lot where Buffy is filmed. She's finally beginning to see their point; in fact, she's about to launch her own official website. (Though it doesn't currently have a domain title - someone else already owns Gellar's name on the Internet - it will be up before year's end.) Even so, you'd hardly peg this setting as the lair of an Internet queen. It's down-home, not digital: The couch sports fluffy pillows, the desk bears a Cana- dian first-edition copy of the new Harry Potter book, and the walls are bedecked with snapshots of family and friends, plus matted prints of John Tenniel's 19th-century illustrations for Alice in Wonderland. There's not a computer in sight - no PC, no laptop, not even a Palm.

Still, the actress figures she owes this trailer to the online community. "I don't think we'd be here if it wasn't for the Net," she says. "It was the Internet that really kicked us off, because that's where this loyal fan base could get together and spread the word." And as the word spread and executive producer Joss Whedon's quirky but smart mid season replacement series became a mainstay on the WB network, Gellar was able to ride that success onto the big screen with a few hits (I Know What You Did Last Summer, Scream 2, Cruel Intentions), one negligible dud (Simply Irresistible), and, upcoming, a low-budget indie drama (director James Toback's Harvard Man).

Polishing off dinner (eggplant casserole eaten straight from a plastic container) on a rare night when she gets to go home relatively early, Gellar eats slow but talks fast; she's assertive, composed, a workaholic who obviously thinks things through and likes to be in charge. But it doesn't take much to see beyond the collected, crisp, all-pro exterior - to see a young woman, just 23, who's spent the past few years quietly dealing with fears and growing pains. It was like that, for instance, with the Internet: "I loved the fact that it supported our show," she says, "but I got very scared of the Net for a while."

Small wonder. Her home address was sold on one website, and her wardrobe and weight were ripped on in chat rooms. A hairdresser on Buffy showed Gellar a photo her boyfriend had downloaded: The actress's head on a naked body, in an explicit pose way beyond what you'd see in Playboy. "Of course, my first reaction was, 'My hips are not that big!' " she says. "And then I cried. I felt really violated." Unfortunately, such an experience has become routine for countless celebrities. But even worse for Gellar, Buffy's former stunt coordinator put up a website that, over the course of a rambling 3,000-plus word "parable" about a brave knight, depicted Gellar (whom he dubbed "the spoiled Princess") as self-centered and conniving. "There's no other word except crushing," says Gellar, who was told about the site by Whedon but refuses to read it. "It's one thing to hear people you don't know saying lies about you on the Internet, but when it comes from a disgruntled former employee . . . It really, really, really hurt." She stops. "I would love to take this opportunity to say everything I want to say," she says softly. "But that's getting down to a level that I don't want to get down to."