Sarah Michelle Gellar Reveals What Made Her Return To Acting
Sarah Michelle Gellar says she returned to TV because she was attracted to the metaphors at play in Wolf Pack.
It’s been a long while since the fan cult of Sarah Michelle Gellar has seen the actress return to the screen, but 2022 and 2023 are her years, with the star coming back in full force via Netflix’s comedy-drama Do Revenge as well as Paramount+’s supernatural series, Wolf Pack. While many were left wondering what sparked the Buffy the Vampire Slayer actress to make her way back into the television arena, Digital Spy got the goods during an interview in which Gellar said that she was drawn to the idea of the show using its monsters as “a metaphor for teenage anxiety.” Much like what the baddies of Buffy alluded to, the werewolves in Wolf Pack represent much more than the physical creatures, something that intrigued Gellar.
As she put it during her interview, Sarah Michelle Gellar respected how those behind Wolf Pack formed their story to mold their characters to reflect the realities of some of the most struggle-filled years of a person’s life. Praising the realness demonstrated by some characters who have “acne” and others who suffer from crushing amounts of anxiety, Gellar revealed that this is why she agreed to make her big return to the small screen via the teen drama. She hammered home the idea that “normalizing” the teenage experience, specifically the struggle of anxiety, was very important, as many of these issues tend to pour over into adulthood.
In Wolf Pack, which recently premiered on Paramount+, Sarah Michelle Gellar stars as an arson investigator named Kristin Ramsey who has been tasked with a career-making case. A wildfire has wreaked havoc across a California town and awakens an evil beast living within the forest. Meanwhile, several teens begin to discover that there’s more tying them together than their age as they start to develop bizarre powers during a full moon.
Along with Sarah Michelle Gellar, Wolf Pack stars Bella Shepard, Armani Jackson, Tyler Lawrence Gray, Rodrigo Santoro, and Chloe Rose Robertson. The series is based on the 2004 book of the same name penned by Edo van Belkom and was created by Jeff Davis. Davis was also the man behind the hit MTV series Teen Wolf, but the two shows don’t share the same background or even universe with Wolf Pack, introducing a brand new lineup of characters and storylines.
As for Sarah Michelle Gellar, perhaps best known for her role in the iconic series Buffy the Vampire Slayer, the actress appeared in a slew of major ‘90s productions including Roger Kumble’s 1999 masterpiece Cruel Intentions and Jim Gillespie’s 1997 teen slasher flick, I Know What You Did Last Summer. Gellar would meet her future husband, Freddie Prinze Jr,. on the latter with the duo teaming up on the James Gunn-penned Scooby-Doo films of the early 2000s. Following her time in the film franchise The Grudge and the crime drama Ringer, Sarah Michelle Gellar took a major step away from the limelight to spend more time with her children and husband.
Things have been quiet for the star over the last decade, as she mostly lent her voice to animated projects including Star Wars Rebels and Masters of the Universe: Revelation, but with her big return in Do Revenge and Wolf Pack, fans are more hopeful than ever that Sarah Michelle Gellar is here to stay. Following some recent comments surrounding her troubling time on the set of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, a production rife with toxicity, it would seem as though the teen actors in Wolf Pack are lucky to not only be working next to a living legend like Gellar but also to have her on their team as an executive producer.
