About Sarah Michelle Gellar
Sarah Michelle Prinze (née Gellar; born April 14, 1977) is an American actress. After being spotted at the age of four in New York City, she made her acting debut in the television film An Invasion of Privacy (1983). A leading role on the teen drama series Swans Crossing (1992) was followed by her breakthrough as Kendall Hart on the ABC daytime soap opera All My Children (1993–1995), for which she won the Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Younger Actress in a Drama Series.
Gellar received international recognition for her portrayal of Buffy Summers on the WB/UPN television series Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1997–2003), which earned her five Teen Choice Awards, a Saturn Award, and a Golden Globe Award nomination. Her film credits include I Know What You Did Last Summer (1997), Scream 2 (1997), Cruel Intentions (1999), Scooby-Doo (2002), Scooby-Doo 2: Monsters Unleashed (2004), The Grudge (2004), Southland Tales (2006), and TMNT (2007).
On television, Gellar has headlined the CW's Ringer (2011–2012), CBS's The Crazy Ones (2013–2014), and Paramount+'s Wolf Pack (since 2023). She has also provided her voice for Adult Swim's Robot Chicken (2005–2018) and Netflix's Masters of the Universe: Revelation (2021). In 2015, Gellar co-founded Foodstirs, an e-commerce startup selling baking kits, and in 2017, she released her own cookbook, Stirring Up Fun with Food.
Public Image
Known for often playing characters with "strength, sensitivity and snark" in the horror genre, Gellar has been viewed as a "scream queen" throughout the majority of her career.She has stated that horror offers actresses "the best roles" through which they "can really shine", and that it is in television where "women are the stars, but in films we're still struggling to play the leads".Thus, she feels that she "couldn't just be the girlfriend or the wife in a film". She has said: "So I'll be wherever the good female roles are. I like horror."Writing for Bloody Disgusting, Alex DiVincenzo asserted that "Buffy the Vampire Slayer alone should be enough to cement her horror icon status", and highlighting some of her roles in the genre, observed: "Regardless of whether they made it to the end credits, her characters were intelligent, resourceful, and empowering."She has ranked 6th among "The All Time Greatest Horror Scream Queens" by CinemaBlend 4th among the "9 Greatest Scream Queens in All of Horror" by Syfy,and 8th among the "10 Best Scream Queens of the '90s" by Screen Rant.
By the late 1990s, Gellar had become a household name, as well as one of Hollywood's "It Girls".In 1998, she appeared on Entertainment Weekly's Top 12 Entertainers of the Year and the "Most Beautiful" list by People magazine. In 1999, she signed on to be the face of Maybelline —becoming the company's first celebrity spokeswoman since Lynda Carter in the late 1970s and was voted number one in FHM's "100 Sexiest Women" of the year.She was featured in the magazine's German, Dutch, South African, Danish and Romanian editions of the list since 1998.Topsocialite.com listed her as the 8th Sexiest woman of the 1990s.
In 2002, Gellar was honored with a Woman of the Year Award by Glamour magazine,and her wax figure by Madame Tussauds, was unveiled as part of the "Trail of Vampires" exhibition.Between 2002 and 2008, she was featured on the annual Maxim "Hot 100" list.Wearing a black lace bra, she was on the cover of the December 2007 issue of Maxim and was named the 2009 Woman of the Year by the magazine.She was also featured in Google's Top 10 Women Searches of 2002 and 2003, coming in at No. 8,and was included in UK Channel 4's 100 Greatest Sex Symbols in 2007, ranking at No. 16.Other appearances and listings include Glamour's 50 Best Dressed Women in the World in 2004 and 2005,Entertainment Weekly's Top 100 TV Icons in 2007, and BuddyTV's 100 Sexiest Women of 2011.
Gellar has graced the covers of numerous magazines throughout her career. After her February 1998 appearance on Seventeen,the list went on to include Nylon, Marie Claire, Vogue, Glamour, Esquire, Allure, Cosmopolitan, FHM, Rolling Stone, and Elle, among others.She was featured on the cover of Gotham and their main story in the March 2008 issue, in which she spoke about how her style has evolved since she passed 30. She said: "It sounds clichéd, but when women turn 30, they find themselves. You become more comfortable in your own skin. Last night on Letterman, I wore this skintight Herve Leger dress. Two years ago, three years ago? I would never have worn it."She has appeared in "Got Milk?" ads as well as in the Stone Temple Pilots music video "Sour Girl" and Marcy Playground's "Comin' Up From Behind".
Other Endeavors
Philanthropy
Gellar has been an active advocate for various charities, including breast cancer research, Project Angel Food, Habitat for Humanity and CARE. Of her charitable pursuits, she said: "I started because my mother taught me a long time ago that even when you have nothing, there's ways to give back. And what you get in return for that is tenfold. But it was always hard because I couldn't do a lot. I couldn't do much more than just donate money when I was on [Buffy] because there wasn't time. And now that I have the time, it's amazing."
In 1999, Gellar helped Habitat for Humanity's project of building homes in Dominican Republic.With Project Angel Food, she delivered healthy meals to people infected with AIDS, and through the Make-A-Wish Foundation, she granted sick children's wishes of meeting her while working on Buffy.In 2007, Gellar was featured in Vaseline's "Skin Is Amazing" campaign,in which she agreed to auction nude-posed photos of herself on eBay to raise money for the Coalition of Skin Diseases, an organization which supports clinical research, fosters physician and patient education.
In 2011, Gellar joined "The Nestlé Share the Joy of Reading Program", which promotes reading to young children to encourage them to read during the summer break.The following year, she was presented with the Tom Mankiewicz Leadership Award during the Beastly Ball at the Los Angeles Zoo,In 2014 and 2015, Gellar hosted two fundraisers for Mattel Children's Hospital UCLA.
Foodstirs
In October 2015, Gellar, along with entrepreneurs Galit Laibow and Greg Fleishman, co-founded Foodstirs, a startup food crafting brand selling via e-commerce and retail easy-to-make organic baking mixes and kits for families. By 2018, the brand's products were sold at 7,500 retailers nationwide, including Starbucks, Whole Foods, Walmart, WW and Amazon.
Cookbook
Gellar released a cookbook titled Stirring up Fun with Food on April 18, 2017. The book was co-authored by Gia Russo, and features numerous food crafting ideas.
Personal Life
Gellar met her future husband, Freddie Prinze Jr., while they were filming the 1997 teen horror film 'I Know What You Did Last Summer', but the two did not begin dating until 2000. They were engaged in April 2001 and married in Mexico on September 1, 2002, in a ceremony officiated by Adam Shankman, a director and choreographer with whom Gellar had worked on Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
Prinze and Gellar have worked together several times, including when they played each other's respective love interests as Fred and Daphne in Scooby-Doo and Scooby-Doo 2: Monsters Unleashed. In 2007, in honor of their fifth year of marriage, Gellar legally changed her name to Sarah Michelle Prinze.
Together, Gellar and Prinze have two children, a daughter born in 2009 and a son born in 2012. The family lives in Los Angeles.
On February 10, 2021, Gellar expressed support for her Buffy the Vampire Slayer co-star Charisma Carpenter after Carpenter made allegations of abuse against series creator Joss Whedon. She also stated, "While I am proud to have my name associated with Buffy Summers, I don't want to be forever associated with the name Joss Whedon."In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter published January 18, 2023, Gellar is quoted as saying, "I'll never tell my full story because I don't get anything out of it."
As of April 2024, she has amassed 4.5 million followers on her Instagram platform.
