Interview parue dans le numéro 90 (fin janvier 2002 mais daté de mars 2002) du magazine britannique Dreamwatch. Spoilers sur la toute fin de la saison 5.
Back from the dead, set to get married and co-starring with a talking dog... It's been quite a year for Buffy star Sarah Michelle Gellar...
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Dreamwatch: Buffy changed US networks this season, from the WB to UPN. You got quite involved with it all, didn't you?
Yes, [but] it didn't affect us in the sense of day to day shooting. When the show was first coming up for renegotiation, obviously everyone knows I was vocal about not wanting to leave and you can't blame me. The WB had been our home. We'd sort of come up together and they've been very supportive of us, so I was very supportive of them. Like most people, I was afraid of the unknown. All those things made me obviously really want to stay where I was, but I was on this tiny island in Australia while it was all going on and when I finally got back, it was done.
How do you feel about it now?
It's worked out better than I could possibly imagine. Dean Valentine, the UPN executive in charge of the show, worked at Disney when Joss [Whedon, series creator/writer/producer/director] was shopping the Buffy pilot. He had really wanted Disney to buy it, but they passed. So he has been following the show ever since and never missed an episode. He really is a true fan of the show. All the years at the WB, no executive ever came down to the set. I would say Dean has been there at least once an episode. He hangs, he sits by the coffee machine. He'll stay three or four hours. He gets excited! It makes you enthused, because they [the station executives] are enthused. As well as being the highest [rating] season premiere we'd ever had, what we were all proud of was the fact that we did our highest numbers in the male demographic. We'd never really done well there - go figure: girl in tight skirt, fighting and all that - but Dean was proud that not only had he proven to everyone that he was right spending the money and making the show, but he brought something new to it because we're getting new viewers that we never thought we would have.
Do you have a wedding date?
The truth is we don't have a date [Gellar is engaged to Freddy Prinze Jr., her Scooby Doo co-star]. There are so many women that spend their entire life imagining their wedding and imagining the dress and the day and the place. They're [a] princess for a day. I have been really lucky in my life because I get the opportunity to go to so many fabulous award shows and wear dresses and get my hair and make-up done, that aspect of it is not something I've been planning. I don't have that box under my bed that has the pictures I've been cutting out since I was 11, so it's a little overwhelming to me how to decide everything because it's just one day. I look at bridal magazines and get absolutely more confused. I think the fact that we haven't set a date is just due to that. How do you know this date is better than this date? Of course, all my friends certainly have no problems telling me what days work for them!
As the show has grown and your celebrity has evolved, how do you view your ongoing role as a role model to young women?
All these other actors say I'm an actor and it's not my responsibility; I can do what I want as long as long as I put out there what I'm supposed to on the show. But I don't believe that. I believe that when people look up to you and they look to something, then why not set the rest of the example. I was always careful until I was 21. I never drank outside. I am not going to say I didn't have a glass of champagne at a friend's birthday party, but I didn't go out and party and drink alcohol. Those girls that are out there, they looked up to me. My publicist always says to me, "Thank God you have no drunk driving charges or jail time or other skeletons in your closet," and I think that's also partly who I am. It's not my personality to go out to a club and drink. I'd rather drink a good bottle of wine at home!
I do believe there has to be a point where Buffy ends and Sarah begins. I also know that people are watching and girls look up to me. I didn't have that role model when I was growing up. There were no Keri Russell or Jennifer Garner or Katie Holmes. We're all friendly and I think it was something that all of us took really seriously because we'd been working a long time. I've known Keri Russell for years and you sort of say, "Well, it's an honour to be in this place and I'm going to take pride in that." Of course, there are times when it is intrusive and you want to be a person and work with people. My mom always said that as long as it was still fun for me, she'd let me continue.
How much longer do you see Buffy lasting?
When I got the pilot, my best friend at the time turned to me and said, "Don't worry, you'll get another pilot next season!", pitying the poor girl that got the mid-season show on the WB that was following a failed movie. I never thought we'd get past the pilot. Then, after the first show aired, I thought: "Well, it was fun, and maybe I'll get another show next year." It kept progressing and was a surprise to all of us. So it's hard for me to guess how much longer, because I never thought I'd still be here now! We are contractually obligated through this year and next, but honestly right now, I couldn't even guess what then.
Playing Daphne in Scooby Doo was a comedic challenge. Where does your comedy timing come from?
I think it started with the fact that I was a klutz... Then in school, when 13-year-old girls are graceful and taking ballet, I would walk into everything and try to be funny to make people know I wasn't hurting, no matter how much blood was gushing [laughs]! A little bit of self-deprecation goes a long way, I think. If you ask my mom she thinks she's incredibly funny and I love her to death, but she's not and the jokes often go right past her!
I love to watch everything. Growing up in New York, one of the greatest things was I could sit on the steps of the Metropolitan Museum of Art and just watch everybody walk by. As an actor, you're learning so much stuff from watching people. I've also learned a lot working with so many amazing people. I learned from Neil Simon to never 'play' a joke. If anything, mumble the end of the joke so people don't think you're trying to sell it. I'm also spoiled from good writing on my show too. Buffy is so subtle and Daphne is so broad.
Being a New Yorker, how did you react to the attacks on the city on 11 September 2001?
Being in Los Angeles when everything happened, it was so hard to understand the magnitude. One of my best friends and I were at work. She was watching and feeling horrible, but she had never stood underneath those buildings and never seen the enormity. I grew up in New York City. If you get lost down in Soho, you look for the Twin Towers: that's how you find your way. You go away for a little bit and you come back from the airport and drive over the bridge and see the skyline... All of a sudden, out of nowhere this majestic skyline comes and that's how you know you're home. I felt so helpless.
The next day, we were back at work and it felt really frivolous. I kept thinking, "Why am I here making a TV show when all these people lost their loved ones and kids lost their parents and I lost friends too?" Then I realised that, first of all, people look to entertainment as a distraction. That when we got into times like this, this is what distracts people for an hour a day. I can't dig, I'm no military intelligence officer, and I don't have any trade secrets for the CIA. I wanted to donate money and I thought I'd write my cheque, but then I started thinking that if we all donated collectively it just enthuses you that much more and makes you more of a family and a crew. So I started collecting money from the crew. I'd walk around with a box begging people I'd never met and I'd say, "Don't go to Starbucks and buy coffee today. We have coffee on the set, so give me your $3 instead!" I said to all the extras, "I know it doesn't sound like a lot but there are 75 of you and if every one gave $1, that's $75." So then I decided that it was going to match whatever my entire crew could raise. It became this competition. Then I thought, "Why don't I go around to the producers and see if they'll match." My goal was to raise $10,000. I really hoped I could pull it off. We raised $60,000, so I'm pretty proud of that because it was this amazing feeling that not only were we able to contribute, but we contributed as a family and that's what all this is about.