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Sarah Michelle Gellar - Biography |
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Gellar was born in New York City,
the only child of Rosellen (née Greenfield), a nursery school teacher, and
Arthur Gellar, a garment worker. Both of her parents were Jewish, though
Gellar's family had a Christmas tree during the holidays while she was
growing up. In 1984, her parents divorced and she was brought up by her
mother on the Upper East Side.
Gellar was estranged from her father from this time until his death from
liver cancer on October 9, 2001. She attended New York's Columbia Grammar
& Preparatory School and the Professional Children's School. Gellar held a
straight-A average and became a competent figure skater. Her best friend
was Melissa Joan Hart, who later was the star of the series Sabrina, the
Teenage Witch.
At the age of four, Gellar was spotted by an agent in a restaurant in
Uptown Manhattan. Two weeks later, she auditioned for a part in An
Invasion Of Privacy, a made-for-television film starring Valerie Harper,
Carol Kane and Jeff Daniels. At the audition, Gellar read both her own
lines and those of Harper's, impressing the directors enough to cast her
in the role. A short while later, she got a part in a controversial
television commercial for Burger King, in which she criticized McDonald's
and claimed to eat only at Burger King.
This led to a lawsuit against Burger King, ad agency J. Walter Thompson,
and Gellar herself, who appeared in court as a witness for the defense.
The dispute was eventually settled out of court. Gellar continued to make
commercials while appearing in acting roles, including playing Emily in an
episode of the TV series Spenser: For Hire, appearing in a minor role in
the Chevy Chase starring comedy Funny Farm and in the movie High Stakes,
and filming in Europe for the TV series Crossbow. In 1991, she played a
young Jacqueline Bouvier in A Woman Named Jackie.
Gellar got her first major break in 1992, when she starred in the serial
Swans Crossing and was subsequently cast in the soap opera All My
Children, playing Kendall Hart, the long-lost daughter of character Erica
Kane (Susan Lucci). In 1995, at the age of eighteen, she won a Daytime
Emmy Award for Outstanding Younger Leading Actress in a Drama Series for
the role. It is on the set of this Soap opera that she met Michelle
Trachtenberg who would later join the Buffy the Vampire Slayer cast.
Gellar left All My Children in 1995 amid rumors of a strained working
relationship with Lucci, and landed the lead in the 1997 TV series Buffy
the Vampire Slayer, playing a teenager burdened with the responsibility of
fighting a number of mystical foes. The show was well received by critics
and audiences alike, spawning a spinoff series (Angel). Throughout its
seven seasons and a total of 144 episodes, Buffy, and Gellar along with
her, became cult icons in the United States, the UK and Australia,
particularly as archetypes of "empowered" women. Gellar sang several of
the songs during the Buffy the Vampire Slayer musical episode "Once More,
with Feeling", which spawned an original cast album.
During the show's later years, Gellar expressed dissatisfaction about
certain aspects of the show. Shortly after the show's end, Gellar stated
that she had no interest in appearing in a Buffy feature film, although
since then she has said she will consider it if the script is good enough.
She did not appear in the final season of Angel, causing the intended
episode ("You're Welcome") to be rewritten for the character of Cordelia
Chase. Gellar has said that she was willing to appear in the episode, but
scheduling conflicts and family problems prevented it. Gellar has declined
to lend her voice to the various Buffy video games, and another actress
voiced Buffy for an animated series based on the show, which never aired.
Gellar has appeared on the covers of Cosmopolitan, Glamour, FHM, Rolling
Stone, and other magazines. She was featured in Maxim magazine's "Hot 100"
list in 2002, 2003, and 2005, and in FHM 's "100 Sexiest Women" of 2005.
She was voted number 1 in the magazine's 1999 edition. In 1998, she was
named one of People's "50 Most Beautiful People (in the World)". Gellar
has appeared in "Got Milk?" ads as well as in the Stone Temple Pilots
music video "Sour Girl". In 2007, she was ranked #54 on FHM Hot 100 List
and was a celebrity spokesperson for Maybelline. She was on the cover of
the December 2007 issue of Maxim magazine and was named Maxim magazine's
2008 Woman of the Year
Gellar attempted to capitalize on her television fame for a motion
pictures career, with intermittent commercial success. After roles in the
popular thrillers I Know What You Did Last Summer and Scream 2 (both
1997), she starred in the 1999 films Simply Irresistible, a romantic
comedy, and Cruel Intentions, a modern-day retelling of Les Liaisons
Dangereuses. Cruel Intentions, with a kiss between Gellar and co-star
Selma Blair that won the two the "Best Kiss" award at the 2000 MTV Movie
Awards, was a modest hit at the box office, grossing over $38 million in
the U.S. Critic Roger Ebert stated that Gellar and co-star Ryan Phillippe
"develop a convincing emotional charge" and that Gellar is "effective as a
bright girl who knows exactly how to use her act as a tramp".
Gellar next played a lead role in James Toback's critically unsuccessful
Harvard Man (2001) and starred as Daphne Blake in Scooby-Doo (2002), a
live-action adaptation of the cartoon series. Gellar also appeared in the
sequel, Scooby-Doo 2: Monsters Unleashed (2004). She starred alongside her
husband, Freddie Prinze, Jr. in both Scooby-Doo movies. Gellar's next film
was the 2004 horror film The Grudge, which was a success at the box
office. David Wirtschafter, the president of the William Morris Agency
(which represented Gellar), subsequently told The New Yorker that the
success of The Grudge "takes our client Sarah Michelle Gellar, who now is
nothing at all, and...makes her a star, potentially. Suddenly, the Sarah
Michelle Gellar space is meaningful". The remark led Gellar to terminate
her association with the agency.
Gellar appeared in the sequel The Grudge 2, which opened on October 13,
2006; in the film, she has a minor role reprising her character from the
first film. Gellar next appeared in the thriller The Return, which was
released on November 10, 2006. She then lent her voice to two animated
films: the animated fairy tale Happily N'Ever After, and Teenage Mutant
Ninja Turtles. She has starred in several films that have yet to be
released, including Southland Tales, The Air I Breathe, Suburban Girl
(earlier known as "A Girl's Guide to Hunting and Fishing"), and Addicted
(a supernatural thriller based on the South Korean film Jungdok known to
English language audiences as Addicted). The Air I Breathe and Suburban
Girl have been seen by members of the public at the 2007 Tribeca Film
Festival. The Air I Breathe has a release date of January 25th 2008, while
Suburban Girl is being released straight to high-definition Blu-ray Disc &
DVD on January 15 2008. Addicted has had a number of different release
dates set, ranging from September 2007 to February 2008. Southland Tales
opened at the Cannes Film Festival in May 2006 and is set to release in
the US on November 14th 2007.
Her next film, Alice, is in the pre-production stage.
She was offered a role in Stardust but turned it down to spend more time
with her husband.
She is involved in the long delayed science fiction animation film
"Quantum Quest: A Cassini Space Odyssey" which Sarah provides a voice for
alongside Lacey Chabert, John Travolta and Samuel L.Jackson
Gellar met future husband Freddie Prinze, Jr., during filming of 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 film
director and choreographer with whom Gellar had worked on Buffy the
Vampire Slayer. In 2007, Gellar legally changed her name to Sarah Michelle
Prinze, in honor of the couple's fifth year of marriage.
In 2004, while filming The Grudge in Japan, Gellar visited the famous
Japanese swordsmith Shoji Yoshihara (Kuniie III) and bought a Katana from
him as a birthday present for her husband. Gellar realized that she needed
clearance from the government to remove the sword from the country, and
after eventually succeeding, stated that it was "incredibly difficult" to
do.
Gellar has said in interviews that she believes in God but does not belong
to an organized religion. Gellar has said in interviews that she collects
rare editions of classic children's literature.
In a recent interview with SELF magazine, Gellar revealed her dedication
to the environmental movement, stating that she has gone green to save
money. Gellar rides her bike to run errands and uses a reusable bag when
grocery shopping. |
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Sarah Michelle Gellar - Personal Quotes |
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(about her father) - "Just
because you donate sperm does not make you a father. I don't have a
father. I would never give him the credit or acknowledge him as my
father."
[On Being A Teen Idol] "This is what I've waited for my whole life."
(High school) "My biggest complaint is school when it's
Send-the-roses day, somebody's always left out. I always got roses,
but I would give them to someone who hadn't gotten any."
(Horror Movies) "I'm always the one who gets killed. And I want it
to be really gory. Body parts all over the place. Mangled! "
[on Ryan Phillippe and Reese Witherspoon]: "They're unbelievable.
They're an inspiration to young love."
[On job pressures] "There's so much pressure on all of us right now.
On Katie Holmes, on James Van Der Beek and myself, to do these
movies, and do as much as you can because there is the slight
feeling that one day your phone will stop ringing. It's not about
the craft, per se. It's so easy to fall for it all because people
remind you constantly that as fast as it comes, it can go. And I
think there is this sort of paranoia, this need to keep working. And
I know that I felt it, and for the first three years of the show, I
never had more than a week off, except for Christmas. That was it".
(On being 'skinny') "How can women be as thin as we are? We have
personal trainers to work us out. We have specially prepared meals."
[on the Internet] "I got a computer and I'm learning how to use it.
I collect antique books, so I used it to get my copy of 'Les
Liaisons Dangereuses,' and I use it for travel, to look up customs.
I went to Fiji, and I looked up all this stuff before I went, like
'Don't wear a hat in someone's house because it's rude, and don't
wear shoes.' You've got to think there's something better I can do
with my time than log on to the Internet and say, 'Ooo, let's find
out about me!' I think that would frighten me a little bit."
"It makes me think of women who don't shave their legs." - on what
the word "feminist" means
[On her kissing scene with Selma Blair in Cruel Intentions (1999)]:
"It was a great kiss. It even had a saliva trail."
One of the greatest gifts my job has given me is that my mother, who
gave up her entire life for me, doesn't have to work any more. I'm
now in a position to repay her for her devotion.
I am militant about drugs. You want to do 'em? You're out of my
life.
[on posing nude] "Right now I can't picture posing, but I don't
believe in saying never... There might be a time when I got pregnant
and felt really beautiful and wanted to have a nude picture."
"I would go to college to be a journalist. I always wanted to write
for Time or Newsweek." (On what she would do if she wasn't acting.)
You'll never know what you're capable of if you don't try.
I don't understand why James Bond has to be a man all the time. When
Pierce Brosnan retires, why not one of us?
[on why she was happy to get married:] "I'm so grateful I don't have
to go looking for a man on a Saturday night. I was always terrible
at chatting up men." [December 10, 2003]
[about "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" (1997):] "To me, the scariest
elements of horror films are the things that could really happen.
And what is more scary than high school? ... What I like about the
show is that it reminds you it's O.K. to be different. What people
think isn't necessarily true. If people walk away with half of that,
we've done our job." [New York Times, April 27, 1997]
[on playing Kendall Hart on "All My Children" (1970):] "I seduced my
stepfather, and when he wouldn't sleep with me, I slept with the
stable boy, cried rape, and my mother stabbed him with a letter
opener. Then I went to jail for perjury, burned my parents' divorce
papers, and locked up my little sister. I think that was all in the
first week." [New York Times, April 27, 1997]
[on attending the Professional Children's High School in Manhattan:]
"Everybody there had a talent, and everyone was respected. If
somebody didn't like you--they didn't talk to you! They didn't make
fun of you, punish you. You could, you know, mess around with how
you dress. You really had that chance to find yourself, and I thank
God for that school. I went to that school feeling amazingly
untalented. That school was my lifeline. Let me tell you
something--talent night at our school? There was nothing like it."
Horror films are where women can shine and have a chance to lead.
They always save the day in these films.
[On gay marriage] "I have good friends, gay couples, who've been
together for 18 years. It drives me crazy that in the eyes of the
law, their love isn't acknowledged when I have girlfriends who have
married four times by the age of 25."
[On religion] "I don't believe in organized religion and I never
have."
No, that's what bothers me. That's how they think. Okay, this is a
summer...I remember that it used to be you could see great movies
any time. Now it's like summer is for blockbusters, fall is for the
movies that they can't fit into any other time, that's like
September. Then Oscar movies start, it used to be post Thanksgiving.
Now the awards are earlier so it starts earlier. January is when
they dump movies. And it's just so... it seems to me so obvious that
wouldn't it be better for the marketplace to have these movies
spread out? Not just people don't only go to the movies in summer
time. If that was the truth, then in the summer time they would
count the whole week's worth of the box office but it's still only a
weekend. So why does it matter...sorry, I get a little upset. It's
just frustrating.
Basically I only like to choose films that I don't understand. As
long as they're greater than my mental capacity, I figure I gotta be
doing something artful, right? Isn't that what makes something art
when you don't understand it?
I wish, and I wish so much for the film industry right now. I wish
so much for originality and I wish so much and I think that we're
caught in this difficult cycle right now because our studios are
corporations now. I keep talking about the old 1940s, where one guy
with a cigar and a scotch made decisions for a studio and now
because there are all these computer corporations basically,
technology companies and there's so much else that goes into a
decision that it's very difficult to get films that are different
that are off the beaten path made. It's much easier to get something
unoriginal made than to get something original.
"Simply Irresistible (1999) was just a bad choice - and for that it
was a great learning experience. I wasn't ready to make that movie.
I was too young. The script was not ready. I knew in my heart before
I left to make it that I should back out".
"I hope positively. One thing about the show was it was never
categorized. It was drama, comedy, action, horror, all of those
things combined. And I just want people to remember it as a fabulous
run, a fabulous seven years." - how she would like "Buffy the
Vampire Slayer" and her work on it to be remembered.
In this day and age, everything is so cross-marketed that the lines
have blurred in my opinion between what is an actor and what is a
celebrity. What is reality? All you have to do is pick up a magazine
or turn on the television and you can get ideas from places that
five years ago you couldn't.
"That's so weird. It's one of those things that's like you go on
location and you're there for a week getting ready. Here it's like
you're walking the dog, you're paying the bills and then 10 minutes
later, you have to go to work. It's a very sort of odd- - I'm
grateful for it and so glad to actually film a movie in Hollywood.
Although some of these locations are pretty far. I could probably
fly to some of them"- Working in LA filming the movie Southland
Tales (2006).
"It's funny in the sense of he'll say to me, 'You don't understand.
You're doing a movie. I've been on my feet all day.' I'm like, 'For
real? For real I don't understand?' So that's kind of odd. And the
times are funny because I'm on nights and he's more organized in
terms of...or last week he was getting out of the house at like 3:30
in the morning." On her doing movies and Freddie doing his show.
"Do a sitcom. Don't do a one hour. That was actually my advice. He
was going to do a one hour. I was like, 'Are you crazy? You know
what people make for sitcoms and how little they work, right? You
see all of our friends on sitcoms.'" - Her advice for her husband,
Freddie Prinze Jr..
You know what? I only see myself doing films that interest me and
that are a little bit off the beaten path. I will go wherever that
takes me. I just - - I always say it just can't be generic. I can't
be the girlfriend or the wife or the - - you can't play the
characters that I've been blessed to play and then do that. I can't
be the girl in the film.
"I think the best piece of advice I've ever gotten is to trust
myself and go for my dreams. I got that from my mom."
"Being sexy is being confident. It's important to know you don't
have to have silicone breasts falling out and a thigh-high skirt.
Sometimes you meet people and they think, 'Another cute little
blonde actress.' That's not who I am." - on rather being known as
clever than sexy
"You can't be selfish and have a child. Right now I want to live my
life and have fun. I want to go sit in my Jacuzzi and drink wine all
night." (on not wanting children at this point) |
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Sarah Michelle Gellar - Filmography |
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Alice (2008) .... Alice
Quantum Quest: A Cassini Space Odyssey (2009) (voice) .... Ranger
Possession (2008) .... Jessica
"Robot Chicken" .... Bekcy / ... (5 episodes, 2005-2007)
- Celebutard Mountain (2007) TV episode (voice) .... Blair
Warner/Bekcy/Big Bad Wolf's Wife
- 1987 (2006) TV episode (voice)
- Operation Rich in Spirit (2005) TV episode (voice) .... Daphne
Blake / Samara Morgan
- Joint Point (2005) TV episode (voice) .... Romance Woman/Various
- Nutcracker Sweet (2005) TV episode (voice) .... Little Girl
Suburban Girl (2007) .... Brett Eisenberg
TMNT (2007) (voice) .... April O'Neil
... aka Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (USA: long title)
The Air I Breathe (2007) .... Sorrow
Happily N'Ever After (2007) (voice) .... Ella
... aka Es war k'einmal im Märchenland (Germany)
The Return (2006/I) .... Joanna Mills
The Grudge 2 (2006) .... Karen
Southland Tales (2006) .... Krysta Now / Krysta Kapowski
The Grudge (2004) .... Karen Davis
... aka Fluch, Der (Germany)
... aka The Juon (Japan)
"The Simpsons" .... Gina (1 episode, 2004)
- The Wandering Juvie (2004) TV episode (voice) .... Gina
Scooby Doo 2: Monsters Unleashed (2004) .... Daphne Blake
"God, the Devil and Bob" .... That Actress on That Show (1 episode,
2003)
- There's Too Much Sex on TV (2003) TV episode (voice) .... That
Actress on That Show
"Buffy the Vampire Slayer" .... Buffy Summers / ... (145 episodes,
1997-2003)
... aka BtVS (USA: promotional abbreviation)
... aka Buffy
... aka Buffy the Vampire Slayer: The Series
- Chosen (2003) TV episode .... Buffy Summers
- End of Days (2003) TV episode .... Buffy Summers
- Touched (2003) TV episode .... Buffy Summers
- Empty Places (2003) TV episode .... Buffy Summers
- Dirty Girls (2003) TV episode .... Buffy Summers
(140 more)
"Saturday Night Live" .... Host / ... (4 episodes, 1998-2002)
... aka NBC's Saturday Night (USA: first season title)
... aka SNL (USA: informal title)
... aka SNL 25 (USA: alternative title)
... aka Saturday Night (USA: second season title)
... aka Saturday Night Live '80 (USA: sixth season title)
- Sarah Michelle Gellar/Faith Hill (2002) TV episode .... Host
- Jackie Chan/Kid Rock (2000) TV episode (uncredited) .... Brandi
Lane
- Sarah Michelle Geller/Backstreet Boys (1999) TV episode .... Host
- Sarah Michelle Gellar/Portishead (1998) TV episode .... Host
Scooby-Doo (2002) .... Daphne Blake
Jack Black: Spider-Man (2002) (TV) .... Mary Jane Watson / Wonder
woman
Lord of the Piercing (2002) (TV) .... Arwen
Harvard Man (2001) .... Cindy Bandolini
"Sex and the City" .... Debbie (1 episode, 2000)
- Escape from New York (2000) TV episode .... Debbie
"Angel" .... Buffy Summers (3 episodes, 1999-2000)
... aka Angel: The Series (USA)
- Sanctuary (2000) TV episode .... Buffy Summers
- I Will Remember You (1999) TV episode .... Buffy Summers
- The Bachelor Party (1999) TV episode (uncredited) .... Buffy
Summers
Cruel Intentions (1999) .... Kathryn Merteuil
Simply Irresistible (1999) .... Amanda Shelton
... aka Einfach unwiderstehlich (Germany)
She's All That (1999) (uncredited) .... Girl in Cafeteria
"Hercules" .... Andromeda / ... (2 episodes, 1998)
... aka Disney's Hercules (USA: complete title)
- Hercules and the Falling Stars (1998) TV episode (voice) ....
Andromeda
- Dream Date (1998) TV episode (voice) .... Andromeda 1998
Small Soldiers (1998) (VG) .... Voice of Gardy Doll
"King of the Hill" .... Marie (1 episode, 1998)
- And They Call It Bobby Love (1998) TV episode (voice) .... Marie
Small Soldiers (1998) (voice) .... Gwendy Doll
Beverly Hills Family Robinson (1998) (TV) .... Jane Robinson
Scream 2 (1997) .... Casey 'Cici' Cooper
I Know What You Did Last Summer (1997) .... Helen Shivers
"All My Children" .... Kendall Hart Lang (18 episodes, 1993-1995)
... aka All My Children: The Summer of Seduction (USA: promotional
title)
- Episode dated 2 August 1995 (1995) TV episode .... Kendall Hart
Lang
- Episode dated 16 May 1995 (1995) TV episode .... Kendall Hart Lang
- Episode #1.6517 (1995) TV episode .... Kendall Hart Lang
- Episode dated 20 March 1995 (1995) TV episode .... Kendall Hart
Lang
- Episode dated 2 March 1995 (1995) TV episode .... Kendall Hart
Lang
(13 more)
"Swans Crossing" (1992) TV series .... Sydney Orion Rutledge
(unknown episodes)
"A Woman Named Jackie" (1991) (mini) TV mini-series .... Teenage
Jacqueline Bouvier
High Stakes (1989) (as Sarah Gellar) .... Karen Rose
... aka Melanie Rose
"Crossbow" .... Sara Guidotti (1 episode, 1988)
... aka Guillaume Tell (France: dubbed version)
... aka William Tell (UK)
- Actors (1988) TV episode .... Sara Guidotti
Funny Farm (1988) (uncredited) .... Elizabeth's Student
"Spenser: For Hire" .... Emily (1 episode, 1988)
- Company Man (1988) TV episode .... Emily
Over the Brooklyn Bridge (1984) (uncredited) .... Phil's Daughter
... aka Across the Brooklyn Bridge
... aka My Darling Shiksa
An Invasion of Privacy (1983) (TV) .... Jennifer Bianchi |
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Sarah Michelle Gellar - Related Links |
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Wikipedia: Sarah Michelle Gellar
YouTube: Sarah Michelle Gellar
Sarah Michelle Gellar at Celebs, Inc.
Sarah Michelle Gellar at Babemania.com
Top Celebrities Sites:
The Celebrity
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