In the late '90s, Sarah Michelle Gellar was in command of both the big and small screens,
but nowadays she seems to have been relegated to the world of TV animation voice-overs.
Here's a look at why Hollywood won't cast Sarah Michelle Gellar anymore.
Frightcasting
Gellar might have gotten her start on the soap operas Swans Crossing and All My Children,
but she really made her name as a scream queen.
Just as she stepped into the title role in TV's Buffy the Vampire Slayer, she also appeared
in the 1997 cheesetastic teen thrillers I Know What You Did Last Summer and Scream 2.
"Aaahh!
Please No!
Stooooppppppp!"
Almost all of her silver screen successes since then can neatly fit into that same horror
box, like 2004's The Grudge, its 2006 sequel, and The Return from the same year.
Even her family film work in the live-action Scooby-Doo flicks only boosted her scary movie
reputation — a reputation she now can't escape.
"Now who's the damsel in distress?"
"Me?"
"Straight up"
"Aaahhhh!"
Bad box office
Gellar gained instant popularity thanks to Buffy and her fun slasher fare, but her efforts
outside the fear sphere have failed to lift off.
Her supernatural rom-com Simply Irresistible was a flat-out flop, and nobody saw her weird
crime drama Harvard Man.
No one saw her part as a viral porn star in the dramedy Southland Tales, either.
Or her psychological drama Veronika Decides to Die.
She's proven she can put bottoms in seats whenever someone's chasing her with a knife,
but viewers just haven't shown up to check out her other offerings.
Killed by critics
Gellar's movies have received almost universal disapproval from reviewers — even those
few films audiences did come out for.
Simply Irresistible, for instance, earned an embarrassing 13% rating on Rotten Tomatoes,
and The Return was massacred, too, earning just 16%.
Even The Grudge was mostly disliked, and the sequel was a magnet for critical thrashing.
When you look at that resume, it almost starts to look like career suicide.
Small screen struggles
Buffy was a fan-frenzied highlight of Gellar's career, so once her movie star status proved
to be DOA, she returned to TV to see if she might be able to find favor with at-home audiences
again.
And she got her answer: nope.
Her crime drama Ringer, which featured Gellar as a pair of twins on the run from scary ne'er-do-wells,
bombed with critics and audiences alike, and failed to earn a second season.
Then her network comedy show The Crazy Ones, which featured her alongside the late great
Robin Williams, also got the axe after a single season.
Ouch.
Low profile
Her off-screen exploits haven't done much to boost her profile either.
Her long-lived marriage to fellow '90s hottie Freddie Prinze Jr. has produced two children
and zero drama.
Meanwhile, her social media feed oozes with total proud mom gush, like a zillion pics
of her kids, and snaps of her family's culinary adventures.
It's all fantastic for her personal well-being, but that kind of wild and crazy life doesn't
exactly keep up in the headlines.
"Would you like to smoke a bowl?"
"Ya there's nothing in it."
Vocal victory
She's got a face for the cameras, no doubt.
But post-Buffy, Gellar's had better responses to her voice work than her screen appearances.
She's done almost a decade's worth of audio character work for Cartoon Network's Robot
Chicken, and you've heard her other places, too, like The Simpsons,TMNT, and even video
games like Call of Duty.
"Let's puree some zombies!"
Most recently, she and Prinze have tapped into the nerd domain with their voice roles
in Star Wars Rebels and seem to be drumming up some solid fanfare as a result of that
show.
It's not over yet
One thing that could turn this all around is if the Cruel Intentions TV sequel finally
takes flight.
Audiences nostalgic for Kathryn's special kind of deviance might respond, if and when
the show is ever made.
"I'll give you something you've been obsessing about."
It wasn't mentioned on the fall 2016 order sheets for any networks, but Gellar said the
delays were only due to the fact that they want to get it right.
"The road is taking a little longer than normal, but we've all been adamite that to do it,
we have to do it right.
And we have to do it, y'know, it's a naughty show.
And you have to pay homage to what it is and you have to make sure that it all fits."
Let's hope they do.
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