Sarah Michelle Gellar has ‘voted’ for Zendaya to be her successor in a Buffy the Vampire Slayer reboot.
In an interview with Evan Ross Katz for his introspective new book, Into Every Generation a Slayer is Born: How Buffy Staked Our Hearts, the pop icon was asked who should take over her iconic role.
“I vote Zendaya,” she revealed, to which Julie Benz – who played Darla on the groundbreaking fantasy drama – replied, “That would be amazing.”
Zendaya is best known for her role as Rue, a teenage drug addict, on HBO’s teen drama Euphoria, for which she became the youngest recipient of the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series.
The actress has also starred in The Greatest Showman, the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s Spider-Man trilogy, Malcolm & Marie and Dune.
Gellar slayed (pun intended) as the title character from 1997-2003, and was nominated for several awards for her performance including a Golden Globe. Buffy is often regarded as one of the best female characters of all time.
The series focused on a teenage girl bestowed with supernatural abilities to defeat vampires, demons and the forces of darkness.
It also starred Alyson Hannigan, Nicholas Brendon, Anthony Stewart Head, David Boreanaz, Charisma Carpenter, James Marsters, Michelle Trachtenberg, Emma Caulfield, Amber Benson, Seth Green and Eliza Dushku.
Buffy received widespread acclaim – with many episodes hailed as some of the finest in TV history (Hush, The Body, Once More, with Feeling) – and has also been credited with influencing other series in the same genre.
The show was also lauded for its queer representation, with resident witches Willow Rosenberg (Hannigan) and Tara Maclay (Benson) making history as the first long-term lesbian relationship on US television. Season seven also marked the first lesbian sex scene on primetime television.
A reboot was first announced in 2018 by original series creator Joss Whedon, who was collaborating with Fringe alum Monica Owusu-Breen to bring a “black Buffy” to the screen. The announcement was met with a mixed reception from fans, including Gellar.
However, the Scooby Doo star later said: “Our demons were the metaphors for the horrors of high school and adolescence, and I think that there’s definitely new horrors of adolescence. The idea of a chosen one would be certainly very interesting at this time.
“I do think it’s tricky because we were already a reboot. So, I don’t know. I actually don’t know what’s happening with it. I think it’s amazing that so many people are still so passionate about her and her story.”
Owusu-Breen addressed the negative response and confirmed that it will be a revival instead of a full-blown reboot. She tweeted: “For some genre writers it’s Star Wars. Buffy the Vampire Slayer is my Star Wars.
“Joss Whedon’s brilliant and beautiful series can’t be replicated. I wouldn’t try to. But here we are, twenty years later. And the world seems a lot scarier. So maybe, it could be time to meet a new Slayer… And that’s all I can say.”
The Buffy reboot seems to have been put on hold, however. In 2020, Whedon was accused by abusive behaviour by Ray Fisher on the set of DC’s Justice League. Fisher’s allegations were later corroborated by Wonder Woman’s Gal Gadot and Buffy stars Carpenter, Trachtenberg and Benson.
Gellar also said, that while she’s “proud” to be associated with Buffy Summers, she doesn’t want to “be forever associated with the name Joss Whedon”. She also stated that she stands with “all survivors of abuse” and is “proud of them for speaking out.”
Whedon has categorically denied all allegations.
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