Sarah Michelle Gellar wants Zendaya to star in a Buffy the Vampire Slayer reboot
Sarah Michelle Gellar recently commemorated the 25th anniversary of Buffy’s series premiere. It’s interesting that some things have been rebooted multiple times in a fairly short span of time, but Buffy The Vampire Slayer has survived the 19 years since its series finale with nothing but some comics added as canon. As a superfan since I fell into the show accidentally with the season one episode “Nightmares” when I was seven, this didn’t bother me. But in 2018, it was announced that there would be a reboot with a Black actress starring as Buffy. I thought that would be really cool and I had the perfect candidate: myself! Search over! But I guess I can get behind Sarah Michelle Gellar’s recently stated preferred pick for the new Buffy: Zendaya.
Sarah Michelle Gellar already knows who she wants to be her successor in the Buffy the Vampire Slayer reboot.
The 44-year-old actress— who portrayed the titular character, Buffy Anne Summers, in the teen drama — recently revealed that she’d love to see Zendaya take over as lead.
In an interview with Evan Ross Katz, author of Into Every Generation a Slayer Is Born: How Buffy Staked Our Hearts for the new book, the actress said she’d fully supports a series reboot if it were to happen, Insider reported Thursday.
When asked who should take over her starring role, Gellar replied, “I vote Zendaya,” while Julie Benz, Gellar’s Buffy costar, echoed, “That would be amazing.”
The idea of a Buffy the Vampire Slayer reboot was first announced in July 2018 with a Black actress in the starring role.
Following the announcement, the Buffyverse fanbase grew divided, as many had mixed feelings about seeing the series go on without Gellar.
However, the star stressed that she’d support the next chapter of the beloved show.
“At the end of the day, it’s all about great storytelling,” Gellar told PEOPLE at the time. “If a story lives on, then I think it should be told in any incarnation it can be told in.
Would the new Slayer be Buffy or simply in the Buffyverse — perhaps she’d be one of the Slayers activated in the series finale? It’s also unclear when or if this reboot will actually happen. There’s been little word on it since the 2018 announcement and it’s thought that it may be on hold since original creator/showrunner Joss Whedon was attached and he’s since been revealed as abusive, misogynistic, exploitative, racist, nationalistic, gaslighting, etc. Maybe they want to get some distance from his name and all the gross stories that have come out about him and that he’s told about himself, but they can make a great show without Whedon’s toxicity. He gets all the credit, but a lot of the original series’ success should be attributed to the writing of Marti Nixon, Jane Espenson, Drew Goddard, David Greenwalt, Drew Greenberg, Doug Petrie, David Fury… I could go on.
As hard as it can be to criticize the things you love, Buffy seriously lacked representation and could be extremely problematic. The only significant characters of color were Kendra (killed off quickly) and Principal Wood (last season Hail Mary and related to one of the few other Black characters). Then there were the two Slayers Spike killed (minorities always die first) and a couple of villains like Forrest, Mr. Sweet, Mr. Trick, and Ashanti. And most egregiously, the completely racist First Slayer portrayal. If I’m forgetting any it’s because they were insignificant. So I do think rebooting it with a Black actress is the right move, but I’m actually not sure Zendaya is the best choice. Even if it’s not going to be me (I’m the same height as SMG, I swear it would be perfect), I think the reboot could be a perfect launchpad for an actress with a lower profile than Zendaya’s, more like 1997 SMG. SMG was known when the show began, but she wasn’t Marvel/HBO known. And while I agree with popular opinion that Zendaya is awesome and has enviable style, I do think one step toward correcting the mistakes of the original series would be to cast a Black actress with a darker skintone and kinkier/curlier hair.
Photos credit: UPN/Avalon.red and via Instagram
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