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Early life
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. She also became close friends with
Lindsay Sloane, who (in September 2002) would be her bridesmaid at her
wedding.
Television career
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, 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.
Buffy the Vampire Slayer
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.
Magazine covers and other appearances
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.
Film career
Gellar and husband Freddie Prinze, Jr. at the Tribeca Film Festival
Gellar and husband Freddie Prinze, Jr. at the Tribeca Film Festival
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
Personal life
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. Gellar's bridesmaid was her closest friend
of many years, Lindsay Sloane. 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. |
