(Cannes) American actress Sarah Michelle Gellar, guest of honor at the closing of the Canneseries festival in the south-east of France, looks back on the cult series of the 90s buffy the vampire slayera series “not just about every girl, but about every person who felt a little different.”
“I’ve worked hard and I’m proud of everything I’ve achieved, proud of who I am as a person,” the 46-year-old actress, guest of honor at the Canneseries festival, told a crowd on Wednesday. full house.
“I think I have more confidence in myself now” than at the start of my career, continued the one who played for generations of teenagers in the late 90s the vampire slayer Buffy, in the series of the same name. A saga that ended twenty years ago.
“We realize that Buffy exists, that she is a human being and that she is charming, accessible, generous, she is the icon of icons”: it is in these terms that Albin Lewi, artistic director de Canneseries, introduced the American star, dressed in a flamboyant green and blue striped dress.
“As an actor, you may be hoping for the chance in your life to be part of a television program, a movie, a play that means something to people and continues to have meaning, ”said the actress, who has just returned to the film sets after a ten-year break to devote herself to her family.
She is currently starring in the series Wolf Packof which she is also a producer, broadcast on Paramount +.
“I feel incredibly lucky that Buffy is still relevant to today’s television landscape,” continued Sarah Michelle Gellar, “and that every generation not only enjoys watching the show, but relates to it, even as the world has moved on.” .
“Horrors of adolescence”
In the seven seasons and 144 episodes of this cult series, created by Joss Whedon and broadcast from 1997 to 2003, Sarah Michelle Gellar played Buffy Summers, an American teenager without history designated as the chosen one to fight, with her friends, against the vampires and the forces of evil.
“When I read the script, I loved it,” said the actress, who was only 17 when she was cast in the role. “It was so different” from what was being done then. “At that time, we weren’t giving actors of that age stories that made so much sense and I absolutely wanted to be part of the adventure.
Like my character, “I lived in two worlds: I was the youngest of the actors in the series, but I had the most experience”, traced the one who began to frequent film sets at the age four years old and starred in more than a hundred commercials, dozens of series, but also in successful films such as remember last summer, scream 2, sex intentions, Scooby Doo or The Grudge.
It was “similar to the way Buffy was trying to find her place between adolescence and adulthood”, continued Sarah Michelle Gellar, for whom the monsters and demonic creatures fought by the heroine were “just a metaphor for the horrors of adolescence.
With this series, “it wasn’t just about each girl, but each person who was perhaps a little different, who didn’t quite fit into the mould”, developed the one who received a Cannes award. Lifetime Achievement Award.
“Watching Buffy helped me move forward in life, because when I was little, I was separated from my mom. I struggled to find some sort of identity as a result of my issues and found myself through her. I’ve been watching Buffy for 26 years, ”confided with great emotion at the end of the master class Dorine Constantin, 37, who traveled ten hours by train from Switzerland to see her idol in flesh and blood.