Sarah Michelle Gellar has reflected on her experience working on the “extremely toxic” set of Buffy The Vampire Slayer.
The actor, who had her breakthrough role in the TV series, said women “were pitted against each other” during filming on the supernatural drama.
Speaking during a roundtable at TheWrap’s Power Of Women Summit on Wednesday (December 14), Gellar said: “For so long, I was on a set that I think was known for being an extremely toxic male set, and so that was ingrained in my head that that was what all sets were like, and that women were pitted against each other – that if women became friends, then we became too powerful, so you had to keep that down.”
Explaining how her perspective has changed since working on other projects, she added: “And now that I’ve had this opportunity to work with so many more women and men that support women as well, I realised how easy an experience it can be but… unfortunately we’re still in that place where all of those departments a lot of times need to be women for us to have a voice.”
Gellar previously spoke out in support of her former Buffy co-star Charisma Carpenter, after she accused show creator Joss Whedon of “hostile and toxic behaviour” on set.
In a post on Instagram in February 2021, Gellar wrote: “While I am proud to have my name associated with Buffy Summers, I don’t want to be forever associated with the name Joss Whedon.
“I am more focused on raising my family and surviving a pandemic currently, so I will not be making any further statements at this time. But I stand with all survivors of abuse and am proud of them for speaking out.”
Earlier this year, Whedon denied Carpenter’s claim that he called her fat when she was four months pregnant. In an interview with Vulture, Whedon said: “Most of my experiences with Charisma were delightful and charming. She struggled sometimes with her lines, but nobody could hit a punch line harder than her. I did not call her fat.”
Whedon acknowledged, however, he was not “civilised” at the time. “I was young,” the director said. “I yelled, and sometimes you had to yell. This was a very young cast, and it was easy for everything to turn into a cocktail party.”
After the interview was published, Carpenter released a statement calling Whedon a “tyrannical narcissistic boss”. She also supported actor Ray Fisher, who had previously accused Whedon of “problematic behaviour” on the set of Justice League.
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