The actress breaks her silence on Hulu's decision not to move forward with 'Buffy the Vampire Slayer' sequel.
, Gellar criticized the decision to cancel the reboot, and also the timing of the decision, which came on the eve of Zhao going to the Oscars .“We had an executive on our show who was not only not a fan of the original, but was proud to constantly remind us that he had never seen the entirety of the series and how it wasn’t for him,” she said.
“That’s very hard when you’re taking a property that is as beloved as , not just to the world, but to me and Chloé. So that tells you the uphill battle that we had been fighting since day one, when your executive is literally proud to tell you that he didn’t watch it.” Gellar says she spoke to Zhao about the decision. “Chloé and I are feeling the same things. Disappointment. We don’t want to let the fans down. That hurts. Saddened at how it was handled and when it was handled. But I just said to Chloé, and I was very specific, I said, ‘Sunday night, you put that crown on and you walk that red carpet and you take in all that love for what you worked for and forget the other stuff.’ It’s important to me that this doesn’t take away from what we achieved and what she’s achieved. And there’s always so more to do.” The actress added that when she was on the set, she thought the new version was really working, including a new Slayer played by Ryan Kiera Armstrong. “Let me tell you, nobody saw this coming,” she said. “The dialogue flew off the tongue. When I was on set, it was craziness. It was like, ‘Oh, we’re here. We’re doing this.’ I loved the duality that we had this new, younger slayer who was where Buffy was when the show started, and then we would pick up with where Buffy was now … And I’d like to use this moment also to say that Ryan Kiera Armstrong is a superstar. I’m gutted that no one will see her as a slayer.”Patrick Dempsey Explains His Darker TV Return With ‘Memory of a Killer’: “I Don’t Get This Type of Character Offered Often”‘Born to Bowl’ Filmmakers on Landing Liev Schreiber, and How Many “Balls” Jokes Is the Right Number of Balls Jokes. We use vendors that may also process your information to help provide our services. // This site is protected by reCAPTCHA Enterprise and the GoogleThe Hollywood Reporter is a part of Penske Media Corporation. © 2026 The Hollywood Reporter, LLC. All Rights Reserved.
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