Sarah Michelle Gellar has spoken about the reboots of 'Buffy the Vampire Slayer' and 'I Know What You Did Last Summer'. Photo / JC Olivera, Variety via Getty Images
Sarah Michelle Gellar is single-handedly keeping the memory of the 90s alive for millennials this year.
Earlier in 2025, she announced that she will be stepping back into Buffy Summers’ stylish boots, and now she’s once again seemingly risen from the dead with a surprise cameo in the reboot of I Know What You Did Last Summer.
Gellar became a horror icon when she starred alongside Jennifer Love Hewitt, Ryan Phillippe and future husband Freddie Prinze Jr in the original 90s horror flick as enigmatic beauty queen Helen Shivers.
Despite being perhaps the biggest star in the movie, Gellar’s character is killed off in a heartbreaking moment that’s considered among horror fans to be one of the best chase scenes ever put on film.
While Gellar previously rubbished demands to return to the reboot, reminding fans that “she’s dead”, it turns out the screen icon was keeping her cards very close to her chest.
Speaking with news.com.au about her new partnership with Uber One on their new advert that sees Gellar once again come face-to-face with the film’s eerie fisherman himself, she revealed that she does indeed make a surprise return in the new movie that’s out now in cinemas.
“So the first thing I can clarify is that I never said I wasn’t going to be in it!” she laughed.
“I actually didn’t intend to do it.”
She explained that the movie’s writer and director, Jennifer Robinson, who just so happens to be one of her closest friends – they talk twice a day, every day – insisted that she would find a way to bring back the fan favourite character. But Gellar wasn’t convinced at first.
“She told me about three years ago that she wanted to do this and I was like, that’s great. I’ll help you with Freddy and anything you need with the movie. I just can’t be in it. She’s like, ‘I’m gonna figure out a way.’ And I was like, ‘There’s no way. I’m dead. I’m not going to be a weird twin!’”
Despite her initial refusal to make a cameo, Robinson eventually found a way to bring back Shivers that Gellar felt honoured the character well enough to walk back on to set in the cover of darkness.
“I was getting up at five in the morning, sneaking into this set. I was not allowed to go outside the entire day that I was filming because I was in the costume. So I literally was inside for an entire day.”
The horror flick was shot entirely in Australia, and Gellar’s collaboration with Uber One came about while she and husband Prinze Jr were living in a home in Rose Bay, just outside of Sydney.
“I usually do all the Uber ordering at home. And before we left, I said to him ‘You have to get Uber for Australia because you’re going to need it to get around and to order food,’ so he finally let me put it onto his phone,” she shared.
“Our first favourite [order] was this great coffee shop in Rose Bay. I wish I could remember the name but they had the most wonderful Turkish coffee and little desserts that we ordered at least every other day while we were in Australia.”
The 90s icon went on to share how much she “loves” spending time downunder, admitting that it’s “the one place” where she could see herself moving with her family at some point in the future.
Gellar went on to reveal that the hugely anticipated reboot of the show is set to get into production sooner than fans may have first realised.
“We’re getting really close. We have to make sure everything is done right. But I will say we are filming very soon,” she teased.
Ever since the reboot was first announced fans have been eager to know which of Buffy’s pals might be seen returning to the show alongside her.
In the original show, fan favourite character Anya, who was originally supposed to be in a handful of episodes only to become one of the most beloved characters, dies in the show’s finale. It’s a brutal second-long scene and for years fans have felt she was owed more.
When I quizzed Gellar on whether the vengeance demon, played by Emma Caulfield, could return, she confessed that she’s very much “on the list” to come back.
“I will do my best to honour the original show while also giving a chance to the new characters. I tell everyone to be patient because if we bring back all of the new characters right away, then the audience doesn’t have time to like and get to the know the new characters. They won’t give them the time of day. So I want to make sure I do spend the right amount of time establishing the new characters.”
“But anyone that follows me knows that Emma and I are very close and obviously, you know, they’re all on my list.
“We have to get Hulu and Disney to give us enough episodes, over the course of a couple of years, so we can bring everybody back. All the budget as well!” she said.
I asked Gellar how she feels about the legacy of acclaimed Buffy episode “The Body”, in which she gives an incredible performance as Buffy deals with the shocking sudden death of her mother.
Despite being heaped with praise at the time, because Buffy was still seen as a teen-leaning show on a lesser network, Gellar mostly missed out during awards season, only scoring one Golden Globe nomination in the end.
Discussing whether she felt respected within the industry at the time, Gellar replied: “That’s an interesting question. I know a lot of people behind the scenes and on the set did feel that they [awards and critics] weren’t for me. But I make the show for the fans, not for awards and critics.”
“And so I really felt the love,” insisted the star. “If there was a nomination for an award from fans, we always won and people loved it and and so for me, that was the joy that I got.
“And I do have a Daytime Emmy,” she chuckled. “It’s very nice!”