Emma Caulfield

Does life go on after Buffy the Vampire Slayer? It does for Emma Caulfield, the babe behind Sunnydale’s late she-demon Anya. "I had been ready to go for a while - [for various] reasons," she tells TV Guide Online, cryptically. "It had nothing to do with [series creator] Joss Whedon; I love him. There were just certain politics around there that made it very difficult to grow."

So, what’s a disgruntled vengeance demon to do? Try her luck on the big screen, natch. Since biting the dust in Buffy’s May 2003 series finale, Caulfield headlined the hit horror flick Darkness Falls and produced and starred in the indie mockumentary Bandwagon. In the latter pic, whichrecently debuted at the Newport Beach Film Festival to rave reviews, the former Beverly Hills, 90210 star plays a self-absorbed Hollywood thesp named, um, Emma Caulfield.

The actress concedes that her peeps were a bit worried that audiences might not get that the film was a spoof. "There was definite concern amongst my manager and my lawyer, who were like, ’This could be a bad idea. You’re really making yourself look like an a—hole,’" she recalls. "[But] that only fueled me more. I don’t know why it brings me such joy to make people think that I could be that big of an idiot."

Several of Caulfield’s Buffy colleagues, including Whedon and Tom Lenk (Andrew) agreed to make cameos in Bandwagon, which leads us to the next logical question: What’s the latest on talk of a Buffy reunion? "I know Joss has been wanting to do a movie forever," she says. "But I don’t know how he would bring me back. I mean, I died." That’s never stopped him before.