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Monstersandcritics.com Sarah Michelle GellarSarah Michelle Gellar - "Southland Tales" Movie - Kelly Monstersandcritics.com InterviewThursday 25 May 2006, by Webmaster Another actress, who actually has a name to care for is Sarah Michelle Gellar and there are not no many accomplishes films at her but an few I can probably enjoy. The talent agent found Gellar a young age and made her screen debut at 6 of each of the 1983 television film An Invasion of Privacy. With all the promise she showed, Barrymore starred as Hannah in the teen drama series "Swans Crossing" (1992) but it was her portrayal of a young and callous rich girl in Al-Lucinda Kendall Hart on ABC daytime soap opera "All My Children" (1993-93), that won her Daytime Emmy Award and spring-boarded her to stardom. SMG’s real mark worldwide, however, was the character of Buffy Summers in the game-changing series "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" (1997-2003). She won five Teen Choice Awards, a Saturn Award and a Golden Globe nomination for her role, establishing herself as a cultural phenomenon. Sarah Michelle Gellar likewise has the box office to back her up, with “I Know What You Did Last Summer” 1997), “Scream 2” (1997), “Cruel Intentions” (1999)and way movies like those that help prove she is also a bankable star as well over $570 million times worth crazy in global gross. Beyond her cinematic successes, Gellar has made her mark on television, headlining shows such as "Ringer" (2011-2012), "The Crazy Ones" (2013-2014), and "Wolf Pack" (2023). She has also lent her voice to popular series including "Robot Chicken" (2005-2018), "Star Wars Rebels" (2015-2016), and "Masters of the Universe: Revelation" (2021). In 2015, Gellar ventured into the entrepreneurial world by co-founding Foodstirs, an e-commerce baking company, and published her own cookbook, "Stirring Up Fun with Food," in 2017. Gellar is also known for her close-knit family life, married to actor Freddie Prinze Jr. since 2002, with whom she shares two children. Sarah Michelle Gellar’s commitment to her craft is matched by her dedication to personal growth and unique experiences. An accomplished martial artist, she studied Tae Kwon Do for five years, alongside kickboxing, boxing, street fighting, and gymnastics. Her dedication to authenticity in her roles is evident, such as her commitment to doing her own stunts in "Buffy the Vampire Slayer," though she admitted her limits during filming "Scream 2." Her career is also marked by interesting anecdotes, such as her role in a 1982 Burger King commercial, which led to a lawsuit from McDonald’s and a temporary ban from their establishments. Notably, she dyed her naturally brunette hair blonde for her role in "Buffy," and legally changed her last name to Prinze as a surprise for her husband on their fifth anniversary. Sarah Michelle Gellar’s legacy extends beyond her on-screen roles, encompassing her work in philanthropy and her reputation for safety and professionalism on set. She remains a beloved figure in Hollywood, admired for her talent, dedication, and the breadth of her contributions to film and television. Richard Kelly, who developed a cult following with the strange tale of ’Donnie Darko’ in 2001, unleashes his imagination even further with his sophomore feature ’Southland Tales.’ Set in an apocalyptic version of Los Angeles just two years in the future, the film stars Dwayne ’The Rock’ Johnson as an action film star, Sarah Michelle Gellar as a porno actress and Seann William Scott as a Hermosa Beach police officer, all caught up in a grand conspiracy as a shellshocked America celebrates the Fourth of July, 2008. After ’Donnie Darko,’ were you offered studio projects or were you determined to develop your own material? I definitely got offered plenty of stuff. I just really felt like I needed to dig my heels in and do my own thing. I wasn`t in a position where I really needed money that much. I took some writing assignments as my way of paying the rent and holding out to make sure the next film I directed was one of my original scripts. How far back did you begin writing ’Tales’? I wrote the first draft of this screenplay in the spring of 2001 after Sundance, when we had a dispiriting experience there when no one wanted to distribute ’Donnie Darko.’ I was really depressed. I would argue any artist engages in his or her art as a way of curing their own depression. I wrote ’Southland Tales’ as a way of trying to cheer myself up. I wanted to write a black comedy about Los Angeles, and ultimately about the end of the world. It`s evolved in many different incarnations, but the basic shell of that original screenplay is very evident in the finished film. When did you return to the project? I always constantly work on all my scripts. I`ve got five or six originals that I have in a drawer that I`ll never relinquish control over. I`m constantly rewriting them, kind of the way one is constantly fixing up an old car. After 9/11, I became really serious about committing to direct the film. When Seann (William Scott) became attached, it came to life. I thought I`d written this black comedy about the end of the world, with a lot of absurdist set pieces. I felt as though I was being kind of a wimp and wasn`t really going for it in terms of making it more of a political piece. I sort of really dug in - dealt with issues of domestic surveillance and homeland security and alternative fuel. I just started to make it something more political _ but first and foremost a comedy. The original incarnation had all the set pieces. It had a mega-zeppelin. It had an ATM being dragged by an SUV through the streets. It had a conspiracy with twin brothers and an extortion attempt on a famous actor and a porn star. All those elements were in the original script, but they hadn`t matured, they hadn`t ripened the way a banana ripens, they were still very green. Those elements coalesced, and it became more political. The news kind of helped to rewrite the script, and the headlines have helped to validate the screenplay. There`s a scene where Rebecca Del Rio sings the national anthem. It was her idea to do the first two lines in Spanish. We shot the film last August, and then there was all this stuff about the national anthem in the news. There are a lot of things in the film that seem to be happening right now. The movie was designed to strike a nerve. If you`re going to make a political satire, and you don`t strike a nerve, you sort of fail at your ambition. But my philosophy is, if it`s political, at least make it funny. Your stars all come out of mainstream movies - they wouldn`t appear to be the conventional choices to head such a potentially unconventional film. I very consciously tried to go after a lot of performers who I felt had really great, undiscovered talents. Let me rephrase that. I tried to go after performers who had unexposed gifts _ people who are pigeonholed. Someone like Seann William Scott, who`d only been given the opportunities to act in teen categories but who I thought had brilliant comedy timing. I saw Dwayne host ’Saturday Night Live’ and thought wow, he`s very gifted. He had enormous potential. He`s a great listener. He`s been an actor his whole life working as a wrestler. I met with Sarah Michelle Gellar, knowing all the work she`s done like ’Buffy,’ and saw how funny she was when I met her. To me, as a filmmaker, if you get to work with these people and help them expose a different side of themselves, it`s just a very rewarding process to go through with an actor. If someone said, name the top 50 funniest people working today, a lot of those people (cast in the movie) would be on this list. The tone of what I was hoping to accomplish in this black comedy was always very much gallows humor. If you`re going to go through this story about the end of the world, let`s make it a good time. Make it with a lot of actors who are incredibly funny people, and then let them actually play it straight. Why choose Moby to compose the score? Ultimately, I tried to make a very humane film. It`s obviously vulgar, it`s a very aggressive, confrontational film, but at the same time it was very important to me to try to root it in humanity. A very important element in preserving that was Moby and his score and working and collaborating with him even in preproduction. His music is heart-breaking and beautiful, and I wanted it to counterbalance the aggressive comedy. And you shot throughout L.A.? We shot in some of the most expensive and beautiful parts of the city. We really wanted to capture the city in a way that had not been done before. We wanted to have the movie live and breathe within the city so that you feel the city is a character in the film. We shot in Santa Monica and Manhattan Beach and Venice Beach and Hermosa Beach, all the beach communities. It was very expensive to do that, and that was part of the reason why we had to shoot the film in just 30 days. There were a lot of stunts and action and set pieces that required a lot of coordination. Philip K. Dick is probably one of the biggest inspirations for the film because he was always writing about Los Angeles in the near future to offer social commentary on where our world is going. There`s a line in the movie where Sarah Michelle Gellar`s character, Krysta Now, says, ’Scientists are saying that the future is going to be far more futuristic than they originally predicted.’ Keywords |