Sarah Michelle Gellar

Sarah Michelle Gellar has long defied the odds. When the former soap actress moved to Los Angeles, her then agent was hardly encouraging: "You’ll never make it. Everyone leaves soaps and comes back."

Her new LA agent saw his client turn down every possibility with which he presented her for 18 months - until a TV pilot called Buffy the Vampire Slayer came along.

It made Gellar’s fortune, of course. Buffy the Vampire Slayer ran for seven series and earned her the sort of worldwide fame not normally enjoyed by television stars. Japan was a late convert, and when Gellar went there to film The Grudge in 2003, she was able to enjoy relative anonymity.

"I got to experience something I’d been looking forward to for so long - not coming through a back door with my head down at a tourist attraction. I went to the Tokyo Tower and stood in line just like everyone else. Being able to look up when I was walking, seeing everything, not having to worry, that was great."

However, Buffy-mania Tokyo-style was in full swing when she returned to Japan to film a tiny role in The Grudge 2, although she only had 10 days of it.

That she’s in the sequel at all is a surprise: Gellar wasn’t alone in believing that her character didn’t survive the first film. "When they called me, I said: ’Didn’t I die?’. Evidently not. Apparently, I escaped and wasn’t a goner after all. Movie magic!"

Gellar is an unlikely fan of Asian martial-arts movies, and still jokes that she stalked the US producers of The Grudge (a remake of the successful Japanese horror film Ju-on) in her quest for the role. The purist in her appreciated the fact that Takashi Shimizu, the original’s director, was to direct the American version.

"I’ve always been fascinated by Asian culture, and I love that women can play the lead in a horror film. It used to be only on TV that women could lead, that a show could be based on a woman. But there are still only certain film genres where a woman can stand out, be heroic, be the centrepiece."

Clearly, horror fans loved Gellar as the The Grudge centrepiece: it made $110-million (R825-million) in the US alone.

She’s back as the American nurse, Karen Davis, for the sequel. Gellar is seen as box-office, and was presumably rewarded handsomely.

She earned her highest film cheque to date for The Grudge, reportedly $6-million (R45-million).

"I didn’t want to come back just to come back, though. It had to be a purposeful storyline. And I love that this film is coming to America."

Gellar, who turns 30 next year, appears to have developed a rather self-deprecating wit. "Buffy fans are so loyal, and they’ll say: ’Remember the episode when you did this?’ The episodes all blend together for me, so I don’t remember. I can’t even remember what I had for breakfast this morning.

I always feel I must be such a disappointment to them."

Though she has a tattoo of the Japanese symbol for integrity, Gellar found herself the subject of stories and rumours that hardly indicated integrity at the height of Buffy fever. Some cast members later said that they discovered Gellar was leaving the show by reading it in the papers.

If there were star trips or bad behaviour, there were no serious repercussions. Gellar never received a letter from a studio boss, for example, asking her to stop partying or faking exhaustion, and never lost the adoration of that core Buffy audience. While not admitting to anything, Gellar is happy to have exorcised much of the fame-generated craziness from her life.

"I was very lucky," she says.

"I look at all these kids getting fame and attention now. They’re just not equipped to deal with it at that age. I was protected on my show. I worked constantly. You don’t party when you’re on a TV show. You go to bed for 10 hours and learn your lines."

Gellar is a brunette now, her natural colour, after years of bleaching for Buffy. At just 1,6m, she’s pretty, but not drop-dead gorgeous, thin still, but healthy-looking and nowhere near skeletal enough to merit a "scarily skinny celebs" photo-story.

"I like food. I like eating. And I don’t want to deprive myself of good food. Our bodies are machines and have to be functional, and to do that they have to be fed properly. I don’t smoke, don’t drink much, and gym often. - The Independent

# The Grudge 2 opens in South Africa on Friday, November 3.