Buffy The Vampire Slayer

Instead of hunting the undead in Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Sarah Michelle Gellar is battling for movie roles and trying to shed her image as TV’s favorite monster masher.

Gellar won her most recent bout, convincing producer Sam Raimi that she should be the blond American actress to star in The Grudge, an adaptation of a Japanese horror film, much like The Ring was.

"This was not handed to me," Gellar says. "This was not an offer. I went in and I auditioned and I met and I stalked Sam."

She adds, "I like being able to fight for something I want."

Although it’s unlikely the diminutive Gellar tops 100 pounds, it would be foolish to bet against her. After spending most of herlife in show business (she started at 4), the actress is smart, savvy and secure enough to make wise choices.

Gellar, 27, is her own best press agent, so outgoing that she doesn’t hesitate to whip off her sweater - relax guys, she has on a tank top underneath - after realizing she’s committed a fashion faux pas.

"See, I’m normal," Gellar says earnestly, owning up to her sartorial mistake. "I put my clothing on inside out just like everybody else."

Her sweater label now carefully hidden, Gellar acknowledges the hurdles to transitioning to films from an iconic show like Buffy.

"The frustrating moments come from perception, I think," she says, "especially coming from television because people have such preconceived notions about who you are, what your abilities are, because they feel like they’ve seen you so much."

After spending her teen years on the soap opera All My Children and then seven seasons on Buffy, Gellar calls the latest phase of her career "chapter three." She’s not interested in playing wives and girlfriends ("I’d be bored out of my mind") or making romantic comedies.

She wants more, something that Grudge director Takashi Shimizu saw in Gellar’s witchy performance in Cruel Intentions, a contemporary take on Dangerous Liaisons. Through an interpreter, Shimizu said Gellar seemed "not quite satisfied with herself."

The movie represents a turning point, when Gellar ignored advice and did what she wanted.

"Cruel Intentions was something I was so passionate about," she says. "I lost representation over it, because I was so adamant about having to be a part of it. I wanted it so badly."

The same can be said for The Grudge, which was filmed in Japan. In a mildly surprising move, Raimi kept the story in Tokyo and retained Shimizu, who had directed four previous Grudge films, which are called Ju-on in Japan.

Gellar loved the country, but there were some embarrassing moments.

"The apartment was so small that my luggage didn’t fit."Gellar says. "So I was like, ’Whatever, I’m not shy, I’ll unpack in the hallway of the apartment, and I’ll bring everything in.’ You know, Japanese are private people and there I am on the floor of the hallway with my underwear, my bras. And the stares I got."

Gellar plays Karen, an American exchange student who encounters the ghosts of people who were killed by someone in a rage. Anyone who comes into their former home is cursed to die the same way.

Although The Grudge and Buffy both qualify as horror, Karen is very un-Buffy like.

"It was great to be able to have the person coming at you and all you can do is crawl backwards," she says. "It’s certainly a lot easier."

The movie includes a scene in which a hand appears in Karen’s hair when she is taking a shower. The sequence, which used the hand of a real actress, took seven hours to shoot, though Gellar might have been the least embarrassed person there.

"Me and 17 Japanese men in a shower," Gellar says. "And Japanese people are kind of bashful. . . . These poor guys, they could not have wanted the scene to end faster. And it was some ice-cold water."

As the filming went on, Gellar started having an allergic reaction.

"I was getting this rash on my legs," she says. "So here’s a visual for you. They brought out garbage bags and made pants for me out of garbage bags. So now here I am in the shower with Hefty pants. It’s attractive. I would have wanted to stay in the shower with me, too."

Co-star Jason Behr says Gellar didn’t receive star treatment on The Grudge, which was made for about $10 million.

"Everyone got the same thing," says Behr, who plays Karen’s boyfriend, Doug. "In between takes, we hardly went back into our little holes. We basically hung around and acted fools, Shimizu included."

Gellar also had to adapt to the quick pace of Japanese productions, which became apparent on her first day of shooting with Behr.

"We do the first take and Shimizu says, ’OK great, move it on.’ . . . I thought what? Wait, hold on, that was the first take. ’Well, it was good.’ Then you see all the Sony executives rushing up, ’Wait, wait, wait you’ve got to do another one.’ "

She also was surprised to learn that Shimizu didn’t use extras, but instead filmed with real people in the background.

"We go out there, we do the first take, little blond girl with all the Japanese men, and then they say, ’Cut,’ and I walk back and nobody walks back," Gellar says. "(I thought), ’Well these extras certainly aren’t listening.’ And it was only then I went, ’Oh my god, they’re not extras.’ "

But Gellar was willing to make accommodations for Grudge, which is just the kind of movie she sought after Buffy ended last year. She says the show had "jumped the shark."

"(The) sixth season for me was really rough," she says. "I didn’t like the story line. I was not happy with it. It got almost like verging on S&M to me. I felt Buffy was being degraded. . . . We were going through a lot of writer changes."

The seventh season in 2003 was Buffy’s last, allowing Gellar the time for a film career.

"Your options are limited on a television show called Buffy the Vampire Slayer," she says, "when you’re Buffy."