.......Sarah Michelle Gellar's life hasn't always been a bed of roses. Being a professional actress since the age of 4, Sarah was constantly pulled out of school to work on tons of commercials, as well as play Kendall Hart on ABC's All My Children. So, an "in kid" at school, she wasn't. "I was a nerd," the 21-year-old actress has lamented.
.......Added to her not-so-cool-in- school status because of her career, was the fact that Sarah's career actually was awfully hard on her, too. Even though she garnered an Emmy Award toward the end of her two-year stretch on AMC, the working atmosphere was pretty, um, ugly. "It was not the easiest situation on the show," Sarah's said, referring to the off-air rivalry that went on between her and her on-screen mom, Susan Lucci. "I'm being polite by not saying what I'd like to say. It's hard, at 16, to understand some adult things at that point."
.......Thank goodness for Sarah that not long after she left the soap opera her working conditions changed for the better. By landing the lead in the WB's Buffy the Vampire Slayer in 1997 she suddenly went from working with hard-edged competitive players to working with a new-found group of supportive best friends. And that, in turn, has made Sarah one happy gal.

......."I am having the most amazing time," now-smiley Sarah has exclaimed when asked how she enjoys working with her current cast members. "It's such an amazingly diverse and talented cast. It's so great to be a part of it." Who else can say they spend their days combatting blood-sucking vampires and prancing around the sunny set of Sunnydale in the most stylish threads all while practicing hot lip-locking techniques with Angelic poster boy David Boreanaz? "I don't exactly have a rough job," Sarah's blushed. You can say that again!
.......As if that's not enough to keep a girl smiling around the clock, she's also the owner of a budding movie career. With last year's Scream 2 and and I Know What You Did Last Summer behind her, Sarah has two more new pics ready to rock the big screen in the coming months: Cruel Intentions, with Ryan Phillipe and Reese Witherspoon, and Simply Irresistible with Sean Patrick Flannery.
.......Life can't get much better for this starlet. Even Sarah's admitted: "This is what I've waited for my whole life."