........Waiting for Buffy the Vampire Slayer can drain the life blood out of a reporter. Four days go by and Buffy doesn't call. She doesn't write. Her 'people' say to hang tight and 'not leave your house for any reason. Buffy doesn't get many breaks.' You imagine she is out driving stakes through freaks of nature. Or at least battling some hounds from hell. You would be wrong. Buffy finally rings on a Friday afternoon from her trailer on the Warner Bros. lot, where she is dealing with a hound from Pasadena. "I wanted to call you earlier, but I had to give my dog a bath," she frets. On command, her mutt, Thor, barks in the background and Buffy slams down the phone for a minute to scold him. You overhear her plead, "Thor, you're getting water all over the rug!" Yes, you have to be tough to be Buff. Not to mention exacting. When she returns, you want to talk vampires in honor of Halloween. She immediately corrects you. "You mean undead people. On Buffy, we're very PC."
........A typical day for Sarah Michelle Gellar, who portrays Buffy, is downright terrifying. For starters, she had necking scenes this morning. And when you're playing a vampire slayer, that very term takes on whole new meaning. This is worse than Romeo and Juliet. More harrowing than Joanie Loves Chachi. High school student Buffy, who happens to slay vampires, wants to make out with Angel, the cutest boy in school. Sadly, he also happens to be a vampire. And thanks to a century-old gypsy curse, he also has a soul. In an angst-filled voice, Gellar laments the situation. "I mean, what teen girl wants to deal with a 242-year-old adolescent boy with a conscience and zits?" Buffy is understandably beside herself. Should she off him? Will she ever go to the prom? "It's not easy being Buffy," Gellar concludes.
........If there are two words that strike fear in the heart of Buffy's portrayer, they might be: free time. While filming Buffy, which airs at 8 p.m. Monday in Chicago on Channel 9, Gellar has managed to shoot two movies. There's the nation's No. 1 box-office hit, I Know What You Did Last Summer, in which she plays a teen tormented by a murder that she and her friends are trying to cover up. Gellar also plays a stalked sorority sister in the much-anticipated Scream 2, due out this Christmas. And then there is Buffy the Vampire Slayer, a comedy- action series on the WB Network about three teen loners who fight the supernatural in Sunnydale, USA. Now in its second season, the show draws the highest numbers of any WB series. OK, that might not be saying much, since Buffy ranked 144 out of 155 shows last season. But slowly the numbers are building. Critical raves are turning the little show that could into a cult hit.
........That's why Gellar begins work at 6 a.m. and doesn't stop until well past midnight. You expect a yawn, but Buffy is eternally chipper. If she keeps audiences awake at night, clutching damp sheets and whimpering from fright, then Gellar figures she has done her job. "I want my work to scare you to death," she says. "We all love that jolt. It's a natural adrenaline rush, almost an endorphin high." So what scares her? "Journalists," deadpans Gellar, whose star is rising. "I guess I scare myself," she amends. "Lately I've been listening to myself speak and it's horrifying."
........Gellar mentions that she favors oddball questions in interview situations. What if Buffy and her vampire boyfriend Angel go all the way and she gets pregnant on the series? "First of all, I want it known that Buffy wouldn't get pregnant. We practice safe sex on Buffy the Vampire Slayer," Gellar whoops. "But if Buffy and Angel did have a kid ... I like the possibilities. Would I slay my own child? Now this is my kind of question."
........Figuring out the particulars of vampire spawn is easy. Figuring out fame has been harder for Gellar. Although she's not yet a household word, Gellar knows she has gone from hungry actress to really hungry actress. Example: While working on Buffy by day and I Know What You Did Last Summer by night, she noticed her jeans were getting loose. Even Freddie Prinze Jr., her co-star in the film, kept bugging her. "He would yell, 'You're too skinny!' So the other night I get home and Freddie plus seven of his friends are at my house cooking up a feast. They fed me and packed up enough food for a week," Gellar says. "I am so lucky to have good friends because there are days lately when I really do feel like I'm in over my head."
........Then again, Gellar's head has been into acting since age 4, when an agent discovered her in a restaurant. The New York native was soon cast in what would be a historic Burger King commercial where the tot busted McDonald's for allegedly putting less meat in their burgers. "McDonald's turned around and sued not only Burger King and J. Walter Thompson, the ad agency--they also sued me. I was 5. I couldn't even say the word lawyer and a few months later I was telling my friends, 'I can't play. I've got to give a deposition.'" (The case was finally settled in 1982.) Some 30 Burger King spots later, Gellar stepped onto the New York stage and then did various TV spots. Her big break came at age 15, when she was cast as the long-lost daughter of she-devil Erica Kane (Susan Lucci) on the soap All My Children. As the evil Kendall Hart, she tried to put the moves on Mom's hubby, Dimitri, a Russian prince. And then she dropped off her annoying kid sister at the hotel room of a child molester. Seducing the local Count was the next order of business. "Let's just say it was never boring," Gellar says.
........Behind the scenes there were reports that Gellar and Lucci hated each other. "We didn't do lunch on weekends. We weren't girlfriends shopping together. It wasn't the easiest working relationship. But the stories were blown out of proportion," Gellar says. Things hit the proverbial fan when Gellar won a Daytime Emmy on her first try. (Editor's note: No, she did not. Duuuuh...she was nominated in '94 for Outstanding Younger Actress, but did not win. She did win in '95...why do people write this stuff when they don't even know what the hell they're talking about???) Recall that Lucci has tried unsuccessfully for 16 painful years to get one of those statuettes. Also understand that Gellar won in the Outstanding Younger Actress category, which did not put her in direct competition with Lucci, who was (again) nominated for best actress and (again) lost. The day after her win, ABC announced that Gellar was leaving All My Children. "It made me look incredibly bad," says Gellar, who says ABC knew for months that she wanted to leave the sudser. "I was told by ABC that I couldn't announce my leaving until they made an official announcement," she says. "The timing was terrible." Gellar refuses to gloat about her award. "The only way to look at it--and this is what I said to Susan--is that I won for work we did together," Gellar says.
........Gellar says her life after AMC has been "incredibly blessed." She even credits her newfound scare fest series for helping her kick her coffee habit. She doesn't need the jolt. Being Buffy is enough. "I get all my energy from work. I scream. I yell. I come home and I go to sleep," says Gellar, who is being summoned to the set. Alas, her soggy dog must wait.