It's tough to be Buff. The vampire slayer, that is.

....The daily horrors of high school are pretty heavy for the chosen one, since Sunnydale High rests on the Hellmouth, a focal point of demonic activity. As if battling the undead wasn't enough, she has to deal with an on-and-off boyfriend who happens to be a vampire himself. But 21-year-old Sarah Michelle Gellar attacks it all head-on as the star of the hit series Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
....The schedule's grueling-we're talking 15-hour work days!-which might lead you to believe Sarah would want to lie down and play dead when she's off the set. Nope. When she's not being Buffy, this self-confessed workaholic makes major movies, like last year's I Know What You Did Last Summer and Scream 2. "Basically, my life is just work, work, work, work," Sarah says. "You really don't have time to stop and think about it."
....Her hard work certainly is paying off. Buffy is consistently one of the WB's highest-rated shows, with more and more fans tuning in each week. Sarah says part of the show's appeal is that it lets viewers get Scream-style scares from the comfy confines of their own couches. "I want my work to scare you to death,"she says. "We all love that jolt."
....While the show has a killer cast of regulars (including some of the cutest guys the tube has ever known), Buffy, as the central character, stands out. She's quick-witted, fast-moving, big-hearted and on a mission to save the world. Who wouldn't want to be buds with Buffy? Still, Sarah loves that her character can be popular without giving up her basic Buffy-ness. "Buffy's a total individual. She proves you don't have to fit in," Sarah explains. "You can be different and still find happiness."
....Sarah can relate-she felt ostracized in school. "Kids were hard on me," she says. "I was excluded from everything because I was different." Like Buffy, who hangs with a small but loyal crew, Sarah's learned that when it comes to friends, quality is more important than quantity: She's tight with best friends Ashlee and Brittany, and her relationship with her mom, Rosellen, is awesome. Sarah calls her mom "the most amazing woman I've ever met."
....Despite similarities between real girl and role, there's one big difference: Buffy's blase about ghouls, werewolves and such, but Sarah's easily creeped out. She remembers one episode where Buffy was supposed to fall into an open coffin. "It was four in the morning, and they basically made me do it. I cried the whole way home," she confesses. "It's hard to be a vampire slayer if you're scared of cemetaries."
....A consummate pro who's been acting since she was 4, Sarah did the scene, and it looked great. Friends say she's someone who sets out to do it all, and to do it all well. As a kid growing up in New York City, she was involved in theater, commercials, modeling, figure skating and tae kwon do. Ultimately, her mom told her to narrow her hectic schedule to two activities-and school had to be one of them. So Sarah chose acting.
....Smart move! Even though she started out doing a slew of commercials-including one for Shake 'n Bake where "I ate 98 pieces of chicken," she admits-by age 17 she'd won an Emmy Award for her role as Erica Kane's daughter Kendall on the soap All My Children.
....Now that she's made Hollywood's hot list, fans can look forward to seeing Sarah in two upcoming films. The first Cruel Intentions, a romantic drama about two wealthy teens out to cause trouble, costars Ryan Phillippe, who she last cuddled up to in I Know What You Did Last Summer. She also stars with Sean Patrick Flanery in Vanilla Fog, a flick about a guy who tries to resist falling in love with a young woman because he believes she's possessed by magical powers. (As we all know, the film was finally re-named Simply Irresistible before it's release.)
....With all these movie projects, will Sarah abandon Buffy for the big screen? Not yet. Right now, she's pretty happy with her prime-time gig, where hugs, back rubs and jokes are common among the close-knit cast and crew. "I love the show," she says. "I'm not leaving any time soon. There were rumors that I was quitting for a movie career. That's not true."
....OK, but will she ever take a break? Sarah refuses: "I can sleep when I'm dead." Or not...