Sarah Michelle Gellar Opens Up About Business, Family Life, And Being Ready To Return To Hollywood: ‘It’s Time’

Sure, she comes from a popular legacy of vampire slaying (on television, that is), but well-known actress and entrepreneur Sarah Michelle Gellar has come a long way over these past 19 years since putting down her wooden stake on the beloved Buffy the Vampire Slayer series.

Gellar, 45, co-founded cooking and lifestyle company Foodstirs in 2015, she put out her own Stirring Up Fun with Food cookbook in 2017, but her focus has remained on her life’s greatest creation - her family.

Celebrating her 20th wedding anniversary this coming September with her husband and Scooby-Doo & I Know What You Did Last Summer co-star Freddie Prinze Jr., this husband and wife team have been busy raising their two children, Charlotte and Rocky, as they have collectively taken up the hobby of gardening since the early pandemic.

“My husband and I, we love food, and we go to the farmer’s market every weekend and we take the kids and we talk about how things grow and where it comes from,” Gellar tells me during our recent Zoom conversation. “We never wanted our kids to live in this world where they think everything comes from Instacart, right? There’s a whole process to it and biodynamic farming and we’ve taken them to farms, but we’ve never grown anything. Normally, my husband and I are working and traveling but we were here [at home] for two years, and so, we decided to do it and we went to the nursery. We had setbacks - don’t think our first crop was amazing or anything, but now we have this beautiful garden that the kids eat and snack from. We make food and we were like We need to make a better outdoor kitchen now that we have all this. So then, we got this beautiful new hibachi grill and then for Christmas, I got Freddie a pizza oven. We take the basil and tomatoes and it’s that whole trickle-down.”

She goes on to say that her recent purchases have been rewarded by using her Wells Fargo Active Cash Visa Card, a new collaboration for Gellar with the financial services company. When speaking about teaming up with Wells Fargo, Gellar says, “They actually reached out to me with the idea of Active Cash and I thought it was so beautiful in the sense of we stopped doing all those things that bring us joy because simply we couldn’t. And now, as we’re sort of entering what this next phase of what life looks like, we have to do that, but a lot has happened in the world, both emotionally and economically, and it’s sometimes hard to make those choices. You have to realize it’s about weighing the options and I was fortunate enough to get the lesson with the money manager (The Finance Bar) and sort of discuss those things. Ultimately, when we feel better about life and ourselves, we are more productive, which makes us more productive in our professional life, which then feeds off onto other people and makes them more productive and you realize there is a cycle to that and it’s important. Finding what those moments are is important and so that’s the message that Wells Fargo and Active Cash wanted to bring and I really liked that side of it.”

For those thinking Gellar has not continued working in Hollywood over recent years would very much be mistaken. She has continued acting at her own pace, primarily off-camera doing voice work over the past decade on the stop-motion comedy series Robot Chicken and the animated series Masters of the Universe: Revelation.

When I asked Gellar if she has at all missed performing on-camera lately, she responded, “You know, I hadn’t until very recently and I think my kids were young and I only have this small window when I could be with them. Now my kids are older and they sort of have their own lives and they leave us - my daughter is at sleepaway camp for her first time and I came to realization that like I’m ready to...it’s time.”

Quickly following Gellar’s response, I told her how excited her many loyal fans will be to hear she is ready to return on-screen for upcoming Hollywood projects. She then teased with, “Well, they will see me sooner than they think!”

As we all now live in a time where social media is so importantly tied to the popularity of a public figure, I wondered what Gellar’s thoughts are about social media and if she is either relieved or envious that she did not have these communication platforms in existence yet during her early Hollywood career.

“I think about Buffy and what that experience would’ve been like with social media and every phone being a camera and it was hard enough to go through that level of fame at that time. I can’t imagine what it’s like now, I really can’t. It’s its own full-time job and I do all my own social media. I don’t have someone that does it for me. I think it’s very obvious that I don’t, because it’s my voice and I think it would be obvious if I did. That’s its own job in and of itself and my hats off to today’s younger actors that have to do both at the same time.”

As Gellar continues to evolve in her various chosen industries of business, I wanted to see if her mentality or her approach about signing onto projects and contract negotiations has changed as her life and her many experiences continue onward.

“All we ever want to do is be rewarded for the value that we bring,” Gellar continues. “What is our value at and are we adequately compensated for that? That’s all anyone is asking, really. I’ve been fortunate enough in my career that most often, I have been the lead and so, I haven’t had to fight that same fight for someone next to me that’s doing the same job. I’ve been fortunate in that sense. In terms of starting businesses and other sides of it, I think it’s really interesting for my kids to have witnessed that and to see mom had a successful job. I was doing pretty well - I didn’t have to do other things, but I still wanted to try other things and explore and see what else I could create and do. They got to witness that, to not be afraid and I think that’s important because we’re all capable of more than one profession.”

As I began to wrap up our conversation about business, family, and more, I left Gellar with one last question: Where would you say your priorities in life remain most today in 2022, Sarah, and what areas of life & career do you still feel like you want to take on and accomplish ahead?

“Oh, that’s interesting. I think for me, I’ve accomplished so much in my career, more than I’ve ever thought I would. I look and I have not just one character that stands the test of time, I have a few. It’s not always Buffy people come up to me - sometimes, it’s Cruel Intentions or it’s All My Children or it’s The Grudge. I’ve had that success, so for me now, it’s about if I’m going to leave my family to work, it has to be because I’m enjoying it and I’m enjoying the people that I’m around. I like telling stories and I want to tell fun stories. That’s the part of me that wants to work right now, which really makes it fun and creative because there’s no pressure on myself.”