For a couple of years, the producers of All My Children had been thinking about introducing a new character as a foil for Erica Kane, played by daytime diva Susan Lucci, and were just waiting for the right moment. The time finally came in 1993, just as Erica was getting a little too comfortable settling into engaged bliss with her latest love Dimitri, played by Michael Nader. So the casting call went out for a young actress to play the part of Kendall Hart, Erica’s long-lost daughter.
The soap’s producers were determined to keep the shocking story line a secret, so during the casting process the actresses were told that Kendall would be Erica’s new assistant. “I didn’t know when I auditioned for Kendall that she would turn out to be who she is,” Sarah says. “I had heard rumors, but everybody was denying it. Besides, I was scared enough at the thought of working with Susan.”
Practically every teenage actor in New York auditioned for the plum role, which eventually went to Sarah. Besides bearing a resemblance to Lucci, Sarah had the acting chops and the forceful personality needed to go up against Susan. After all, this daughter was supposed to be a chip off the Kane block.
“When they told me I would be playing her daughter, I was like, ‘What!? Daughter? Me?’ ‘I remember on my first day when I walked into the rehearsal hall, Susan and Michael were rehearsing a scene. I was very nervous. I kept thinking, ‘What if I’m really bad and they fire me?’ I just snuck in the back and tried to blend in with the coffee machine, when all of a sudden, Susan said, ‘Hold it, we need to stop for a minute.’
“Then she walked over to me and said, ‘Congratulations! I’m very glad you’re here.’ She put her arm around me and said, ‘Don’t worry, nobody bites.’ And then she introduced me to everyone who was there. She really did help me and always made sure I was okay during my first couple of weeks when I was still unsettled. Both Susan and Michael made me feel comfortable.”
But it wasn’t a complete set of strangers. Also there to hold her hand was actress Lindsay Price, who played the character An Li Chen and who also happened to be an old school friend of Sarah’s.
Kendall was introduced on February 24, 1993, to an unsuspecting audience as Erica’s new twenty-two-year-old assistant. Eventually the truth was revealed: Kendall was Erica’s long-lost daughter. She was also mad as hell for being abandoned at birth—even though the pregnancy had resulted from a rape—and determined to exact revenge against Erica as payback.
Although Gellar cheerfully admits Kendall was the most terrible daughter on daytime during her reign (during her first week on the show she locked her little half-sister in a crypt and tried to seduce her stepfather Dimitri—and when he turned her down, slept with the stable boy, after which she cried rape and then went to jail), she refuses to admit the character was evil: “I chose to see Kendall as misunderstood, which was how as an actress I justified her actions. It was amazing, though, playing a psycho-looney.”
As Kendall became more central to the story line, Gellar’s workload increased, making her school obligations that much more difficult to meet. This time, however, there was no talk of Sarah having to sacrifice work for grades. “In the beginning of high school, I had the typical high school experience,” she says. “But it became incredibly difficult because of my work schedule. Then, after I started working on All My Children, where we were shooting five episodes a week, it became impossible. I had to transfer to a school specifically for children with different schedules. It was called Professional Children’s School and it was for musicians, ballerinas, writers—just the most talented group of young people. Kids from all over the country, as well as from all over the world, go there.”
Finally Sarah had found an environment where she could flourish without feeling guilty about her career or having to compromise her ambitions. “I thank God for that place. It’s an amazing place because all of the kids who go there are very talented. And it’s a place where your talent is special, but it doesn’t affect your schoolwork. Everyone there had a talent and everyone there was respected for that talent. If someone didn’t like you, they simply didn’t talk to you. They didn’t make fun of what you did or punish you for it. When I enrolled, I felt amazingly untalented. But they gave me a chance to find myself.” Gellar eventually graduated two years early with a 4.0 GPA.
All My Children proved to be a gold mine for Sarah. Longtime fans of the soap saw Sarah as the second coming of Erica. The more Sarah showed she could handle the work, the more the writers showcased her. Gellar’s social life became a whirl of soap-related activity and, for the first time in her career, she became a household name, at least to the legions of faithful daytime viewers. Fans wrote to tell her she reminded them of Natalie Wood and people stopped her in the street. Sarah recalls the time she got in a cab to be greeted by name by the driver. “I had no idea who this guy was. It turns out his son was the doorman at my apartment building.”
In addition to the adoration of fans, Sarah was also initiated to the perks of celebrity. And she quickly realized it was a lifestyle she could easily get used to. While buying a ticket to see the movie Guilty as Sin, Sarah was recognized by the theater manager, who was so excited to have her there that he treated Sarah to a free movie and complimentary concessions. It was a memorable day because, as Sarah said later, “It was the first time anyone had gone out of their way like that for me.”
But it would not be the last. During an affiliates’ event in West Virginia, Gellar and co-star Eva LaRue were given the royal treatment at the resort where they stayed. After mentioning they were hungry, the chef came out and personally took their order and when the actresses asked if they could go swimming, the resort opened the closed pool area just for them.
Although she was still in school, All My Children had become the center of Sarah’s life. She became friends with several co-stars, including Kelly Ripa and Eva LaRue. LaRue, who had joined the soap around the same time Sarah had, and who was ten years her senior, became Sarah’s best friend, especially after Lindsay Price left the soap. (Price later appeared on The Bold and the Beautiful and Beverly Hills 90210.)
In 1994, Sarah proved that not only was she a fan favorite, but a respected member of the acting community as well, when she was nominated for a Daytime Emmy in the Outstanding Younger Actress category for the 1993–94 season. Gellar was asked by Entertainment Tonight to be a guest correspondent for the awards and to provide a behind-the-scenes look at the Daytime Emmys. She exuded an easy charm and affability that once again belied her years.
Although she lost, Gellar wasn’t disappointed. She had come a long way in a short time and knew she was only going to get better. But life can be a lot like a soap opera at times. While Gellar’s working relationship with Susan Lucci had begun cordially enough, over time it subtly, then blatantly, began to deteriorate. The year of Sarah’s discontent had begun.
* * *
It wasn’t long before the rumors started. Some reports insinuated that Lucci, who for years had made a cottage industry out of not winning an Emmy, was miffed that Sarah was nominated her first year out—the same year Lucci failed to earn a nomination of her own.
“The truth is,” says a show associate, “Susan was against the idea of the Kendall story line to begin with, because she didn’t really want Erica to be seen as the mother of a daughter in her twenties. Ironically, one of the ways the producers convinced Susan to accept the plot was to convince her that this was the story line that would finally win her the Emmy.” It didn’t. (Lucci would finally win the Emmy for Outstanding Lead Actress in 1999.)
Soon Sarah began spending a lot of time denying the rumors of tension. But according to a source on the show, who requested anonymity, their personality clash actually began shortly after Sarah’s arrival.
“Susan actually made Sarah’s life hell from the beginning by doing things to undermine her. For example, she would play a scene one way during rehearsal then abruptly change it when the cameras were rolling. Then, when Sarah would stop short, confused, Susan
would chastise her, telling her she should really be more professional and learn her lines before shooting a scene. Susan would also make cutting little remarks about Sarah’s acting, and a few times Sarah was reduced to tears. The rest of the cast thought Susan’s behavior was appalling and that’s when the first stories began leaking about Susan being a bitch.”
But another person familiar with the conflict says—contrary to the perception at the time—it wasn’t just Susan contributing to the tension: “In many ways, Sarah was just as guilty, although it wasn’t as obvious as Susan’s snits. Sarah was, and is, intelligent and aware and she knew how to push Susan’s buttons. She just did it subtly and with a smile. Lucci is an old pro and has long had a reputation for being a generous performer. But then along came Sarah, who makes sly jokes about Susan’s age and pushes other hot emotional buttons, and before you know it, the set becomes thick with tension. They were just a bad mix.
“Plus, Sarah loved being the center of attention and she wasn’t shy about how her career was heating up,” says a former soap employee, who claims the situation between Gellar and Lucci deteriorated to the point where they simply stopped talking. “They would be professional and perform their scenes together, then leave and not say a word once the cameras stopped rolling.”
It also didn’t help that Sarah was frequently referred to as “the baby Erica” and was being groomed to be the next major leading-lady in daytime—and had made it clear she was up to the challenge.
In fact, by the end of 1994 Sarah had developed a different attitude toward her acting. Instead of just being something she did for fun, it became a more serious pursuit. “If you train when you’re young, I think it ruins your spontaneity,” Gellar explains. “Kids have a natural honesty that no adult really can, and at some point, you lose it. It wasn’t until I got All My Children that I started to study and see it as a craft.”
In a 1994 interview, Gellar responded sharply when asked if she didn’t sometimes wish she could have enjoyed a traditional high school experience. “I don’t feel like I’m missing out on anything,” she said. “Your childhood is what you make it. I do all the normal things that most teenage girls do, like go to the movies, hang out with friends and go on dates. At the Professional School, I get to have it all. I go to proms and I go to formal dances, and you know what? I yawn.”
Now, looking back she says, “I had the same kind of decisions Buffy did: Do I go to a school dance or slumber party, or do I go to an audition? But I don’t have any regrets. I’ve done a tremendous amount of traveling and it’s given me the opportunity to see all the different things that are out there in the world.
But in 1995, Sarah was too busy to spend much time on philosophical reflection. She was preparing to graduate from high school and for the second year in a row she had been nominated for a Daytime Emmy. As luck would have it, the awards ceremony fell at the same time her prom was scheduled, but there was never a question which event would win out, especially since Sarah was considered the odds-on favorite to win the Outstanding Younger Actress Emmy.
But what only a handful of people knew as the Emmys approached was that, win or lose, this would be Sarah’s soap swan-song. She had asked to be released early from her contract, which wasn’t officially up until February 1996. “I had decided not to renew my contract some time before, and told the show very far in advance, because I felt that was fair. Then, when my story line slowed to one day a week, I asked to be released even earlier.” Besides the inactivity, her contract—and the show’s unwillingness to accommodate her—was preventing Sarah from pursuing other opportunities. “I was offered two other projects, which I was not released to do,” she says pointedly. “And to be honest, I was a little bitter about that.”
The producers reluctantly agreed to release her but the network insisted she keep the departure a secret until after they made the official announcement—after the Emmys. Sarah agreed, although the decision would later come back to haunt her when it put her in a bad light with fans of the show. “The timing was terrible because it made me look incredibly bad.”
As expected, Gellar won the Emmy. Also as expected, Lucci didn’t win in her own category. So when news broke the following week that Gellar was leaving the show, one of two assumptions was made: The first was that Lucci was so beside herself over Sarah’s Emmy win that Gellar had been practically forced out of the soap. The other was that Sarah was so full of herself, she abruptly decided to quit and go Hollywood.
The charges stung and Gellar felt compelled to confront the rumors. “Contrary to what one newspaper reported, I was not fired because I won the Emmy and Susan Lucci didn’t,” Sarah said. “Nor, as another one claimed, did I win the award on a Friday night and quit the following Monday morning because I got ‘too big for my britches.’”
Gellar’s last day on All My Children was July 3, 1995. Although she continued to downplay the acrimony between her and Susan Lucci for a while, these days Sarah can speak about the situation with the dispassion of distance:
“It wasn’t an easy time in my life. Susan and I didn’t have the most amazing relationship; we were not best friends and we’re never going to be. I denied it for a long time because that’s what you’re supposed to do, but it also wasn’t as bad as people made it out to be. The thing I said to her—that I was not competing against her—was the truth. She was in the ‘Leading Actress’ category and I was in the ‘Younger Actress’ category. And let’s be honest: ‘Leading Actress’ is a much more difficult category. And you don’t work alone—I won for scenes submitted with her, for work we did together.
“We worked very well together, but it wasn’t the easiest working relationship. Basically, the best I can say is that we worked together, on top of each other for so long, that problems were inevitable. But would I do it all over again? Absolutely. Being on a soap is the best training in the world because, technically, it’s a very difficult medium to work in. I feel that if you can do daytime, you can do anything.”
After leaving the soap, Sarah prepared to make her next big career move—relocating to California. In an interview given shortly before her move to Hollywood, Gellar expressed her determination to be picky about the work she took. “The most important thing for me is to do work I enjoy—that I’m proud of and respect. If it takes me time to find work, then it will, but I’m not going to jump on the first things that have been offered, because they’re not what I’m interested in. And if I wanted to do another soap, there’d be no reason for me to leave All My Children. It was an amazing two years, but I wanted to spread my wings and do other things, something totally different.”
Gellar technically moved to L.A. in August, but resisted putting down roots—a common syndrome that afflicts many New Yorkers when they first relocate to the West Coast. Despite being fresh from an Emmy win, the door of Hollywood didn’t exactly spring open for Sarah. She auditioned for, and lost, several high-profile parts—including Romeo and Juliet to Claire Danes.
“I had a lot of offers for movies-of-the-week, disease-of-the-week, this girl in peril, that girl in jeopardy, and I turned them down. I was really waiting for the role that was going to be special—the role that could establish me more seriously. I had to wait about a year and a half before I started working again.”
Apparently temporarily putting aside her desire to be taken seriously, Sarah appeared in the ABC telefilm Beverly Hills Family Robinson, opposite Martin Mull and Dyan Cannon, which was filmed in 1996. Then she was sent another script, and immediately sensed this was the role she’d been waiting for. Gellar just knew she was perfect for the part of Buffy. Unfortunately, though, she had been asked to read for the part of Cordelia, the school’s most popular—and most annoying—girl.
When Sarah requested to read for Buffy, she was politely but firmly turned down. Repeatedly. But she hadn’t moved cross-country to let a golden opportunity slip by, so she fought to change the producers’ mind: “I really wanted Buffy, but when they were auditioning,
I had long dark hair and very light skin. I kept trying to convince people to let me read for Buffy. They kept saying, ‘You’re not Buffy.’ And I kept saying, ‘I can be Buffy.’”
Her persistence—and her offer to dye her hair blonde so that Buffy would remain a quintessential-looking California girl—eventually wore down creator Joss Whedon, and Sarah got to read for Buffy. Then she got to read again and Whedon was convinced he had found his Buffy, except for one last detail: “For both auditions, I wore this ankle-length dress with sneakers and they were afraid I was trying to hide a really ugly pair of legs,” Gellar laughs.
Sarah and her co-stars shot a two-hour pilot then she went back to New York for six months. After the WB gave the series the go-ahead as a midseason replacement and scheduled it for a January 1997 debut, the cast reassembled and filmed ten additional episodes.
Buffy debuted on March 10, 1997, to rave critical response, and quickly generated a host of Web pages devoted to the series and its stars, especially Sarah. However, she wasn’t around to see it because she had just landed her most important film role to date, in I Know What You Did Last Summer, which co-starred Party of Five’s Jennifer Love-Hewitt, and Ryan Phillippe and Freddie Prinze Jr.
“It was about two weeks before Buffy was scheduled to go on the air. I was on a press junket for the show when I heard about the movie, and I went and auditioned. Screaming was my entire screen test for the movie. I just stood there and screamed for about five minutes. Gut-wrenching. Love-Hewitt has this really pretty, high melodic scream, while mine sounds like a cat in heat.
“I got I Know What You Did Last Summer the week Buffy first aired,” Gellar explains, “so I was off to North Carolina. We were filming in this very small town in Sonoma County that only got Buffy on a little cable station. And believe me, most people there didn’t have cable. So for two and a half months I was spared from it. I never heard about the Web sites and didn’t see any of the billboards that WB put up all over the place. So I had two months to prepare for it.”
The Girl's Got Bite: The Original Unauthorized Guide to Buffy's World Page 9
