The Real Life Inspiration Of Buffy's Invisible Girl Is Now A Top TV Executive
The first season of "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" has some major gems, perhaps none more so than "Out of Sight, Out of Mind." SAG Award-winner Clea DuVall stars in the episode as a teen girl who is so shy and overlooked by her classmates that she literally turns invisible, causing her to lash out violently.
DuVall's character, Marcie Ross, was named after Marcy Ross, a real-life woman who worked on the "Buffy" set as an assistant to Gail Berman, a producer who helped develop the WB series and has since gone on to produce the Oscar-nominated mega-hit "Elvis." Berman also produced the spin-off series "Angel" and continues to work in television today (most recently on the first season of Netflix's super-successful "Addams Family" series "Wednesday").
Berman still remembers the season 1 episode of "Buffy" as her favorite of the series. Not only was the villain named after her assistant, but she also empathized with her plight.
"When I heard the story of the 'invisible girl' that's something I could understand, very well," she told The Hollywood Reporter in 2017. "It was my favorite early story because I totally understood that a girl who felt invisible and no one paid attention to would ultimately become, invisible. There was just so much pain and anger in that story."
The episode doesn't usually make the "Buffy" top 10 lists — the show's seven seasons had a lot of memorable moments — but it's Berman's personal favorite. Luckily, Ross wasn't offended by the comparison. She loves her namesake, and "Out of Sight" is her favorite "Buffy" episode, too. "Marcy [Ross] and I are probably the only ones who would say that's our favorite episode, but there's a real reason for it," Berman added.
Out of Sight is the real-life Ross' favorite Buffy episode
Berman and Ross weren't the only ones who related to Marcie Ross, the shy murderer. Alyson Hannigan, who played Buffy's wild-smart and covertly powerful best friend Willow, also empathized with the invisible villain.
Willow can probably relate to Marcie more than any other member of the Scooby gang when we meet her in the first season. She is also nerdy, but she has a friend in Xander — and then Buffy of course — so she doesn't suffer the same affliction as Marcie. Willow also attracts negative attention from Cordelia, while Marcie attracts no attention at all. The characters' similarities and differences aside, Hannigan felt personally connected to Marcie by her own teenage experience.
"Having not had a good experience in my personal high school life, to be able to be part of a show that reflects that — it just resonated so profoundly with me," she told a Comic-Con audience in 2017 (per The Guardian). "I was just over the moon to have been a part of it. [...] it was like, 'Oh my God'. I thought, 'Joss [Whedon, series creator] saw me in high school.'"
DuVall also related to her character, even in her brief experience on the "Buffy" set. The actor was still new to the industry and felt like a total outsider. "I think I was maybe 18 or 19 when we shot it," she recalled in an interview with The A.V. Club in 2016. "I was nervous and very shy, but really related to that character so much because I am a shy person. I am an introvert. I was so taken with the sensitivity and the emotion in that role."
What is the real Marcy Ross up to now?
So, where is the real Marcy Ross now? When Berman became Fox's entertainment president in 2002, she brought Ross onto her team (via Deadline). Even though she was just an assistant at the time, working on "Buffy" ended up being a catalyst for Ross' career. She went on to work at Fox for a decade, making her way up from senior vice president to executive vice president.
Ross served as EVP for a decade before transitioning to president of Skydance TV, which produced the Emmy-nominated Netflix series "Grace and Frankie." In 2020, she stepped down as the company head after seven years but continues to produce under their masthead. Ross is credited as a producer on the first two seasons of the hit crime thriller series "Reacher," both of which were released after her presidency at Skydance ended.
The veteran producer was also behind the war series "Tom Clancy's Jack Ryan" and several episodes of the Emmy-nominated Netflix sci-fi series "Altered Carbon," both Skydance productions. After heading Skydance, Ross transitioned to the presidency of SK Global, the international entertainment company behind "Catfish" and "Crazy Rich Asians" (per Deadline).
The real Ross and the actor who played her have both gone on to do incredible things since working on "Buffy," but they still feel connected to this episode today, and they aren't the only ones. New viewers empathize with Ross all the time, and people still approach DuVall about her guest appearance on "Buffy" today.
"The fact that it's one episode of a television show that was on for so long, and people come up to me and talk to me about it all the time," DuVall noted, "And they relate to it and they understood. We all feel that way."