Movies - TV
Sarah Michelle Gellar Didn’t Quite Understand Her Buffy Audition Script
By SHAE SENNETT
Series creator Joss Whedon created his own way of speaking for “Buffy the Vampire Slayer,” and obviously the slayer herself, Sarah Michelle Gellar, learned to speak it like a pro.
However, it might surprise fans to learn that when Gellar first auditioned for the series' lead, she was thoroughly confused by the patois that came to be known as Buffyism.
“Well, Buffyism is basically just an odd way of speaking,” Whedon said in a 1998 interview. Whedon describes it as “twisting the English language until it cries out in pain.”
Sarah Michelle Gellar, a New York native, found the language alien. She struggled with Californian slang and even had a moment of confusion when reading her first line.
Gellar said that her first line was “What’s the sitch?” She added in the interview alongside Whedon, “And there I go walking in and my first, ‘What does this mean?’”
Despite her initial confusion, Whedon appreciated that Gellar “found the humor” in the part while still bringing “a lot of intelligence to it, which is something Buffy needs.”