Why Hollywood Won't Cast Sarah Michelle Gellar Anymore

She kind of got pigeonholed early on

Gellar might have gotten her start on the soap operas Swans Crossing and All My Children, but what really got her name out there was her rising scream queen stock. Just as she stepped into the title role in TV's Buffy the Vampire Slayer, she also appeared in the 1997 cheesetastic teen thrillers I Know What You Did Last Summer and Scream 2. Whether or not she was hoping for household name status through the horror genre, that's what initially put her on the mainstream radar, and it stuck.

Almost all of her silver screen successes since can neatly fit into that box: add 2004's The Grudge and 2006's The Grudge 2 and The Return to her thriller filmography. Even arguably her most memorable role, as Kathryn Merteuil in the 1999 hit Cruel Intentions, came in a suspense film, and her family film work in the live-action Scooby-Doo flicks only bolstered her scary movie foothold.

Outside of the chills and thrills scene, her films haven't done so well

Gellar gained some instant popularity thanks to Buffy and her fun slasher fare, but her efforts outside the fear sphere have failed to lift off. Her supernatural rom-com Simply Irresistible was a flat-out flop, and nobody saw (or probably even heard about) her weird crime drama Harvard Man or her part as a viral porn star in the ensemble dramedy Southland Tales or her psychological drama Veronika Decides to Die. She's proven she can put bottoms in seats whenever someone's chasing her with a knife or haunting her hair in the shower, but viewers just haven't shown up to check out her other offerings.

Critics haven't exactly been crazy about her, either

Gellar's movies have received almost universal disapproval from reviewerseven those few films audiences did come out for. Simply Irresistible, for instance, earned an embarrassing 13% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, and The Return was massacred, too, earning just 16%. Even The Grudge was mostly disliked, and the sequel was even more of a magnet for critical thrashing. Her highest-rated project was the music documentary Mayor of the Sunset Strip, and she barely even had anything to do with that, appearing only as herself in a throwaway moment.

Even her TV shows have struggled

Buffy was a fan-frenzied highlight of Gellar's career, so once her movie star status proved to be DOA, she returned to TV to see if she might be able to find favor with at-home audiences again. Hey, some people can thrive on TV without being bona fide movie stars, especially nowadays. Despite some interesting projects there, though, she's had two back-to-back flops on the small screen too.

Her crime drama Ringer, which featured Gellar as a pair of twins on the run from scary ne'er-do-wellers, bombed with critics and audiences alike and failed to earn a second season. Then her network comedy show The Crazy Ones, which featured her alongside one of the late greats, Robin Williams, didn't leave any lasting impressions; despite some decent ratings, it also got the axe after a single season.

She's kept a super low profile

Her personal life, too, has been something of a snoozewhich is great for her stability as a human being and all, but it means she's not in the headlines much. Her long-lived marriage to fellow '90s hottie-turned-absentee Freddie Prinze Jr. has produced two children and zero drama. Meanwhile, her social media feed oozes with total proud mom gush, like a zillion pics of her kids and snaps of her family's culinary adventures. She's not ruffling any feathers or reading her name in the scandals section of the newspaperwhich, again, is fantastic for her personal well-being, but she's not getting the kind of media attention that would earn her headshot top-of-the-pile placement.

She's had the most luck behind the mic

She's got a face for the cameras, no doubt. But post-Buffy, Gellar's had better responses to her voice work than her screen appearances. She's done almost a decade's worth of audio character work for Cartoon Network's Robot Chicken, and you've heard her other places, too, like American Dad!, The Simpsons, and TMNT. Most recently, she and Prinze have tapped into the nerd domain with their voice roles in Star Wars Rebels and seem to be drumming up some solid fanfare as a result of that show.

It's not over yet

One thing that could turn this all around is if the Cruel Intentions TV sequel finally takes flight. Audiences nostalgic for the deviance of Kathryn Merteuil might respond to her reprisal of the role so many years later, if and when the show ever finds its way. It wasn't mentioned on the fall 2016 order sheets for any networks, but Gellar said the delays were only due to the fact that they wanted to get it right. "The road is taking a little longer than normal," she said. "We have to do it right. It's a naughty show and we have to pay homage to what it is." Considering that the show could mark a career turnaround for Gellar by reminding everyone why they loved her in the first place, she's totally correctthey really do need to get it right.