 |
||
|
SARAH MICHELLE GELLEAR: FHM, AUGUST 2001 |
||
|
|
SHE'S THE BOSS! Be it cracking demon skulls on Buffy, or psychedelic flouncing in seventies outfits with Scooby Doo, FHM simply can't get enough of the incredible Sarah Michelle Gellar. When transferring cartoon characters into live-action movies, some parts are easier to cast than others. The chisel-jawed, alas now wheelchair bound, Christopher Reeve was perfect as the cow-licked, "man of steel" Superman. Similarly Michael Keaton had the broodiness required to take on the role of the troubled caped crusader in Tim Burton's 1988 movie Batman. However, who could successfully pull-off a big screen transference of Inch High Private Eye? Would movie-goers believe in Tom Cruise dressed in a fedora and raincoat, riding around on a big dog, cracking important crimes for the Finkerton organisation? Would the popcorn-munching patrons be transfixed as Danny De Vito took on the role of the large nosed, unreliable wooden club-twirling Neanderthal Captain Caveman, teaming up with the svelte Teen Angels to rid America of wrong-doers? When news that a real-life Scooby Doo movie was going into production there were similar scoffs of incredulity - how could anyone play the stammering hippy Shaggy? Which actor could possibly pull off the preppy righteousness of Fred? And who on Earth would have the ability to form tents in young boys' shorts to play the elusive and demure Daphne? Thankfully, the film's producers had the good sense to cast the beautiful Sarah Michelle Gellar as the ghostbuster, forever sporting a short dress and jaunty neck scarf, and she's currently filming the movie in Queensland, Australia, alongside her fiancée Freddie Prinze Jr who's playing the straight-laced Fred. "It's in the vein of Abbot And Costello Meet Frankenstein or Ghostbusters. We get chased around by a supposed spook, until we can unmask the ghoul. Scooby and the gang must save the world," says the 24-year-old New Yorker, who announced her engagement to Prinze Jr in April. "Everything I wear is purple - the scarves, the headband, I was like, 'What if I look terrible in purple?' I have to wear these knee-high purple boots, and I hate knees - I think they're ugly. I was an ice skater when I was younger so it's a big deal to get me to wear short skirts. I'm doing lots of chasing scenes with little skirts and these boots. The crew would crack up because the second they yelled cut, the boots would be off and the sneakers back on." Boots or no boots, the appearance by Sarah Michelle Gellar in this year's 100 Sexiest Women In The World, was the third year she's been voted into the top 20 - she won the prestigious award in 1999 - but Sarah is modest about her achievements in our worldwide poll. "I'd think of myself as smart before I'd ever think of myself as beautiful. But the trick is to be sexy to the point where it gets people's imaginations working - and then you let them take if from there," says Sarah. "That's why movie stars of the Forties and Fifties were so sexy. They positively reeked of sex by only hinting at it." And she's adamant that she wouldn't slip under the surgeon's knife if the curves on her petite frame started to bulge or droop. "I have a big problem with putting things into my body, like with breast or lip surgery," she says. "But I'm okay with nose jobs if you get up every day and look in the mirror and your nose makes you unhappy. But my nose is my nose. Some magazine said that I'd had a boob job but lemme tell ya, if I paid for these, I'd like 'em to look a lot better than this." Sarah who originally auditioned for the role of Cordelia on Buffy - but the producers were so taken with her they cast her as the lead - may not want to stuff things in her body, but she's been more than happy to decorate her fair skin with the odd tattoo. "I have two. I have a Chinese symbol for integrity on my back, and one on my ankle which is a heart and a knife," she says. "I find tattoos addictive - I want to put a chain around one of my ankles. I'm not worried about scarring my body. If I don't like them when I'm older I'll get rid of them. My stunt double had to have hers removed from her arm because I don't have one there." The nation has been gripped with Buffy fever since the show was first aired in the UK on Sky One in 1997 [sic], and Sarah has discovered that fame can bring with it some unwelcome visitors - paparazzi hiding in the bushes outsider her house, and unrelenting pestering from obsessive fans. "If I want to go to Disneyland, I'm going to go to Disneyland. Just because people are going to recognise me, that's not going to stop me from going," she says. "Nine out of ten times, people are nice and just want to say, 'I like your show.' Last night I went to have sushi with a friend and the waitress came over and said, 'The people at the next table would really like to take their picture with you. Would that be okay?' I thought, 'How nice was that? Not only did they ask, they asked the waiter, so they wouldn't bother me.'" There are more than 40,000 fan pages dedicated to Gellar on the net, however, when she's surfing she doesn't take a sly peek to see what hogwash is being written about her. "I think that would frighten me," she says. "I did finally get a computer, and I have to say that I'm learning to use the net. I use it to collect antique books, including my copy of Les Liasons Dangereuses which I bought from a lovely man in England. And I use it to look up customs if I'm travelling. I went to Fiji and I learnt all the stuff in advance - like don't wear a hat in people's huts because it's rude and don't wear shoes. There are better things to use the net for, than looking on it and going, 'Ooh, let's find out about me.'" And Sarah has discovered that there are some perks to being one of the most famous people in America. "Two weeks ago I was invited to Sea World," she says. "I've been going there since I was four years old. I've memorised the sea lion and otter show. They had these three otters born in the park this year, and they named them Buffy, Willow and Xander. They invited me down to meet the otters and I got to spend the entire day behind the scenes." In 1999 Sarah caused a stir with her role as Kathryn Merteuil in teen drama Cruel Intentions in which she swapped saliva with her female co-star Selma Blair, and in her next movie Harvard Man she's set to get pulses racing again with more steamy sex scenes. "I have two love scenes," she says. "The first was in a wood on my first day. It was like, 'Hey, nice to meet you, now let's have sex.' Everyone was watching and it took a while to get comfortable. But everything after that was a piece of cake." |
|