Wolf Pack’s Sarah Michelle Gellar on being a gay icon: ‘it gets me up in the morning!’
Exclusive: The Buffy the Vampire Slayer star talks to Attitude about being a 'gay icon' and her 'chosen family'.
The star of the new supernatural series, Wolf Pack, Sarah Michelle Gellar, has addressed her status as a ‘gay icon’.
The series sees the Buffy the Vampire Slayer return to the supernatural genre after the show that made her a household name. In Wolf Pack, Gellar stars as an investigator looking into a wildfire, which just so happens to have awoken a supernatural creature.
Speaking exclusively to Ola Awosika for Attitude ahead of the premiere of the show, Gellar said being a ‘gay icon’ is “the greatest honour”.
Touching on the idea of ‘chosen family’ (or more appropriately, ‘chosen pack’) she said: “It’s about the people that show up for you.”
She also said of the LGBTQ community “they have always supported me and been there for me, and accepted me for me. I don’t have to be anybody else but me.
“And it gets me up in the morning!”
Addressing Buffy’s own status as a ‘gay icon’ Gellar said it comes from “the idea of Buffy represents all of us.”
As a Vampire Slayer, Buffy initially hid that from her mum before ‘coming out’. Her mother’s response would resonate for LGBTQ people: “have you tried not being a slayer?”
“That’s a metaphor for coming out,” Gellar continued.
“I think there was bits of all of these characters that were outcasts,” she added before recounting that she didn’t feel like she fit in while growing up,
“I wasn’t into what everyone else was into, I didn’t have that. So I think it’s important to have those voices and representation for anyone that is a minority and that is not the majority.”
“We all want to fit [in]”
The Buffy star, who is an executive producer on Wolf Pack as well as an actor, discussed her interest in doing the show.
“Coming out of Covid I really realised my pack or my pod if you will, if it wasn’t for them, I would not have made it through.
“I’m a social person, I want to touch and talk and they provided that for me in that time.
“We all want to fit [in], we want to be loved for who we are and we want to have people that get what makes us tick.”
Keeping with the idea of ‘chosen family’ Gellar says “it’s extremely important” to her.
“There’s no blood is thicker than water for me. I always say to people, it’s an honor because you don’t choose your family, you choose that pack and those are the people that keep you going and are there for you in such a different way because they choose to be there. There is no obligation.”
Wolf Pack is available on Paramount+.