Chances are, if you were anything like us in the later ‘90s/early ‘00s, you were watching one of the biggest cult-favored TV show hits the era had to offer after school: Buffy the Vampire Slayer. The story of a regular girl who just so happens to be blessed with superpowers that enable her to seek out and destroy evil powers (which, incidentally, are rampant in her high school/town of Sunnydale) really SPOKE to us, you know? Making us simultaneously laugh at its witty humor and cheeky one-liners and cry at its more poignant moments (don’t even get us started on Joyce), the show embodied everything teen fancy is made of, and then some. Its magic was largely due to its perfectly casted characters, like Sarah Michelle Gellar (who we STILL idolize) and Eliza Dushku — what badass babes. So, in their honor, we’re taking a look back at how far they’ve come since the show’s 20th anniversary (which just so happens to be today — it premiered on the WB on March 10, 1997). Enjoy!
1. Sarah Michelle Gellar/Buffy Summers: Gellar has gone on to become a household name since her days as the show’s lead: She’s played everyone from Kathryn in cult-fave Cruel Intentions to Helen Shivers in the blockbuster hit I Know What You Did Last Summer. We’ve seen her as Daphne in Scooby-Doo and its sequel, Karen Davis in The Grudge and ITS sequel, and even as the late Scott Weiland’s favorite “Sour Girl” in the Stone Temple Pilots video for the song. These days, girl has her own lifestyle brand that’s blowing up, Foodstirs, of food-crafting kits and baking mixes, and she’s also killing it as a mom (check out her Elf on the Shelf game) and wife — this lucky lady married ‘90s heartthrob Freddie Prinze Jr. Oh. And did we also mention her daughter is basically a future slayer? (Photo via Rich Polk/Getty)
2. Alyson Hannigan/Willow Rosenberg: Alyson Hannigan never really stepped out of the spotlight after her stint as Buffy’s right-hand woman, going on to reprise her role as Michelle in the American Pie movie series, becoming a voiceover queen (you may have heard her in such fave cartoons as The Wild Thornberrys, Rugrats, The Simpsons, and King of the Hill), and eventually making her way back to primetime television with a nine-year stint as Lily on CBS’s How I Met Your Mother. These days, she’s playing host to the magician twosome of Penn & Teller on the CW series, Penn & Teller: Fool Us, as well as rocking her domestic life as a mom: Hannigan married former Buffy co-star Alexis Denisof (who played Giles’ watcher replacement) back in 2003, with whom she has two daughters, Satyana and Keeva Jane. (Photo via Frederick M. Brown/Getty)
3. Eliza Dushku/Faith: Dushku (who you may also remember as the lovable and encouraging Missy from Bring It On) was a total badass as our favorite dark slayer Faith, and while she’s had plenty of film and television roles since, Dushku still shines brightest in the supernatural realm: She played the lead in Tru Calling for two years as a woman with the power to relive the day her morgue clients have died in order to prevent their deaths. Though she had a relatively high-profile relationship with LA ball player Rick Fox back in 2009, it didn’t stick, and Dushku has moved on to more intellectual endeavors as a sociology student at Suffolk University. But don’t expect her to do a Buffy reboot anytime soon — as she just told Us Weekly, “Let’s leave it alone. This show still plays and works for people.” (Photo via Scott Eisen/Getty)
4. Kristine Sutherland/Joyce Summers: Sutherland’s Hollywood creds were short-lived after Buffy, with the actress turning to more personal affairs, attending photography courses and setting up her own portrait studio, though she did appear in a short comedy titled Are You Afraid of the ‘90s last year. Sutherland is married to actor John Pankow, who she has one daughter, Eleanore, with. (Photo via Joe Corrigan/Getty)
5. Amber Benson/Tara Maclay: As Willow’s shy but powerfully quiet girlfriend, Benson’s RL persona reflects as much: Sans for a 2008 Barack Obama ad for MoveOn.org, Benson has remained largely out of the public eye, despite her professional endeavors: Benson is a novelist (she’s even got her own series with Calliope Reaper-Jones!), a director, a screenwriter, and still an actress to boot. (Photo via Imeh Akpanudosen/Getty)
6. Michelle Trachtenberg/Dawn Summers: Trachtenberg gave Buffy fans a shock with her unexpected arrival as Buffy’s little sis Dawn, and she continued to shock us in subsequent roles: Our jaws are still on the floor after her stint as the drug-addled Georgina Sparks in Gossip Girl. You may have also caught her in the music video for Trapt’s “Echo” back in 2002 (Trachtenberg just so happened to be dating lead singer Chris Taylor Brown), and, more recently, the made-for-TV film Sister Cities alongside Pretty Little Liars’ Troian Bellisario. (Photo via Michael Kovac/Getty)
7. Anthony Head/Rupert Giles: Buffy’s beloved watcher has gone on to sing again (you may recall his vocals in the Buffy musical episode “Once More, with Feeling”) in Repo! The Genetic Opera. His other credits are lesser known (sans an uncredited cameo in Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street), as many of his roles are foreign (he is UK born and bred, after all), but he’s also busy with his duties as a partner to Sarah Fisher and dad to their two girls Emily and Daisy, who are both also actresses. (Photo via Jeff Spicer/Getty)
8. David Boreanaz/Angel: Buffy’s one true love famously got his own spinoff after the show’s end with Angel, which ran for an additional five years. After that, he took on the lead as Seeley Booth in another long running Fox series you might recognize: Bones. He has been married twice over, and is currently wed to Jaime Bergman, with whom he welcomed both a son Jaden and a daughter Bella. (Photo via Frederick M. Brown/Getty)
9. James Marsters/Spike: Buffy’s unlikely lover (and ultimate savior — we were SO team Spike) is also a musician, playing both solo and as a member of the band Ghost of the Robot. You also might remember him from subsequent Buffy roles in hits such as Smallville, Without a Trace, and, our personal favorite, Witches of East End. He has one boy (also a musician, from the looks of things), Sullivan Marsters, with ex-wife Liane Davidson, and has since remarried with Patricia Rahman. (Photo via Frazer Harrison/Getty)
10. Nicholas Brendon/Xander Harris: Brendon hasn’t fared as well as some of his co-stars since his leading role as Buffy’s best guy pal Xander: He voluntarily entered rehab for alcoholism back in 2004, and was arrested in multiple instances in 2010, 2014, and 2015 for everything from resisting arrest and battery against an officer to trashing his hotel rooms, attacking his girlfriend, and leaving bills unpaid. He appeared on Dr. Phil in 2015 to tell his story and agreed to give rehab another go, announcing soon after that he was 90 days sober. Professionally, he’s managed to hang onto a few roles throughout the chaos, including a recurring spot as Kevin Lynch on Criminal Minds, and unlike Dushku, he’d be all for a reboot. “Hell yes!” he told Hollywood Lifeabout the idea. (Photo via Araya Diaz/Getty)
11. Charisma Carpenter/Cordelia Chase: Sunnydale’s resident mean girl with a secret heart of gold has had several mystical roles since her Buffy days, including a reprisal of her regular character on Angel and a spot on everyone’s other favorite witchy throwback, Charmed. She was also a regular on Kristen Bell’s breakout show, Veronica Mars and the voice of Lacy in The Expendables. Though Carpenter has stated in the past that she doesn’t consider herself a sex symbol, she did pose for a 10-page spread in Playboy post-baby, saying, “I had just had my son and I’d gained 50 lbs. during pregnancy. I wanted to get back to my old self.” (You go, girl!) Now divorced from her baby’s father, you can still catch Carpenter in occasional guest spots on shows like Scream Queens, Chicago PD, and, most recently, Lucifer. (Photo via Rachel Murray/Getty)
12. Emma Caulfield/Anyanka “Anya” Jenkins: Caulfield wasn’t even supposed to be a series regular, but fans loved her so much, creator Joss Whedon made demon-turned-human Anya Jenkins Xander’s fiancé. With a clear knack for deadpan humor, it only makes sense that Caulfield would go on to produce and star in a satire (Bandwagon), which featured several other Buffy cast members, as well. Caulfield has co-authored the webcomic Contropussy, and starred in several other independent films and TV shows (she had a recurring role on Once Upon a Time), but also plays mommy to daughter Knightley Lake Ford with Mark Ford. (Photo via Gareth Cattermole/Getty)
13. Seth Green/Daniel “Oz” Osbourne: Where HAVEN’T we seen Seth Green since his days of making us all laugh as Willow’s werewolf boyfriend Oz? With roles in everything from Angel (where he again played Oz) to Entourage, Grey’s Anatomy, How I Met Your Mother, and Crazy Ex-Girlfriend (need we go on?), he’s been all over television, and don’t even get us started on his film career. While his most notable role post-Buffy has undeniably been as Scott Evil in the Austin Powers series, he’s also had parts in flicks such as The Italian Job, Scooby Doo 2: Monsters Unleashed (alongside Gellar), and Guardians of the Galaxy. Additionally, he has played the voice of Chris on Family Guy more or less since 1999 — NBD — and has been married to actress Clare Grant since 2010. (Photo via Frederick M. Brown/Getty)
14. Juliet Landau/Drusilla: Like Boreanaz and Carpenter, Landau went on to reprise her dark role on Buffy in its spinoff, Angel — one which, according to her Facebook, she actually created. Which kinda makes sense when you consider the fact that she also just so happens to be an accomplished theatre actress (she’s a member of The Actors Studio), writer, director, and — get this — ballerina. She’s married to photographer/director/cinematographer Deverill Weeks, and last year, the two co-directed and produced a vampire (what else!?) docuseries called A Place Among the Undead.. (Photo via Frederick M. Brown/Getty)
Which Buffy character was your fave? Tell us @BritandCo.
(Photo via Getty/Stringer)
