Scream queen relishes roles

The latest horror-fest, The Grudge, based on the hit Japanese movie Jug-On, has reignited the career of scream queen and former vampire hunter Sarah Michelle Gellar.

Grossing a surprising $US40 million ($56.40 million) in its opening weekend in the US, this English language remake is directed by Takashi Shimizu, who also helmed the original.

The grudge is the curse of one who dies in the grip of a powerful rage. Those who encounter this murderous curse die and a new curse is born, passed like a virus from victim to victim in an infinite chain of horror. Gellar plays a foreign exchange student, studying in Japan, who discovers an entity within a haunted house.

Gellar, best known for her role as Buffy in the TV series, Buffy the Vampire Slayer has no fear of being typecast. "This genre, horror or thriller, seems to be where women have the best roles, where women actually get to do something. I couldn't be just the girlfriend, or the wife. It just wouldn't be fun for me. So, I'll be wherever the good female roles are."

That said, Gellar's last couple of parts have been starring in the Scooby-Doo franchise with her husband Freddie Prinze jnr - not exactly what you'd describe as complex, character-driven roles.

"Well, the stars of Scooby-Doo were animated. We were really just window dressing, but as Freddie and I had just gotten married, it was a great opportunity for us to work and spend time together."

Gellar's decision to walk away from the highly rated Buffy the Vampire Slayer last year brought about its demise. The show had enjoyed a decade of a consistent fan base and the television industry was shocked.

However, the daily grind and commitment of a weekly television show, in which Gellar was the primary focus, took its toll.

"I miss a lot of aspects of Buffy. I miss the people and the crew. It was nine years of my life. When you see a group of people every day, they become your family," she shrugs. "But I'll tell you, I don't miss the hours. Now I can spend time doing anything I want, which means I can spend more time with my husband."

Gellar laments missed opportunities in her personal life. "Some of my friends had babies and I couldn't sit at the hospital for 14 hours while they were in labour. I couldn't guarantee to be at a friend's wedding," she says.

Although Gellar is only 27, she has endured a career in Hollywood for 23 years. "Luckily, I wasn't a famous child actor at a young age, I was a working actor at a young age," she says. "That made it a lot easier."

An agent discovered 4-year-old Gellar in a New York restaurant, with her mother. By the age of 6, Gellar was making her first TV movie, Invasion of Privacy. This preceded a long list of commercials and TV movies with her breakthrough role in 1992 in Swans Crossing. She won an Emmy in '94 for the daytime soap opera, All My Children. And in 1997 she hit the big screen when she appeared in I Know What You Did Last Summer, and Scream 2.

"When I was growing up, I didn't have massive success where I was in the spotlight. The tabloid frenzy that has happened in the last five years didn't really exist when I was younger, thank God. I was 18 when I started Buffy so I was pretty much an adult by that time."

Suggesting that up'n'comers Lindsay Lohan and Hillary Duff must be feeling the heat, she says, "It's hard. They're only just finding themselves at that age and they have all eyes on them."

But Gellar is getting pressure of a different kind. Now that she is married to Prinze, she is sick of talk about when the two will have children.

"It's an incredibly personal decision between two people and all I can tell is when the time is right, it'll be right." Leaning forward, she continues: "Complete strangers come up to me and ask me when I'm going to have babies. I mean, come on. Not even my mother would dare ask me that."

But for now, Gellar is content to leave her acting aside and play real-life wife of two years to Prinze jnr.

"Hey, that might be two in regular years but that's equivalent to 15 by Hollywood standards," she jokes.

* The Grudge opens on Thursday.