Chase Sui Wonders Talks Working with Sarah Michelle Gellar and The ‘Buffy the Vampire Slayer’ Reboot: “People Are In For a Real Treat”

Chase Sui Wonders is ready to slay… vampires, that is.

Chatting with DECIDER at the inaugural Televerse Fest in Los Angeles, The Studio star opened up about her recent casting in the Buffy the Vampire Slayer reboot at Hulu, which is set to feature Star Wars: Skeleton Crew actress Ryan Kiera Armstrong taking the stakes from the original Buffy Summers (Sarah Michelle Gellar), who will also be in the series.

“I think Sarah Michelle Gellar is a legend and she’s very involved in the series, which is just, I feel like the dream for everyone involved, because you can consult her,” the actress said. “She’s there the whole time on set, and you can consult her about anything in the Buffy universe, and she’s got it in her mind because she grew up on that set. So I feel like people are in for a real treat.”

According to DEADLINE, Wonders will be playing a character named “Shirley” in the Hulu pilot, which is slated to be directed by Chloé Zhao. Her character is “believed to be a vampire,” according to the outlet, and will be a one-off guest star.

In preparation for joining the world of Buffy and the new slayer (Armstrong), Wonders said that Gellar has been an open book, not only when it comes to everything involving vampires and vampire hunters, but also how to navigate Hollywood and the sci-fi television genre.

“She gives me advice on everything, she gives me advice on every category of life,” Wonders told DECIDER. “But yeah, she really leads by example, the way she carries herself. She’s an epic person and I love her very much.”

In the OG series, Gellar played a high schooler who took on the world of vampires and demons alongside her best friends, including Willow (Alyson Hannigan) and Xander (Nicholas Brendon). The new series will see Buffy acting as a mentor to an introverted high-school student named Nova (Armstrong), who will experience her own challenges on the way to slaying vampires. The series is written by Poker Face producing duo Nora and Lilla Zuckerman.

This isn’t the first legacyquel of an SMG project that Wonders is part of, either. Over the summer, the actress led the reboot of I Know What You Did Last Summer alongside Outer Banks‘ Madelyn Cline, The Little Mermaid‘s Jonah Hauer-King, and Him star Tyriq Withers. Gellar and her real-life husband, Freddie Prinze Jr. — who met on the set of the 1997 original film — both appeared in the remake along with Jennifer Love Hewitt.

In the new film, Wonders plays Ava, a traumatized twenty-something whose friend group is targeted by a hooded murderer with a fishhook, in the same fashion as the original killings from the 1997 movie. The movie has yet to be released on streaming but can be pre-ordered here.

You can watch Season 1 of The Studio on Apple TV+ and all of Buffy the Vampire Slayer on Tubi, Hulu, and Disney+.

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