Making good on her promise to protect young actors on the set of her new show Wolf Pack, Sarah Michelle Gellar removed a crewmember who made a castmember uncomfortable.
In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Gellar described an incident where a crewmember made a young actor nervous by offering back rubs. She had him fired as soon she heard about it. "I hope that I've set up an infrastructure, a safety net for these actors that I didn't have," she explained. "My generation just didn't have that."
Gellar insists that her producer's credit on the show is not just for vanity and profit. She has vowed to give the younger actors on set the protection she didn't have when she was their age. She gave out her phone number to the cast and promised them to handle any concerns discreetly. Wolf Pack creator Jeff Davis stands behind Gellar's initiative. "I've got teenagers running around half-naked," he said. "And while it's vital to have the intimacy coordinator, it's so important to have Sarah there because she's been where they are. She knows this stuff."
Gellar admitted that being a producer also comes with the kind of compensation she never had when Buffy the Vampire Slayer made her famous but apparently not rich. She described the residuals from her most famous role as "nothing anybody could live off of." In recent years, Buffy the Vampire Slayer has seen greater controversy than subpar acting wages, with the show's creator Joss Whedon accused of abusive behavior by several actors. While Gellar has been vague about her own experiences with Whedon, she has voiced support for the actors coming out against him and has talked about Buffy's "extremely toxic male set."
Teen Wolf and Wolf Pack creator Davis is adamant that despite earlier reports, and despite a new Teen Wolf movie hitting Paramount+ the same day as Wolf Pack, the shows are not connected. He said he had trepidations about doing another werewolf show, but the opportunity to address environmental topics and the struggles of today's teens made him accept Paramount's offer to run the series. Davis promises the new show, based on a book series by Canadian writer Edo van Belkom, will be darker and more sophisticated than Teen Wolf.
Wolf Pack premieres Jan. 26 on Paramount+.
Source: The Hollywood Reporter