Sarah Michelle Gellar, who earned acclaim in her performance as Buffy Summers in Buffy the Vampire Slayer is protecting younger actors on the set of Wolf Pack. Wolf Pack is a Paramount+ show created by Jeff Davis, who also created Teen Wolf, and will be based on Edo Van Belkom’s book of the same name. The show centers around the story of two teenagers who discover that they are werewolves during a massive fire. Having encountered a park ranger who adopts two other werewolves, the group comes together to form a pack that can protect itself from the horrors of the supernatural world.
With Gellar playing arson investigator Kristin Ramsey and serving as the executive producer for the show, she has a significant amount of power in the production, which she intends to use for good. In an interview with SFX Magazine, Gellar explains how she’s taking advantage of her role as a producer to ensure that the cast of Wolf Pack won’t need to experience the abuse and misconduct that Gellar allegedly experienced on the set of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. In fact, she is even going out of her way to create a system of protection. Check out her quote below, via CBR:
“It […] gives me the ability to protect the younger cast in a way that is now always there. There was not a system set up in my day for the younger actors to feel protected and to have someone to go to. It’s a system that I think is really important and that I put in place from day one.”
Why Buffy The Vampire Slayer Has Become Controversial
While Buffy the Vampire Slayer has become a classic TV show, the alleged behavior of Whedon on set has left a heavy weight over the series. Accusations about Whedon’s behavior range from verbal abuse to infidelity to sexual misconduct and discrimination with Whedon’s further misconduct including physical altercations and general abuse of power. Gellar has been open about how the experience made her question on-set behavior and friendships with women, given the toxic environment of the Buffy the Vampire Slayer set. That she is now using the experience to support the Wolf Pack actors shows her intention to reform Hollywood and how far the industry has come.
Everything We Know About Wolf Pack
Alongside Gellar, Rodrigo Santoro (300) will be starring as Garrett Briggs, Armani Jackson (Honor Society) will be appearing as Everett Lang, Bella Shepard (Orange is the New Black) as Blake Navarro, Chloe Rose Robertson (Wildflower) as Luna Briggs, and Tyler Lawrence Gray (Feeling Randy) will be playing Harlan Briggs. With the pack trying to uncover the truth about two strange wildfires involving supernatural creatures, the show is expected to center around fantasy and horror alike. Gellar is set to help the kids uncover the truth, all while they deal with the pressure of the influence of the full moon. While there is a Buffy the Vampire Slayer homage in Wolf Pack, the two shows are set in entirely different universes.
Yet universes aside, the monsters in Wolf Pack are remarkably similar to those of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, if only because the show also features them as metaphors for typical coming-of-age problems like anxiety, depression, and coping with the stresses of growing up, and starting to find a place in the world. The horror, of course, will be taken a step further than Buffy the Vampire Slayer could accomplish on network television, which is part of what drew Gellar to the role. Additionally, despite being created by the same person and in spite of numerous faulty reports, Wolf Pack is not a Teen Wolf spin-off and is its own entity entirely. Wolf Pack is set to premiere on January 26 on Paramount+.
