Glamour (UK) - October 2003 Interview

Sarah Michelle Gellar
- ex-butt-kicking ghoul buster in Buffy the Vampire Slayer, wife of Freddie Prince Jr and the seven-across clue in today's New York Daily News crossword -is shuffling around the room in a £2,000 Blumarine Dress.
She's wearing it draped over jeans, her newly painted toes stuffed with pieces of pink toilet paper, and her face is a make-up free zone; she even has (drum roll,please) a couple of tiny blemishes on her chin. But instead of hiding, she's begging us to take a picture " Pleeeeeeease take a picture of it for the Editor's Letter. Come on show people how glamorous I really am."

She shimmers across the studio floor singing, 'Happy Birthday To Me' (though it's not her birthday), while pointing to the diamond earrings adoring her lobes. She's borrowed them from the stylist. "These are going to be my birthday present," she tells everyone. "Lucky Freddie, Happy Birthday to me..."
You can't help but warm to Sarah Michelle Gellar. She's self-deprecating and funny. When I asked her if she watches what she eats she says, "Yeah, I watch it go into my mouth." She's charismatic and a complete chatterbox; she's a mix of cute, sexy and though and has the inner strength of someone who's madly in love, and who knows she's loved back.

You'd expect her to be feisty, ultra-inderpendant woman having made a name for herself as a vampire slayer. But she's in a new generation of screen starlets who've harked back to traditional values. Sarah's settled down and married young, and liked decorating, sharing the housework with Freddie and playing with her dogs.
She's made old-fashioned the new young, contentment the new galmour.

"People used to say to me, 'Oh you married so young.' [She's 26 now and married at 25.] But when my mum was young, you got married out of high school. Recently, people didn't want to get married until their thirties because they wanted to live life and do their thing. Now I think people are starting to get married younger again and it's chnaged to 'Oh it's so great you found The One so early.'

"To be honest, I'm very, very greatful I don't have to get all dressed up and go out looking for a man on a Saturday night, I was always terrible at chatting up men. "Sarah was 20 when she met Freddie. He was her co-star in the teen horror film I Know What You Did Last Summer. She thought he was cute but he was in a relationship at the time, However, "It definitley wasn't love at first sight," she tells me "No, no, no. We were friends for years beforehand." Three years later, when he was single and he was feeling a bit down, she called him up. They began going on sushi dates. "And then, onde day everything changed between us," she smiles. They set up home together in LA in a $3 million mansion and last september, they exchanged vows in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico. There where 60 guest. Sarah says it was a beautiful day and that falling in love has changed her; she used to be uncompromising, but Freddie has taught her to sare.

How did you know he was The One?
I tell all my single girlfriends this: When it's the right person you just know. Getting married to Freddie was the eeasiest decision I've ever made. If you have to question it, it's not love.

Sex and the City shows New York women unable to balance their work and emotional lives. How have you managed it?
I know I'm really luck to have both. Freddie has definitely had to teach me how to balance them because I work so hard. Sometimes I just want to come home and sleep. But a relationship needs work. I don't take it for granted that, whatever I do, it'll be fine.

Do you think marrige has changed your relationship?
I didn't think it would, but it has. I was quite anti-marriage. I have good friends, gay couples, who've been together for 18 Years. It drives me crazy that in the eyes of the law, their love isn't acknowledged when I have a girlfriends who have married four times by the age of 25. But I realised it's not about that license, it's about making a commitment in front of the people that matter to you. It feels different and brings me an amazing comfort.

Describe a typical day in the Gellar-Prince Jr household.
I love decorating. To me, decorating is like shopping. I love ABC Carpet & Home [a US furnishings shop]. But when it comes to the actual painting I get Freddie and his friends to do it.

It sounds like you run a tight ship. Are you confrontational?
No, I have a really hard time expressing myself and saying what I really feel. But if someone says, 'Do these jeans look good on me?' I'm doing a disservice if I don't tell you. I have a problem speaking up for my own feelings. I don't a;ways stick up for myself.

Do you fit into the tole of domestic goddes now that you're married?
We share the household duties! But I do the laundry, because Freddie wrecks all my clothes when be does it. I put freddie's friends to work too. Freddie's best friend Connor's job is to take out the garbage. He's like "I don't live here." I'm like you practically do, so you've to to take the garbage out."

It sounds like a bachelor pad. Do you find lost of smelly bodies strewn all over the place in the morning?
Yeah I do. I love it. though I didn't grown up with a big family so our friends are like our famlily.