The Cast of ‘Buffy the Vampire Slayer,’ Then and Now

Sarah Michelle Gellar as Buffy

In the pilot, Buffy is the new girl at Sunnydale High after having been expelled from her school in Los Angeles for burning the gym down. What no one knows, however, is that there’s a perfectly good explanation: The place was filled with vampires, and as her generation’s chosen Slayer, she was simply doing her job. Throughout the series, Buffy is faced with similar dilemmas as she tries to juggle the demands of school and a normal teenage social life with her night job. 

Gellar — who got her first acting credit at age 5 and was a regular for two seasons on the daytime soap All My Children before taking on her most iconic role — made time for several films during Buffy’s run, including I Know What You Did Last Summer (1997), where she starred alongside Jennifer Love Hewitt and now-husband Freddie Prinze Jr. She then played against type in 1999’s Cruel Intentions, and played into Buffy’s “Scooby Gang” reference as Daphne (with Prinze as Fred) in 2002’s live-action Scooby-Doo and its 2004 sequel. 

After Buffy, Gellar took a step back from acting — apart from appearances in the Grudge horror franchise and short-lived CW series Ringer — to raise her two children and focus on other enterprises. Among them were her cooking and lifestyle company Foodstirs, which she founded in 2015 and ran until the COVID-19 pandemic fatally disrupted the company’s supply chain. She recently made her return to episodic television, this time in a mentorship role both onscreen and off in Paramount+’s Wolf Pack, where she plays Kristin Ramsey. “I hope that I’ve set up an infrastructure, a safety net for these [younger] actors that I didn’t have,” she told THR of the new show. “My generation just didn’t have that.”  

Alyson Hannigan as Willow

Of all the characters on Buffy, Hannigan’s Willow takes perhaps the most surprising turns in her character development. Introduced as an almost childish, awkward teenager with a fondness for overalls, Willow sees her confidence grow across the seasons as she has a crush on her longtime best friend, Xander (Nicholas Brendon); has a romance with musician-slash-werewolf Oz (Seth Green); and finally falls in love with soulmate Tara (Amber Benson). Along the way, she becomes an increasingly powerful witch, eventually turning to the dark arts in the throes of grief and rage before fighting her way back to reality to deal with her addiction to magic. 

American Pie alum Hannigan hardly took a break from network television after the Buffy finale, starring as Lily in the hit sitcom How I Met Your Mother from 2005-14, alongside Josh Radnor, Jason Segel, Cobie Smulders and Neil Patrick Harris. Since 2016, she has leveraged her good-natured personality as the host of magic showcase Penn & Teller: Fool Us, and she joined the fall 2023 season of Dancing With the Stars. She has been married since 2003 to Alexis Denisof (aka Buffy’s Wesley Wyndam-Pryce), with whom she has two daughters.

Nicholas Brendon as Xander

The wisecracking sidekick of his supernaturally powerful friends, Xander is perhaps the most underestimated member of the Scooby Gang. His heart is always in the right place, though, and he comes through for his friends — and the world — time and time again. Later, he finds his true love, in the form of erstwhile vengeance demon Anya (Emma Caulfield Ford). 

Once a serious baseball player before being sidelined by an injury, Brendon had his big break when he was cast on Buffy. After the show, he had recurring parts on such shows as Criminal Minds and Private Practice, and starred alongside Bradley Cooper on the short-lived Fox series Kitchen Confidential, based on Anthony Bourdain’s memoir. 

Since then, though, he’s seemingly had a rough few years. Brendon walked off the set of Dr. Phil in 2015, after revealing he hadn’t received therapy after being molested as a child and that he had been battling depression and substance abuse. He also reportedly has been arrested in four states for charges such as grand theft, resisting arrest and battery against a peace officer. More recently, he’s faced health problems that required spinal surgery as well as at least two cardiac events and a diagnosis of tachycardia, a congenital heart defect. 

Anthony Head as Giles

Another character who has more to him than meets the eye, Rupert Giles is Sunnydale High’s British librarian, with a secret identity as the Slayer’s Watcher. Hailing from an ancient organization that mentors each generation’s Chosen One, Giles has an encyclopedic knowledge of the world’s vampires and demons, and spell books to cover anything that ever walked the streets of the Hellmouth. 

Head scaled back his involvement in the show during season six, returning to his native England to spend more time with his family, particularly a young daughter. In the following years, he dabbled in the Doctor Who universe (including in 2007’s animated Doctor Who: The Infinite Quest) and seemed to quite enjoy playing a darker character as the dictatorial King Uther on Syfy’s Merlin, the Arthurian fantasy series that ran from 2008-12. He also popped up in the 2013 film Percy Jackson: Sea of Monsters as the Centaur Chiron, and on such series as Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan on Amazon, Netflix miniseries The Stranger and even an episode of Bridgerton. And recently, he played another (quite different) Rupert, this time in a three-year stint as Ted Lasso’s cheating, conniving Rupert Mannion, ex-husband of AFC Richmond owner Rebecca (Hannah Waddingham). 

David Boreanaz as Angel

Angel could be described a lot of ways: tall, dark, handsome, mysterious, brooding, Buffy’s soulmate … and a cursed monster. A vampire pushing 300 years old who looks killer in a leather jacket, Angel knows right away that he should stay away from the Slayer, and yet he can’t. The star-crossed love story leads him to hell and back, literally, and when he loses his soul, it creates an almost insurmountable challenge for Buffy. 

After three seasons, Angel leaves his true love and Sunnydale behind for Los Angeles, where he becomes something of a supernatural P.I. in his eponymous spinoff, which ran for five seasons. Since then, Boreanaz has stayed exceptionally busy, making about 350 episodes of television across two other popular series in which he’s starred, namely Bones (2005-17), where he played FBI Special Agent Seeley Booth opposite Emily Deschanel’s title character, and SEAL Team (2017-22), as Navy SEAL team leader Jason Hayes.  

James Marsters as Spike

A bad-boy vampire who’s a perpetual thorn in Buffy’s side (even when they hook up), Spike makes being undead look like a lot of fun. Sired by Angel back in his evil days, Spike traveled the world for centuries, causing mayhem with Drusilla and Darla, before settling down in the Hellmouth. 

Diehard fans of Spike might not be surprised to find out that Marsters is neither a natural blond nor English (the Juilliard-trained actor was born in Plumas County, California). Apart from Buffy, he also popped up frequently on Angel, and in the following years appeared over a dozen times on The WB’s Smallville as the alien Brainiac and Brainiac 5. Marsters’ other TV work includes voicing Zamasu on the anime series Dragon Ball Super and in related video games. In 2018, he was in the two-part indie dramedy A Bread Factory, which snagged a rare 100 percent fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes. And from 2017-19, he played Chase Stein’s father Victor on Hulu’s Marvel series Runaways, about a group of teens who find out their parents are supervillains. On the side, Marsters is a musician who’s released albums both solo and as a member of the rock band Ghost of the Robot. 

Charisma Carpenter as Cordelia

Carpenter, who played Sunnydale High queen bee Cordelia, segued to the Angel spinoff after graduation, where she starred as Angel’s “girl Friday” for most of the series’ run. She later recurred on fellow WB series Charmed and Kristen Bell-starring Veronica Mars, and played Rebecca Sewell on ABC’s The Lying Game. Carpenter made it to the big screen in The Expendables (2010) and its 2012 sequel, as Lacy, the girlfriend of Jason Statham’s Lee Christmas, and has had guest spots on procedurals like CSI, Blue Bloods and Chicago P.D. 

In the #MeToo era, Carpenter went public with an accusation of years of “hostile and toxic” treatment by Buffy creator Joss Whedon, including during her pregnancy, adding that he “unceremoniously fired” her from Angel after she gave birth (her character died while in a coma). Many fellow castmembers voiced their support of Carpenter, including Michelle Trachtenberg, who said Whedon wasn’t allowed to be alone in a room with her.

Eliza Dushku as Faith

Dushku played Faith, a rebellious and unmoored Slayer who’s introduced when Buffy briefly dies. After leaving the series, the actress — who was already known for True Lies (1994), Bring It On (2000) and Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back (2001) — starred in the two-season Fox supernatural drama Tru Calling, as well as the horror film Wrong Turn (2003) and R-rated comedy Sex and Breakfast (2007). She played a California wine country bar owner in 2008’s Bottle Shock, alongside Chris Pine, Alan Rickman and Bill Pullman, and starred opposite Cary Elwes in The Alphabet Killer (2008). She followed that up with a starring turn in another Whedon series, Dollhouse (which ran for two seasons on Fox from 2009-10), as a trained killer whose memory is erased between each assignment.  

In 2018, Dushku was awarded $9.5 million in a legal settlement after claiming Bull star Michael Weatherly sexually harassed her on the set of the show, on which she had a recurring role.

Michelle Trachtenberg as Dawn

When Trachtenberg was introduced as Buffy’s kid sister, Dawn, in season five — with no immediate explanation for where this as-yet-unheard-of character came from — the actress was already known for her starring turns in kids fare like Harriet the Spy (1996) and Inspector Gadget (1999). Eventually, it became clear that Dawn was more than just a girl: She was a mystical “key,” and the fate of the world hinged on keeping her safe. 

After Buffy, Trachtenberg starred in a string of films including EuroTrip (2004), Ice Princess (2005), Black Christmas (2006) and 17 Again (2009). On TV, she notably played the manipulative socialite Georgina Sparks on Gossip Girl; had recurring parts on Six Feet Under, Love Bites and Weeds; and starred in Mercy, an NBC medical drama that lasted only one season in 2009. In 2014, she co-starred in R-rated The Scribbler, then in 2018 voice-starred in extraterrestrial animated series Human Kind Of, and in 2022 returned to Gossip Girl in a guest spot on the show’s reboot. 

Seth Green as Oz

Green, who previously had a bit part as a vampire in the Buffy movie, joined the series as Oz in the season two episode “Inca Mummy Girl.” A guitarist in the band Dingoes Ate My Baby, which frequents The Bronze, Oz soon finds out that he’s a werewolf, but that doesn’t stop his budding romance with Willow. After departing the series in season four, the Austin Powers actor played Lyle, aka “the Napster,” in the 2003 remake of The Italian Job. Among his numerous later roles, he starred in Fox’s Dads, which ran for one season in 2013, and voiced Howard the Duck in the Guardians of the Galaxy franchise. Most notably, though, Green co-created and starred in Adult Swim’s long-running stop-motion sketch comedy Robot Chicken (2001-22). 

Emma Caulfield as Anya

After playing Anya, a vengeance demon who loses her powers and becomes human again, one of Caulfield’s next roles was a guest spot on Monk, as a writing teacher who tries to gaslight Monk’s assistant Sharona in order to get away with murder. In 2010, she joined The CW’s short-lived Life Unexpected, as well as Gigantic, a TeenNick series created by fellow Buffy alum Marti Noxon. Also around that time, the actress also known for Beverly Hills, 90210 co-created and starred in Bandwagon: The Series, a satire in which she played a version of herself. More recently, she appeared in Marvel’s WandaVision as Dottie, a role she is set to reprise in Agatha: Darkhold Diaries (due in 2024). Caufield married actor Mark Leslie Ford in 2017, and together they have a daughter. In 2022, she announced that she had been fighting MS for about a decade.

Amber Benson as Tara

Benson’s Tara is a soft-spoken but powerful good witch, whose death sets girlfriend Willow on a tumultuous journey of grief. After leaving the show, Benson produced, directed and starred in films including Chance (2002) and Lovers, Liars & Lunatics (2006). She also played a vegetarian vampire in two episodes of Supernatural. Outside of acting, she has collaborated with Christopher Golden to produce multiple Ghosts of Albion projects and write several novels. Benson and Golden also co-wrote the recently released Audible original series Slayers: A Buffyverse Story, in which Carpenter’s Cordelia is the Slayer, joined by other castmembers including Marsters, Caulfield Ford and Head.  

Kristine Sutherland as Joyce

Sutherland (born Kristine Young) was perhaps best known for her part as the neighbor Mae in Honey, I Shrunk the Kids (1989) before taking on the mantle of Buffy Summers’ mom. She has acted sporadically since departing the show with a heartbreaking un-Hellmouth-related death, in such projects as the 2008 miniseries Comanche Moon and most recently the 2020 dramedy Before/During/After (in which her longtime husband, John Pankow, also starred). In recent years, she has reportedly focused her efforts on other interests including photography. 

Danny Strong as Jonathan

As Jonathan, a nerd who turned a little evil when he’d been pushed too far, Strong was a relatively small player in the Buffy universe. But that was nowhere near his career peak. He later joined Gilmore Girls as Doyle McMaster, a romantic interest of Paris, but it was in writing that Strong really hit his stride.  He’s been nominated for six Primetime Emmys, winning two in 2012 for his work writing HBO’s Game Change, about Sarah Palin’s impact on John McCain’s presidential campaign. He then co-wrote The Butler (2013) and The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 1 and 2 (2014 and 2015), co-created Fox’s Empire and created Hulu’s Dopesick. He’s still acting, too, on Billions as Todd Krakow.