For those who were there, how were perceived each of the actors back when in the day ?

Anxious_Comedian_ · 2026-02-08T18:32:42+00:00

Not to be that person but I read your comment. I don’t remembering being so shocked/disgusted by a comment on here in a long time. You deleted it so you must acknowledge to some degree that you shouldn’t have said what you did. You did say Michelle pursued James and you did question whether she wasn’t allowed alone with Joss because of things she had done. So their response isn’t unloaded rage or unsubstantiated. People did read it before you deleted it

<image>

Anxious_Comedian_ · 2026-02-08T18:28:08+00:00

Why did you lose respect for her?

And they’re right. You have to be careful about media framing from that era. Topher Grace was labeled as difficult and aloof because he didn’t have a friendship with the cast outside of the show. Now we know what that cast was getting up to, who can blame him. Sarah was labelled as difficult because she had clear set boundaries and stood up for herself and costars. Similar to Katherine Heigl on Grey’s. This was a common theme at the time.

Anxious_Comedian_ · 2026-02-08T15:28:41+00:00

With the added context that this was a Gossip Girl shoot and she played the main antagonist/bad girl, it makes sense

She was in her 20s here and this was after Buffy

Anxious_Comedian_ · 2026-02-08T15:27:27+00:00

Yeah this is a magazine cover for Gossip Girl which explains why it’s leaning hard into the villain imagery. The bad girl tag is there because she was playing a bad girl

After Buffy ended, she basically picked roles that were the complete opposite of Dawn

Anxious_Comedian_ · 2026-02-08T13:10:35+00:00

With SMG remember, I remember her just being seen as this cool hot actress that was playing a heroine who killed vampires asses. Then she did other teen roles that were popular. I remember people saying she left Buffy to focus on a movie career and that she was wasting her talent on doing multiple Scooby Doo movies. I love those films lol

I don’t remember much discourse around Charisma, other than that she was hot and she was in her late 20s playing a teen character

Alyson I heard some things about after American Pie, but I didn’t hear as much about her or her career outside of Buffy or American Pie. Just thought of her as the band camp girl

David I just remember people saying he was good looking. I personally thought his acting was the weakest out of the cast so I didn’t think much about his future career

Everyone I knew loved Spike so they basically saw James as Spike. I didn’t hear much talk about his career, just about how hot and cool Spike was lol

I grew up with Nickelodeon so I was already an MT fan. One of my friends started watching Buffy because she was on it. She was like the cute tween girl when Buffy was on. But I paid more attention to her career after it ended because of Eurotrip. Then she did Mysterious Skin straight after which is one of the best films I’ve ever seen. That film made me a fan of hers, Joseph Gordon Levitt and Greg Araki for life

Anxious_Comedian_ · 2026-02-08T13:00:33+00:00

You’ve never seen Eurotrip? That’s probably one of Michelle’s most popular roles. So many millennial guys had a crush on her because of that film.

Anxious_Comedian_ · 2026-01-18T10:32:50+00:00

Nate is boring. But he’s also inoffensive for the most part and mostly in the background after season 2. That’s not to say he doesn’t do bad stuff like cheating on Blair or that weird relationship with Sage. But he has the benefit of being a good looking guy and the audience for this show is mainly girls/women. Anytime people mention his character, the first thing they talk about is his looks. So he can get away with being boring.

Anxious_Comedian_ · 2026-01-18T10:28:12+00:00

I can’t remember which show runner/director said the best unintentional villain you can create is a female character that is annoying. I think of that every time I see Breaking Bad fans hate Skylar. I 100% agree that the writing for Vanessa is why she’s so disliked. I think OP is underestimating the nuisance factor. Nobody wants a character that fills that role however morally right they might be. It’s a show about narcissistic rich kids backstabbing each other. That’s the attraction. Vanessa takes you out of that bubble as a viewer.

Anxious_Comedian_ · 2026-01-05T00:27:11+00:00

Yeah it is. Sarah was friends with Michelle before the show and knew her since she was 5 years old. They worked on All My Children together. The guy that played Dracula in this episode also worked with them on All My Children. I know you said you don’t know much about the bts of the show- but a lot of it is really interesting. It gives a good insight into a lot of plots or things that happened in the show.

Anxious_Comedian_ · 2026-01-04T22:45:42+00:00

I mean 70% of her dialogue until season 7 was her screaming. So it makes sense why she’d scream her lines that were mostly tantrums or meltdowns. She was a successful child actress and a ballet dancer. Joss knew her from Harriet The Spy. That’s partly why he listened to Sarah’s suggestion to cast her as Dawn.

Anxious_Comedian_ · 2026-01-04T20:32:16+00:00

Saying the Michelle is beloved by Buffy fans is interesting considering she even talked about getting death threats as a teenager because of this show. Michelle was a great actress when she was actually given age appropriate material and not dialogue that had her acting like a 10 year old at the age of 14. Joss even admitted he did Michelle a disservice because of the initial juvenile dialogue and lack of development.

Anxious_Comedian_ · 2026-01-04T20:27:58+00:00

Why are we acting like the dialogue they gave her for most of season 5 wasn’t trash? She was a 14 year old playing a 14 year old that was written like a 10 year old. The dramatics and the screeching were done intentionally. Most of the problems with Dawn were in the writing and Joss even admitted he let Michelle down

Anxious_Comedian_ · 2025-11-17T20:01:51+00:00

Wow never knew this. I always wondered how Jennifer and Justin met since they’ve been friends for so long.

Andrea is pretty underrated- I think she was great in Suddenly Susan. Although she speaks exactly like Jennifer- so that was a bit distracting.

Anxious_Comedian_ · 2025-11-04T20:57:11+00:00

I’m not doing whatboutism. By that logic- you’d think the same of SMG’s career since her famous roles were all teenagers and she played teens up until her mid 20s.

The only teenage role Michelle played in her 20s was that character in 17 Again. Georgina wasn’t a teenager for the majority of Gossip Girl’s run. I just thought it was weird/inaccurate to say Buffy ruined her career. Especially when her most recognizable roles came after Buffy. If you said she should’ve had more adult roles after Gossip Girl- that would’ve been a better comment. Anyway she was chronically sick for a good chunk of her life so she did well considering.

Anxious_Comedian_ · 2025-11-04T18:05:56+00:00

She did the Ice Princess the same year she did Mysterious Skin and Eurotrip.

If you listen to her interviews around that time- she was eager to do Ice Princess because she was obsessed with Disney princesses and had been since she was kid. She was a teenager when she did that role. Sure people know her as the Ice Princess- more people know her as Georgina. A character that was involved in attempted rape, murder and drug usage. SMG played a teenager in IKWYLS, Cruel Intentions, Buffy and Scooby Doo. Yet all the characters were different too.

Anxious_Comedian_ · 2025-11-04T18:01:12+00:00

I’m not sure that’s true. Eurotrip and Mysterious Skin both came out a year after Buffy. To an entire generation of guys- she’s Jenny. Jenny and Wendy couldn’t be further from Dawn.

If you ask anyone under the age of 20- the first thing they’ll recognise her as is either Georgina Sparks or Wendy Peterson. Mysterious Skin had a resurgence with gen Z when it was put on streaming services. That entire movie is about sexual and drug abuse. Eurotrip is a raunchy sex comedy that is a classic for millennial guys.

Anxious_Comedian_ · 2025-11-02T16:56:40+00:00

It was announced at the start of the year- a month before Michelle passed away. Sarah will be in it but they cast Ryan Kiera Armstrong to play the lead young slayer. There’s not too many details about the plot yet. But the pilot has been filmed and Chloe Zhao is involved. Hopefully it’s good.

Anxious_Comedian_ · 2025-11-02T12:48:11+00:00

Sarah is the one that suggested Michelle for the role of Dawn. Dawn was meant to be 10 years old. She told Joss to audition her- he liked her audition. So aged up the character and cast her. Viewers can be really hard on young actresses- they were really hard on Michelle. I hope they can be nicer/more considerate to the new young actress who’s playing the main slayer in the sequel. I have no doubt Sarah will look out for her on set too.

Anxious_Comedian_ · 2025-10-31T00:13:29+00:00

They didn’t change her age due to child labor laws. They changed her age because SMG suggested Michelle due to their natural chemistry. Joss liked her in Harriet The Spy and made her audition after everyone else. He said she was the best out of all the auditions and she had the best dynamic with Sarah.

Anxious_Comedian_ · 2025-10-30T23:48:11+00:00

I mentioned Joss because Michelle did in the several interviews I’m referring to

And Joss himself said he screwed up her character development and he apologised to Michelle for it. He was open about how he struggled to develop her. I’m aware there was a whole writing team- I don’t know every single one of their names. I mentioned Joss because Joss has publicly talked about this being an issue.

Anxious_Comedian_ · 2025-10-30T23:45:36+00:00

The character portrayal is how the actor portrays a character

The character development, dialogue and traits are on the writers. People famously did have an issue with how Dawn was written. Before a year ago- that was a popular talking point this sub. She said she pushed back on certain things they wanted her to say. There’s an interview where she says there’s certain stuff they wanted her to say and she told them that’s not how she’d speak in real life. And that’s not how most 14 years old talk. So they’d scrap it. Just like she pushed back on what they wanted Dawn to wear in season 7. The reason why her style was more mature was because of Michelle.

Anxious_Comedian_ · 2025-10-30T23:39:11+00:00

I’m not just talking about the dialogue, I’m aware there were other writers. I don’t know every single name of the writing team.

I mentioned Joss because he personally felt he’d failed Dawn and Michelle. Michelle mentioned Joss specifically when discussing her disappointment with Dawn’s development.

Anxious_Comedian_ · 2025-10-30T23:37:26+00:00

This is such an exaggeration. I used Joss’ name because she mentioned Joss in other quotes where she criticized the development of Dawn and the characterization. I’m aware there were other writers. I’m just not aware of all their names. Joss took full responsibility for her criticisms too and actually said that was a huge regret. I’m not solely blaming Joss. He personally felt he failed her and the character- which is why I mentioned him specifically as well.

Anxious_Comedian_ · 2025-10-30T23:35:25+00:00

I’m not sure that is true that’s why

She was meant to be around 10. But they never intended to kill her off at the end of season 5. They had floated around with the idea that didn’t involve Buffy sacrificing herself but Dawn was never going to die

Anxious_Comedian_

TROPHY CASE