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Sarah Michelle Gellar Loves That People Still Love Buffy — Even If It Makes Her 'Realize How Old I Am'

Sarah Michelle Gellar
Sarah Michelle Gellar

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Sarah Michelle Gellar knows how big of an impact Buffy the Vampire Slayer made.

The Wolf Pack star had a laugh at her own expense on Friday's episode of The Graham Norton Show as she talked about how fans' praise of Buffy has the unintended side effect of highlighting her age.

"People love to remind me that it [has been] 20 years," Gellar, 45, told Graham Norton. "I love that people still reference it — but I don't need the actual date and passage of time so people realize how old I am!"

RELATED: Buffy/Spike Reunion! Sarah Michelle Gellar and James Marsters Reteam on the Red Carpet

Buffy The Vampire Slayer, Sarah Michelle Gellar
Buffy The Vampire Slayer, Sarah Michelle Gellar

20th Century Fox Television/Kobal/Shutterstock

Gellar stepped into the boots of teenage vampire slayer and world savior Buffy Summers from 1997 to 2003. When she wasn't dispatching bad guys of all supernatural stripes, Buffy was juggling friendship, romance and family life as a '90s teen.

RELATED: Sarah Michelle Gellar Relives Her Most Iconic Costumes, Reveals She Still Has a Pair of Buffy Boots

And it's not her only experience with spooky sleuthing — Gellar also took on the role of Daphne Blake in the 2002 Scooby-Doo movie and its 2004 sequel, Scooby-Doo Monsters Unleashed. (In a nice nod, the teens on Buffy often referred to themselves as the "Scooby Gang.")

Sarah Michelle Gellar Scooby Doo - 2002
Sarah Michelle Gellar Scooby Doo - 2002

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Gellar's latest role is coincidentally primed for longtime Buffy fans as she explores a different kind of supernatural series in the new Paramount+ series Wolf Pack.

During her conversation with Norton, 59, Gellar revealed she almost didn't pick up the script.

"I had no intention of reading it, but then we got deeper in the conversation around mental health, which is very timely," she said. "The werewolves are a metaphor for teenage anxiety."

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Wolf Pack is now streaming on Paramount+.