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Sarah Michelle Gellar Answers the Big Question: Why Is She Back on TV?

We sit down with the Ringer star and her new co-star, Lost's Nestor Carbonell

By Kristin Dos Santos Aug 11, 2011 6:52 PMTags
Sarah Michelle GellarFrederick M. Brown/Getty Images

"It was such a train I couldn't get off of and stop and appreciate."

This is what Sarah Michelle Gellar has to say about her very early days on Buffy the Vampire Slayer, when the then 18-year-old actress leapt head first into her career-making role as TV's best-ever butt-kicking blonde.  But this time around, with the CW's new Hitchcockian drama Ringer, Gellar says everything is different. "I'm having the best time...It's so nice to be able to sit back and appreciate what's happening."

So what made her want to return to TV now? And how is she coping with her first job back after giving birth to daughter Charlotte Grace two years ago?

I sat down with Sarah Michelle and Nestor Carbonell (that's Richard Freakin' Alpert to you Lost fans!) to get some answers:

When asked if she's "ready" to get back to work after her two-year hiatus, Sarah tells me, "I don't know about 'ready'…but we're having the best time. It just doesn't feel like a job. Which is how it should be when everything is right."

And yet, her true motivation may be something else entirely: The "ridiculously handsome men" who star on the series! Sarah, who serves as a producer on Ringer, and stars in the two leading roles as twin sisters, tells me with a laugh: "All my characters have multiple love interests. That's how I like it. See, I'm both girls on the show so none of the other girls get my men. That's how I make sure of that." Smart girl.

Sarah Michelle certainly has her work cut out for her on this new CW show, given that she appears in nearly every scene, and in some scenes, twice. "My costar when I do those [twin] scenes is my favorite costar," she jokes. "She agrees with everything I do, thinks my choices are genius and never has another idea of how I should do something."

As for Nestor "hottest guyliner model ever" Carbonell, who yes, still has not aged, he says that Sarah Michelle's involvement in the series is part of the reason he wanted to do Ringer.  "That role for me was one of the best characters I've ever had the chance to play," he says of Lost's Richard Alpert. "Coming into pilot season a lot of us were going, 'How are we going to follow this?'…[Shows like] Lost and The Sopranos were outside of the box and this is definitely one of them...It's smart and progressive. And it progresses at a slower pace beyond the pilot to really get into character development."

Meanwhile, Sarah says this of her first job as a working mom: "It's hard. I have good days and bad days. But we are a very family friendly set. [Co-star] Ioan [Gruffudd]'s daughter is 9 days older than Charlotte. And our producer Nicole Snyder, our daughters are best friends. We really bring the kids in."

Check out the exclusive video interview below!