10 Best Performances In Buffy The Vampire Slayer

Buffy Summers is one hell of a tough role. As the titular heroine, Sarah Michelle Gellar had to be so many things and juggle so many emotions, conflicts and character traits. She had to be tough but also kind of girly; she had to be had to be a teenager but deal with things unlike anything else. Gellar balanced all of these things and more, and never really looked like she was trying. It was all so effortless and easy.

Buffy also grew an awful lot. Every season, Gellar had to bring something else to the role, be it an added layer of humour, cynicism, innocence or confidence. And she nailed it every time.

Take her performance in the episode "The Body", the most depressing and heartbreaking of all Buffy episodes. Here, she's stripped down to the girl she is under the Slayer costume, reduced to a girl mourning for her mother with wrenching authenticity. On the other side of the same coin, episodes like "Gone", "Halloween", and "Him" prove just how funny she can be.

Buffy has a lot going on. Thanks to Gellar, though, it's all brilliantly controlled, and Gellar is irreplaceable.