Buffy the Vampire Slayer star Sarah Michelle Gellar is set to make a return to TV in the limited series Sometimes I Lie. Despite Gellar’s success and popularity in the titular role on Buffy the Vampire Slayer, she has rarely starred in TV series since the show ended.

Based on Alice Feeney’s 2017 international bestseller, Sometimes I Lie will follow a woman named Amber Reynolds who wakes up in a hospital paralyzed. Although she is unable to move, speak, or open her eyes, she can still hear everyone around her - unbeknownst to them. The story moves between the present, a week before her accident (of which she has no memory but suspects her husband), and childhood diaries. Feeney is a former journalist for BBC and Sometimes I Lie is her debut novel.

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As reported by Deadline, it's been revealed that Gellar will both star as Reynolds and executive produce the upcoming series. The book was optioned by Warner Bros. TV on behalf of Ellen DeGeneres’ A Very Good Production company, allowing DeGeneres and Jeff Kleeman to develop the series as executive producers alongside Gellar. A Very Good Production has already created an animated Green Eggs and Ham series that’s coming to Netflix as well as a number of comedy and reality series like Splitting Up Together and Ellen’s Game of Games for network TV, but this marks the production company’s first foray into drama.

Since Gellar said goodbye to Buffy the Vampire Slayer in 2003, she has mostly had limited appearances or cameo roles on TV with the exceptions of Ringer on CW and The Crazy Ones on CBS with Robin Williams – both of which she starred in. She was supposed to lead a TV pilot in 2016 that brought back her character Kathryn Merteuil from the 1999 film Cruel Intentions, but it ended up being turned into a TV movie. Gellar, however, still openly supports the idea of developing a Buffy the Vampire Slayer TV reboot, suggesting her limited appearance on TV is due to selectivity more than anything else. DeGeneres, for her part, returned to stand-up with a new Netflix comedy special, and also recently appeared in Jerry Seinfeld’s interview series Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee.

Joss Whedon’s groundbreaking Buffy the Vampire Slayer series first hit TV over twenty years ago, but the stars it created - like Gellar - have endured in a forever altered pop culture landscape. It’ll be interesting to see if Gellar is able to successfully remove herself and her new character from the shadow of her most recognizable role to date.

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Source: Deadline