Sarah Michelle Gellar explains why she stepped away from Hollywood for years

Sarah Michelle Gellar has explained why she stepped away from acting and what eventually encouraged her to return.

Best known for her breakout role as Buffy Summers in Buffy the Vampire Slayer from 1996-2003, she decided to take a break.

The mum-of-two had worked almost nonstop since she was scouted by a casting agent aged four and eventually went on to star in some of the Y2K era's biggest movie hits, like Cruel Intentions and I Know What You Did Last Summer.

After welcoming two children; a daughter born in 2009 and a son born in 2012 with husband Freddie Prinze Jr., Gellar said she felt 'burnt out' following the cancellation of her short-lived sitcom The Crazy Ones.

The Daytime Emmy Award-winning actor, 45, starred opposite the late Robin Williams, who took his own life three months after the show was cancelled.

Her on-screen father's death in August 2014 made Gellar reconsider her career and family balance going forward.

"I was really burnt out," she told The Independent.

"I had two babies back to back. Robin Williams passed away. Everything hit me at once."

Gellar decided she wanted to be at home and watch her children, Charlotte Grace, 13 and Rocky James, 10, grow up.

Prinze Jr. is also a '90s icon, who recently starred in the Netflix Christmas rom-com Christmas With You.

“At first I didn’t know if I missed acting," she said.

“But then during Covid – that’s when I got the itch. That’s when I was really jonesing.”

Gellar was offered the chance to star in and executive produce the supernatural teen drama Wolf Pack which airs on Paramount+. Watch the trailer below:

The former teen star plays an arson investigator Kristin Ramsay who must investigate the mysterious creature that attacked teenagers at a summer camp.

The cast members on the show are close in age to Gellar when she began her stint as the world’s most beloved vampire slayer.

Based on the book series by Edo Van Belkom, Armani Jackson, 19 and Bella Shepard, 21, play Everett and Blake respectively, whose lives are forever changed when a California wildfire awakens a spooky creature.

Wounded in the chaos of the attack, they are drawn to each other and to fraternal twins, Harlan (Tyler Lawrence Gray, 20) and Luna (Chloe Rose Robertson, 21).

All four teens must come together to investigate the secret that connects them and the werewolf-like creature on the loose.

Wolf Pack is streaming now on Paramount+