Sarah Michelle Gellar, 45, is returning to TV, but she needed some time for herself before coming back.
The realization the “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” star needed some time away from the spotlight came in the wake of a dear friend and collaborator’s death.
Comedy icon Robin Williams, who died by suicide in 2014.
Speaking with PEOPLE recently, the actress said putting her career on hold was much needed at the time. “I’ve been working my entire life,” she said. “When I had kids – and it was right after Robing passed away – there was just so much going on in my life and I just said, ‘I need to take a break.’”
Gellar and Williams acted together when she played his daughter in the CBS sitcom “The Crazy Ones” from 2013-2014.
It would be Williams’ last television role before his death in 2014.
The actress was inspired by the death of her on screen father to then step away from her acting to spend time with her own children, daughter Charlotte grace, 12, and son Rocky James, 9. She is married to fellow actor Freddie Prinze Jr.
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“I need to be here for these early formative years of my kids’ life,” she told PEOPLE. “I needed that break to be the parent that I wanted to be.”
Gellar then started to notice something missing from her day-to-day as her kids started getting older.
“I started to really miss it [acting],” she said. “But it’s also finding the right opportunity, something that speaks to your that also speaks to your audience.”
That something happened to be the upcoming Paramount+ series “Wolf Pack,” in which she will star and executive produce. The show will be a spinoff of the MTV series “Teen Wolf.”
There is no premiere set for “Wolf Pack.”
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Gellar rose to stardom in the titular role on the 1997 WB television series “Buffy the Vampire Slayer.”
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