Sarah Michelle Gellar Confirms Dolly Parton’s Uncredited ‘Buffy’ Role

Sarah Michelle Gellar just confirmed the longstanding rumor that Dolly Parton was a producer behind Buffy the Vampire Slayer. During a visit to The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon promoting her new Paramount+ series Wolf Pack, the Buffy star confirmed that the country icon was an involved part of the iconic supernatural series, even sending annual holiday gifts to the cast. 

“Little known fact, the legend Dolly was a producer,” Gellar revealed. “And, you know, we never saw her. Like, we’d get Christmas gifts in the beginning that would have our name. And I would think, ‘She doesn’t even know who I am.’ And then one day, somebody asked her about it and she complimented the show and my performance. And I was like, ‘Oh, I can die now. Dolly Parton knows who I am and thinks I’m good.’”

While the rest of the world had no idea of Parton’s involvement, the “Jolene” singer co-owned Sandollar Productions with former manager, Sandy Gallin, who was an executive producer on Buffy during its seven-season run from 1997 to 2003. “And they produced Buffy,” Gellar explained. Parton’s production company also produced the 1992 film that the series was adapted from starring Kristy Swanson as the titular vampire slayer.

With Gellar both as the star and executive producer of Wolf Pack, she’s brought Parton’s famous kindness onto the set. “Sarah’s an angel. That’s all I can really say,” Wolf Pack star Tyler Lawrence Graytold PopCulture last month. “I was really intimidated at first because I was like, ‘Oh my God.’ She’s done so many things and I’ve seen her face so many times and she’s so talented. And she’s just the nicest, sweetest person ever.” 

“It made me really feel not only comfortable with her, but comfortable on set,” he noted. “It separated these nerves that I had of like, ‘OK, we’re on a professional set, and everything has to be perfect.’ She kind of teaches you that it’s OK to be a human regardless if you’re on set or not. You can mess up, you can fail. And that’s how you succeed and have a career like her – by being OK with both of those things.”