Sarah Michelle Gellar pays tribute to Buffy co-star Nicholas Brendon

Sarah Michelle Gellar has remembered her late co-star Nicholas Brendon as someone who "brought so much joy to so many people" on Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

The actress, who played the title character Buffy Summers in the 1990s TV show, has spoken publicly about Brendon for the first time following his death on Friday. Brendon, who played Buffy's best friend Xander Harris, was 54.

During a press event for her movie, Ready or Not 2: Here I Come, in Rome, Italy on Monday, Gellar told the audience, "It's a tragedy. It's a tragedy when you lose anyone at any point. It's a bigger tragedy when you lose someone way sooner than needs to be."

Seemingly referring to the death of their co-star Michelle Trachtenberg last year, the actress continued, "It feels like we've had more tragedy than other shows, but that's probably not the case; it just feels that way because it's personal, and it's in our faces."

Geller added that Brendon and his character Xander were "integral" parts of Buffy and that "never goes away".

"I think as actors we talk a lot or think a lot about legacy," she added. "He brought so much joy to so many people on that show, and that lives on. That's the truth."

Brendon's family announced on 20 March that he had died "in his sleep of natural causes". The actor, who famously had a history of substance abuse, had a congenital heart defect and suffered from cauda equina syndrome, or a severe compression of nerve roots at the base of the spine.

Reacting to his death on social media over the weekend, Gellar paid tribute to Brendon by quoting a speech Xander gives to Trachtenberg's character Dawn in the show's final season in 2003.

"They'll never know how tough it is to be the one who isn't chosen. To live so near to the spotlight, and never step in it. But I know. I see more than anybody realises, because nobody's watching me," she wrote.

She added, "I saw you Nicky. I know you are at peace, in that big rocking chair in the sky."

Trachtenberg died in February 2025 at the age of 39 due to complications of diabetes.