GAY PEOPLE'S CHRONICLE

MARCH 5, 1999

Evenings Out

Above, Sarah Michelle Gellar is the devious Kathryn, who makes a bet with her step-brother Sebastian (center) with a night in bed together among the stakes. Ryan Phillippe, who plays Sebastian, got his start as gay teen Billy Douglas on the soap One Life to Live in 1992.

Right, Kathryn puts the moves on Cecile (Selma Blair) in Central Park.

Buffy the lesbian slayer

by Tim Nasson

Beverly Hills-One thing is for certain: Buffy rules. In an Entertainment Weekly poll that was taken recently, readers picked Buffy, the Vampire Slayer star Sarah Michelle Gellar as the second most popular television dramatic actress ever, and her show as their second most favorite dramatic television show of all time.

Granted, the majority of voters were most likely teens and gay men.

"I don't know why,” Gellar said, “but my show and I seem to have a huge gay following."

Gellar was happy to talk recently about her new film Cruel Intentions as well as Buffy.

In the movie, a modern day retelling of the classic Dangerous Liaisons, Gellar plays Kathryn alongside the hot, young stud Ryan Phillippe as Sebastian.

For those who never saw any of the other Dangerous Liaisons films there have been three, all based on an 18th-century French novel-here's the skinny:

Kathryn and Sebastian, two (very) wealthy, manipulative teenage step-siblings from Manhattan's upper crust, conspire to enter into diabolical wager of sexual conquest without consequences. The pawns are the naïve Cecile (Selma Blair, who steals the film) and the virginal Anette (Reese Witherspoon, real-life girlfriend of Ryan Phillippe).

On summer break, Kathryn gets dumped by her boyfriend, Court Reynolds, for the innocent Cecile. Desperate to get even, Kathryn challenges Sebastian to ruin Cecile by helping her lose her virtue and turning her into a tramp-thus humiliating Court by delivering Cecile as "damaged goods." Sebastian has pretty much been with all of the girls in New York City up to this point, and he's gotten a bit bored with it all. Though this seems to be an all-too-easy conquest for him, he obliges.

He sets his sights on a greater challenge the new headmaster's daughter, Annette, who recently wrote an article in Seventeen magazine about how she intends to stay pure until she marries her boyfriend.

Sebastian bets Kathryn that he can seduce the chaste and pristine Annette before school begins in the fall. Kathryn thinks this feat impossible and quickly agrees to the wager. The stakes: if Sebastian succeeds, Kathryn must give him a night of unbridled pleasure something he has wanted since they

became step brother and sister. If he fails, he must forfeit his priceless 1956 Jaguar to her and suffer the shame of defeat.

Many of Gellar's fans, gay and straight alike, will be surprised to see her kissing another girl in Cruel Intentions. The hot and sexy scene in which Gellar

French-kisses co-star Selma Blair will ce tainly get many people talking.

"Selma was afraid that she would suck kissing me," says Gellar, smiling, “But s didn't."

Blair went into even more detail about t soon-to-be-infamous kissing scene.

"Besides kissing my sister years ago in game of Truth or Dare, I had never kissed a g up to the point where I had to kiss Sarah," s says. "We shot our kissing scene on the la day of filming. And, it actually felt great. ( our way from Los Angeles to New York to fil the scene in Central Park, I said to Sara 'Tomorrow we get to make out.' She was lil 'Shhhh. Don't speak'."

"She was nervous the day we actually sh the scene," Blair continued. "Of course, she such a huge star and here we are, sitting on blanket in Central Park. There was nothin we could do to close the set because w needed the background. So, there seemed be hundreds of her fans watching, so it w kind of daunting.

When asked what the best thing abo kissing Sarah was, Blair answers with a laug "She had no whiskers."

"But really, to have a girlfriend teach y how to kiss, seems like the best thing," s added.

"The next week, we picked up a bunch tabloids and saw headlines that said som thing like 'Sarah spends a day in Central Pa with a friend," adds Blair. "I guess they had their telescopic lenses ready that day

When asked if she had any idea why I show Buffy is so popular with gay men and she saw any gay parallels to the Vamp Slayer coming-out episode that aired recent Gellar said she is "quite honored to think tl kids or anyone who is perceived as bei different by mainstream society, can relate or be uplifted by anything that is seen Buffy."

The parallels in the coming-out episo were certainly not accidental, she continu and "hopefully were able to help a lot of k in one way or another."

As for her role in Cruel Intentions?

"I don't think that a coke-snorting, se ally deviant, duplicitous character is going be a role model for anyone," she says. “Ho it was kind of fun to play that type of ro

ever,

It was a far cry from the character I play Buffy. Although the ground-up chamomi the substitute I used for cocaine, was not fi I have allergies and since chamomile is ki of pollen-like, my nose and throat had rough for a while."

While it may not be easy for Gellar to co with all of the fame-she has fans houndi her constantly--she takes it in stride.

"I'm very lucky that Buffy became a hit. ] one knew going into the series that it wo become one of the most-watched TV sho by teenagers the year it premièred, let alc two years later," Gellar recounts.

While Gellar now has a potential hit fi on her hands in addition to her hit TV sho she is already making plans to take a mi deserved break at the end of the year for a 1 to Australia to bring in the new millenni Cruel Intentions opens in theat nationwide on March 5.

Tim Nasson is a Chroni contributing writer living Boston. He can be reached TimNasson!@aol.com.