The transition from child star to adult actor isn't always an easy one, but few would deny that Sarah Michelle Gellar and Elijah Wood can count among the performers who have successfully made that jump.
The pair both began their careers in the world of film and TV at very young ages in the 1980s and have gone on to appear in a some of the most beloved franchises of all time, most notably Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Lord of the Rings, respectively.
Now, they're among several genre icons joining Samara Weaving in the cast of brand new horror sequel Ready or Not 2: Here I Come, which is now showing in UK cinemas.
To mark the release, Radio Times spoke to the pair for our Film Flashbacks series – discussing everything from their very first film memories to some of the key turning points in their career.
You can check out the full interview below.
What are your earliest memories of going to the cinema and watching films when you were younger?
Sarah Michelle Gellar: My first film was ET. The same weekend, I saw Snow White – the animated film – and I saw ET. So just both great films. I saw Drew Barrymore and was like, 'I want to do that!'
Elijah Wood: That's insane. That's very hard to beat. A very early memory of movies for me is Gremlins. I wouldn't have seen in the in the cinema because I was too young, but I remember seeing it at home.
SMG: Oh, my God, didn't you want one of those? I used to beg for a Mogwai.
EW: Oh, yeah. Mogwais are the coolest. I loved Gizmo. Loved that film. And then a big formative seeing it in the cinema experience for me was Indiana Jones and The Last Crusade at the Chinese Theater with my mom. It was amazing.
You were both acting from quite a young age. What are your earliest memories of being on film sets?
SMG: I have a funny story. My first job ever, my first big movie, was filmed in Shelter Island in the winter. People don't really go to Shelter Island in the winter because the snow was so big. The snow drifts were so big and I was so tiny, they hired a person whose job it was to carry me from set to set, because they were afraid that I was gonna get lost in the snow. True story!
EW: I have some incredible early memories. I mean, the very first film role that I had was in the Cafe 80s in Back to the Future 2, which is just extraordinary.
SMG: What?
EW: Yeah. So in the back of the Cafe 80s, there's two kids trying to work a Wild Gunman, like light gun game, arcade game, and they can't make it work. And Michael J Fox comes along, Marty is like, 'Oh, this is how you...' And he demonstrates the game. And these kids are like, 'What, you mean, you got to use your hands? It's like a baby's toy.' And I was one of those kids.
SMG: My world has just been changed. My world is forever changed.
EW: So for me, that was so mind blowing to have come from Iowa, moved out to Los Angeles, start working and doing commercials and things, and then be on that film set.Because I had seen Back to the Future. I love that film. So to be in like the Hill Valley downtown area, all dressed for the future...
SMG: I can't... this whole interview is over for me, because I'm just going to be playing the scene.... there's so much going on in my head right now.
EW: It was pretty awesome.
We're hear to speak about a horror film – so what are your early memories of watching horror films? Do you remember a film that – maybe when you were younger, maybe when you were a bit older – really scared you?
EW: I have a brother who's seven years older than me, and so he and his friends were renting horror films when they came of age – those were the films that they were drawn to. And so he would let me watch those films with him, as long as I promised not to tell our parents.
So I was exposed to horror at like six or seven years of age. A formative memory from that era was Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors, which to this day is one of my favorite horror films, and I think my favorite Nightmare on Elm Street film.
SMG: You know I love movies. I just like going to the movies. And thankfully, not only do I like genre movies, my kids like genre movies. And I told this story yesterday, but when my kids were little, their godmother had worked on the Goosebumps movie, and so she had said, for their birthdays do they want to do a screening on the lot?
And my kids were so excited they were gonna invite their friends – they were like, five and seven or whatever – to the big movie studio to see a movie months before it came out. And my poor kids didn't have any friends that would come because none of them were ready to see those horror movies! They were too scared. So luckily, my kids appreciated horror at a young age... now their friends obviously will see them!
View Green Video on the source websiteWhat was a film where you were working with with a co-star that changed the way that you thought about acting and films?
SMG: I think that's every movie. I think that I take... I learn things on each job, not just from actors. From crew members, from a production designer... And if you're not constantly learning from these people, then you're missing out.
I remember very early on on Buffy, I thought I'm never going to have this opportunity again. And I did every single job on set at least one time. I held the boom, I pulled focus. Because I wanted to understand all the different mechanisms that make it go.
Like a lot of actors go, 'Our job is just to show up and hit the mark and say our lines,' and it's like... no! If we go out of order in our lines, the person moving the boom doesn't know how to go, and then they shadow us, right? And so I think you're always continually learning and evolving and taking from everybody.
EW: I love that, I totally agree with that. I think it's such a joyful experience opening yourself up to the sort of full breadth of what it is to make a film collaboratively with a group of people, and everyone contributing their skill. And it's so wonderful to be in the mix of that.
To add to that, in terms of my own personal experience, a game changer moment – from having started when I was eight and carried on through my whole life – there was a movie called The Ice Storm that Ang Lee directed that really felt like a kind of dividing line between my work as a child and work as an adult.
And it just happened to fit right in there. I was a teenager. I was, I think, 14 or 15 or something at the time. I worked with Christina Ricci and that extraordinary cast, and just engaged with the process. Kevin Kline, Sigourney Weaver. I mean, just amazing, a really wonderful film.
And I was asked to engage in that process as an actor in a way that I'd never before. And so that really felt like a significant sort of twist... of like a turn of the page, if you will. Like a new realm.
Ready or Not 2: Here I Come is now showing in UK cinemas.
Check out more of our Film coverage or visit our TV Guide and Streaming Guide to find out what's on. For more TV recommendations and reviews, listen to The Radio Times Podcast.
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