On the WB monster smash Buffy The Vampire Slayer, Sarah Michelle Gellar stars as Buffy Summers, a desperate-to-be-normal teen born to terminate the undead. She is known as the Chosen One. But off-screen, it’s the 22-year-old Gellar who does the choosing. Arguably the most popular young actress of recent years, she’s a TV superstar, big-screen scream queen, Maybelline pitch girl, Internet icon and teenage role model. Yet she is able to maintain a mystique most other young stars have either lost or never had.

Gellar, who began acting at 4 and won an Emmy at 18 for her role as the conniving Kendall on All My Children, is notoriously tight-lipped where matters of sex and romance are concerned. She is even less forthcoming about her father, Arthur, who divorced her mother, Rosellen, a former teacher, in the mid ’80s.

We visited Gellar in her trailer on the Buffy set, where she decided to lay down her slayer’s stake and open up her own heart for a change.

TV Guide: Your approval rating among young viewers of both sexes is awesome. What’s your take on this? Assess your appeal.

Sarah Michelle Gellar: Assess my own appeal? That’s an annoying question.

TVG: Whoever said this interview would be easy? Let’s start with your female fans.

SMG: They respond to Buffy because for years we didn’t have a character young girls could look up to. Mallory on Family Ties was an idiot. Carol on Growing Pains wasn’t happy being smart; she wanted to be popular. Those were not role models. And then you have the actresses, like Nicole Eggert, who are so physically perfect you can never be like them. Buffy is not the smartest or the most beautiful. She’s kind of awkward, but she is OK with who she is. The most important lesson we need to learn in our formative years is that it’s OK to be an individual. It’s OK to be you.

TVG: And the guys?

SMG: They see Buffy as a take-charge, kick-ass girl who has never lost her femininity. The ones who are threatened by that don’t watch our show.

TVG: What about your lust factor? In a recent poll, you were voted No. 1 on a list of the 100 sexiest women on the planet. Yet your sexiness isn’t overt.

SMG: My sexual fantasy may not be yours, so the trick is to be sexy to the point where it gets people’s imaginations working — and then you let them take it from there. That’s why the movie stars of the ’40s and ’50s were so sexy. They positively reeked of sex by only hinting at it. It’s one of the reasons I love [the new daytime soap] Passions. Nobody even kisses on that show, but I am obsessed with it!

TVG: What did you think when Keri Russell told Jane magazine how she lost her virginity?

SMG: [Rolling her eyes] Here’s my thing: I made a rule way back when I was on All My Children that there would be a part of me I put out to the public and a part I keep to myself. This has caused me problems. It has caused me to lose interviews. But I need a life to go home to that only my close friends know about. I am sooo proud of my house, but you will never see it in InStyle. I don’t think people should know what my bedroom looks like. We give away too much information.

TVG: C’mon! You don’t enjoy showbiz dish? You’re not curious about other stars?

SMG: I like to see their houses. I want to know about their jobs and their hobbies, but I’m not interested in when or how they lost their virginity. I do not want to see Cameron Diaz’s butt crack on the cover of Vanity Fair.

TVG: Is there jealousy or competition between you and the other young women of your ilk — like Russell, Neve Campbell, Jennifer Love Hewitt?

SMG: No. Isn’t that weird?

TVG: Frankly, yeah. Not even a healthy competition?

SMG: No, but then maybe I’m in my own universe. Love [Hewitt] and I are so different that if they want her, they wouldn’t want me. We’re all so different. Maybe we’re not competitive because we all have our own shows. Now, if one of us didn’t have a show... [suddenly jumps up and grabs a photo taped to the wall] Did you know we shot my Maybelline commercial at the park in Beverly Hills with the George Michael bathroom? Here’s a picture of me taken by the famed photographer Herb Ritts [who directed the commercial] in the very stall George was arrested in.

TVG: What’s with your annual Emmy snub?

SMG: I’m OK not being nominated. Honestly. I have an Emmy. When I needed acceptance back in my soap days, I could not sleep the night before the nominations. I’d sit there waiting for my phone to ring. Now my validation comes from the public. What aggravates me is that our show is always overlooked. [The voters] see us as a kids’ show. They don’t think WB is a real network. It’s hard to fight that stuff.

TVG: Let’s discuss the most recent rumors about you in the Star.

SMG: Yes, my big affair with [Angel star] David Boreanaz!

TVG: Well?

SMG: It’s a complete fallacy. In fact, everyone on the Buffy set was laughing about the very idea of David and me as a couple.

TVG: The rumor doesn’t bother you?

SMG: I brushed that one off. They probably didn’t call me for quotes because [the article] was so horribly inaccurate. It claimed David and I were together at a Christmas party, when he was home in Philadelphia and I was in Australia, and how we were seen eating at health-food restaurants. Well, if I ever saw David put any food in his mouth that wasn’t fried in a fast-food joint, I’d drop dead. But, hey, you know what? People are talking. I made the cover of Star and it wasn’t because of anything bad or true.

TVG: Let’s discuss your other rumored affairs. You’ve been seen at parties and premieres with [,i>Sliders star] Jerry O’Connell. Is or was that a romance?

SMG: No. We went to high school together.

TVG: And Freddie Prinze Jr.?

SMG: That was never a romance, either. The odds are you will not see me at one of those events with someone I am romantically interested in, which is why I’ll go with Jerry or Freddie.

TVG: But you have had romances? Ones we know nothing about?

SMG: [A bit indignantly] Well, of course.

TVG: How tough has it been to keep them private?

SMG: Very. It’s a lot of work, and unfortunately it puts a strain on relationships, but that’s the way I choose to do it. Going through a breakup is the most painful, personal experience in the world. The last thing I want to do is read about it, or have other people making judgments. I don’t know how stars who have these big public relationships and breakups get through it.

TVG: Are you comfortable not being in a relationship?

SMG: To a degree. No one ever wants to be alone, but my job sometimes necessitates that. I don’t think I could commit to a really serious relationship for the simple reason that I wouldn’t be there. I haven’t gotten off work before midnight in months. And normally I get out at three or four in the morning.

TVG: Are you scared of commitment? Do you run from it?

SMG: No, I’m not running from it. It’s no fun not having someone to snuggle up with on a rainy day. I’d love to have the perfect boyfriend right now, but as a society we have to learn that it’s OK not to be in a relationship. Also, I tend to date out of the business, which makes it that much harder. I try not to date actors, because I know how insecure and crazy we are. I can’t imagine going out with another one of me.

TVG: Tabloids have claimed you are anorexic.

SMG: Everyone is anorexic! It’s like McCarthyism all over again. I’ve always been a skinny little thing. Yes, I did at one point have a little baby fat and I did lose that. But I’m a 5-foot-2, tiny-boned person. My mother is a tiny-boned person. Besides, I work like a dog on this show. Maybe some actresses do have anorexia, but I certainly don’t.

TVG: Where do you stand on cosmetic surgery?

SMG: I have a big problem with putting things into your body, like with breast or lip surgery. But I’m OK with nose jobs if you get up every day and look in the mirror and your nose makes you unhappy. If you think that’s the answer, by all means do it. I just hope it is the answer.

TVG: Has anyone — agents, managers, producers — ever suggested you get a nose job?

SMG: No. My nose is my nose. But I’m not saying that when I’m 60 I might not want to get my eyes fixed. Some magazine said I had a boob job. [Cackles and points to her breasts] Lemme tell ya, if I paid for these, I’d like ’em to look a lot better than this.

TVG: OK, here’s the dreaded topic. Will you please say something substantial about your father?

SMG: [Long silence] There is nothing substantial to say. [Her face hardens, her eyes begin to tear ever so slightly.] He is not a person who exists in my life. Just because you donate sperm does not make you a father. I don’t have a father. I would never give him the credit to acknowledge him as my father. My mother is the most amazing woman I’ve ever met. I wanted for nothing. I never felt a lack of affection. And I am, I think, a perfectly content and very well-adjusted person — probably more so than most people I know who have two parents. One of the greatest gifts my job affords me is that my mother, who gave up her entire life for me, doesn’t have to work anymore. Now I can give back. She can take it easy. She can do whatever she wants. [Flashes a wide smile] I bought her a house.

TVG: Projecting a clean image to your audience seems very important to you. Do you feel a responsibility to do that? Is it ever a drag?

SMG: I think a certain obligation comes with the job. I didn’t go to clubs before I was 21. You will never find a picture of me smoking. Well, that’s because I don’t smoke, [though] I did for a little bit. I hated it. It wasn’t for me. But you never saw a picture of me with a glass of champagne in my hand before I was 21. And I am militant about drugs. You want to do ’em? You’re out of my life. End of story. I have to go to bed at night knowing I’m a good person, that I’ve made decisions that are good for me and make me happy. If, in the process, I can set a good example for others, great. I don’t live my life for other people, but I do prove something I’m very proud of: You don’t have to be a rebel to be cool.

We asked you to cast votes for your favorite Buffy episodes in our TV Guide Online poll. Here are the results.

1. HUSH
Season 4; episode 66
December 14, 1999
The Gentlemen (above) come to town to "steal" the voices of Sunnydale.

2. BECOMING, PART 2
Season 2; episode 34
May 19, 1998
Angel's soul is restored; alas, a clueless Buffy slays him.

3. WELCOME TO THE HELLMOUTH
Season 1; episode 1
March 10, 1997
Buffy Summers, slayer supreme, moves to Sunnydale, California.

4. GRADUATION DAY, PART 2
Season 3; episode 56
July 13, 1999
Sunnydale High is blown to smithereens; Angel and Buffy bid each other adieu.

5. THE WISH
Season 3; episode 43
December 8, 1998
An evil alternative reality seizes a Buffyless Sunnydale.

6. ANGEL
Season 1l; episode 7
April 14, 1997
A kiss from Buffy brings out the beast in Angel.

TIE: 7. PASSION
Season 2; episode 29
February 24, 1998
Angel terrorizes Buffy, her friends and kills Jenny.

THE PROM
Season 3; episode 54
May 11, 1999
The heinous Hounds of Hell are no match for Buffy.

8. SURPRISE
Season 2; episode 25
January 19, 1998
Angel and Buffy finally get down—with ghastly results.

9. DOPPELGANGLAND
Season 3; episode 50
February 23, 1999
Oh-oh: Evil Willow comes back to life.

10. SOMETHING BLUE
Season 4; episode 65
November 30, 1999
Willow's "will be done" spell goes hopelessly awry: Buffy ends up betrother to Spike.