Charisma Carpenter addressed speculation that her character, Cordelia Chase, will make an appearance in the upcoming Buffy the Vampire Slayer reboot.
“I am not in the reboot. I am not in the pilot,” she said via TikTok over the weekend. “I don’t even know if the show has been picked up to go to series. I assume it will be.”
The actress also shut down assumptions that her “The Bitch Is Back” podcast title meant she was planning to be in the reboot.
“It was not intended to sound decoded in any kind of way, alluding to the fact that I was admitting to being in the reboot,” Carpenter explained. “People were also then commenting, ‘Oh is this… Are you saying?’ like it was an easter egg à la Taylor Swift. Not at all.”
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Carpenter concluded: “I have not had a conversation with any of the powers that be to include Cordelia at this point.”
Buffy the Vampire Slayer, which aired from 1997 to 2003, followed Buffy Summers (Sarah Michelle Gellar), as a high school student who also happened to be in charge of saving the world from vampires and demons. Carpenter, Nicholas Brendon, Alyson Hannigan, Anthony Stewart Head, David Boreanaz and James Marsters made up the rest of the cast. The new show, which is currently filming, stars Kiera Armstrong as the newest Chosen One while Gellar, 48, will make appearances as Buffy.
Carpenter reprised her role in the Buffy spinoff, Angel, before Cordelia’s death on season 5. She later opened up about her tumultuous experience behind the scenes, becoming the first of several stars who came forward to accuse Buffy showrunner Joss Whedon of abusing his power and exhibiting “hostile and toxic” behavior. (Whedon, 61, has previously denied allegations against him,)
More recently, Carpenter revisited the Buffy universe with Audible’s “Slayers: A Buffyverse Story” podcast.
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“[I had] little bit of apprehension when I first was asked to join, but those emotions and feelings, open wound feelings were immediately assuaged by Amber [Benson]’s pitch in that I heard her enthusiasm,” Carpenter exclusively told Us Weekly in October 2023.
Carpenter said she was excited to portray Cordelia again.
“It’s personal for me. I have lived with Cordelia,” Carpenter continued. “I performed her for about 10 years of my life, and I feel she, as a character, informed me, the woman that played her. It’s rich to me. The idea of coming into my own power as a young woman through a character that then I ended up using that power in a way to speak out against the creator of that power. … What I mean to say is that in a lot of ways, Cordelia gave birth to Charisma and really informed who I am today, and it was so powerful that I was able to do very hard things at a very critical time in my life. And I think that is the ultimate Buffyverse story — finding out what your purpose is and using it to make the world a better place.”
Carpenter worked on the short-lived project with Marsters, 62, Emma Caulfield, Juliet Landau and Amber Benson before it was canceled by Disney.
