Production is now well underway on the pilot episode of the rebooted Buffy the Vampire Slayer. The series, unofficially dubbed New Sunnydale, has now announced four new castings as it eyes a full series commitment from Hulu.
Original series star and new series executive producer Sarah Michelle Gellar is bringing aboard a co-star from her recent I Know What You Did Last Summer return. Chase Sui Wonders, who played Ava in the IKWYDLS reboot, will play a vampire named Shirley in what Deadline hears is a one-off guest-starring role in the pilot episode. That episode is being directed by Oscar-winning filmmaker Chloé Zhao.
Wonders has been featured in several notable roles including A24’s Bodies Bodies Bodies (2022), Out of the Blue (2022), Past Lives (2023) and Little Death (2024).
Also snapping up roles in the reboot are Merrin Dungey (The Lincoln Lawyer), Audrey Hsieh (Found) and Audrey Grace Marshall (The Flight Attendant). All three have landed guest starring roles in the pilot. Should the series move beyond that the three are anticipated to be offered recurring roles in a full season.
Dungey will play Ms. LaDuca, the college counselor at New Sunnydale Academy. Hsieh and Marshall play Keiko and Jessica, respectively, high school students and members of the academy’s Evangelical Christian group.
The latest additions join Gellar who returns as OG series slayer Buffy Summers and Ryan Kiera Armstrong who stars as the new slayer Nova, an introverted high-school student who discovers she is a Slayer. Also starring are series regulars Faly Rakotohavana, Ava Jean, Sarah Bock, Daniel Di Tomasso and Jack Cutmore-Scott as well as guest star/recurring Kingston Vernes.
