One of Buffy’s Best Characters Won’t Be Back in the Reboot

Buffy the Vampire Slayer is returning to screens after more than 20 years, but a core cast member will not be back for Hulu’s reboot of the WB series. In a new TikTok video, Charisma Carpenter addressed her involvement in the show, which will bring back Sarah Michelle Gellar as Buffy Summers alongside a brand-new Slayer portrayed by Ryan Kiera Armstrong. The actress portrayed Cordelia Chase throughout the original series, which aired from 1997 to 2003, and reprised the role in the spinoff series, Angel. Despite expressing hope to reprise the role in Hulu’s Buffy reboot, Carpenter confirmed that her queen bee character will not appear in the series.

“Hey, I get asked this a lot: ‘Are you doing the reboot?’ And I thought I would address it,” the 55-year-old actress said in the video, shared to TikTok on Saturday, August 16. “I am not in the reboot. I am not in the pilot. I don’t even know if the show has been picked up to go to series. I assume it will be.”

Carpenter also addressed ongoing speculation that the name of her podcast, The Bitch Is Back, teased her return in the show, clarifying that “it was not intended to sound coded in any kind of way, alluding to the fact that I was admitting to being in the reboot.” The actress acknowledged that “people were also then commenting, ‘Oh is this … Are you saying?’ like it was an easter egg à la Taylor Swift. Not at all.”

Carpenter the video by telling fans hopeful for her return, “I have not had a conversation with any of the powers that be to include Cordelia at this point.”

Carpenter’s Cordelia Chase was a fan-favorite character. The “queen bee” at Sunnydale High School, where she was a popular cheerleader, she ended up joining forces with the Scooby Gang to help fight demons and other mystical forces. Carpenter starred throughout the first three seasons of Buffy before exiting the show to star in its spinoff, Angel, where her character was alter killed off in Season 5.

When the Buffy the Vampire Slayer reboot was confirmed to be in the works at Hulu, fans remained hopeful that Cordelia could be resurrected, and Carpenter herself expressed interest in returning for the reboot in a July interview with IGN, where she said, “I am so hopeful to be included, for Cordelia to be a part of this new iteration.”

Details of the upcoming show, now filming, are being kept under wraps. Along with Gellar and Armstrong, confirmed cast members include Faly Rakotohavana, Ava Jean, Sarah Bock, Daniel Di Tomasso, and Jack Cutmore-Scott. Merrin Dungey, Audrey Hsieh, Audrey Grace Marshall, Kingston Vernes, and Chase Sui Wonder are set to appear in recurring and guest roles.

Hulu’s reboot pilot script was written by Nora Zuckerman and Lilla Zuckerman and will be directed by The Eternals director Chloé Zhao. A premiere date hasn’t been announced. The original Buffy the Vampire Slayer series is available to stream on both Hulu, Disney+, and Tubi.