Actors You Didn't Know Appeared on Buffy The Vampire Slayer

Comprising 144 episodes over six seasons, Buffy The Vampire Slayer remains a staple of pop culture 20 years after it ended. One of the main strengths of Buffy was its casting, with the show eventually making stars out of Sarah Michelle Gellar, Alyson Hannigan, Anthony Head, David Boreanaz, Seth Green and Eliza Dushku, amongst others.

For a show with 144 episodes, Buffy The Vampire Slayer had its fair share of guest stars. While many either returned and even became recurring characters on the show, most were one-time appearances. Among this long list of one-time guests are several notable actors. However, due to the status of their career at the time or someone paying against type, these special guest appearances have been forgotten among these actors' filmographies. However, this list will bring these actors and their performances to light. Many of these performances came before these actors had truly become stars, leading to some interesting roles.

Amy Adams

Looking back, it seemed like only a matter of when, not if, Amy Adams became a major star in Hollywood. In the early-to-mid 2000s, Adams appeared in supporting roles in films like Catch Me If You Can, Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby and Charlie Wilson's War, in addition to guest-starring on TV shows like Charmed, That 70's Show, Smallville, The West Wing and Buffy The Vampire Slayer.

Amy Adams would appear in the sixth episode of Buffy season 6, entitled 'Family'. In the episode, the Scooby gang celebrate Tara's 20th birthday. However, her Christian family soon show up in Sunnydale and want to take her back home before she becomes a demon. This supposed demon curse affects all the women in the Maclay line, including Tara's deceased mother. Among Tara's family members is Cousin Beth, played by Amy Adams. Beth shows up on the campus of Sunnydale University to confront Tara for missing her own birthday dinner. She also chastises her cousin for leaving her father and brother to live her life in Sunnydale. Beth finds out that Tara has cast a spell over the rest of the Scooby gang to hide her demon side from them, and she encourages her to tell them the truth, or she will reveal it herself. Later on, the Maclays turn up at the Magic Box to take Tara home. However, when the inhibitor chip in Spike's brain stops him from attacking Tara, revealing that she has no demon side, Tara asserts to her family that she wants to stay in Sunnydale with her friends. The Maclays accept her decision and leave, although not before Beth angrily asks Tara if she is happy with what she's done to her family, to which Tara only smiles back.

Even in this guest role, Amy Adams immediately stood out. Despite being cast as Tara's cousin, the future six-time Oscar nominee is given more screen time and dialogue than the rest of the Maclay family. Joss Whedon and the writers saw how good Adams was and sought to showcase her as much as possible. It works, as Adams plays the spiteful cousin role excellently. This Buffy guest appearance would be one of seven roles Amy Adams would take in 2000, including replacing Sarah Michelle Gellar as Kathryn Merteuil in the direct-to-video movie sequel Cruel Intentions 2.

Wentworth Miller

When people see the face of Wentworth Miller on any TV show, their minds will immediately go to his career-defining leading role in Prison Break, the Fox drama that served to define TV shows that went downhill following an acclaimed first season. However, years before he got tattooed as Michael Scofield, Miller would make his on-screen acting debut in Buffy The Vampire Slayer.

In 'Go Fish', one of the weirder episodes of season 2, Wentworth Miller would appear as Gage Petronzi, a member of Sunnydale High's Razorbacks swimming team. A mystery soon forms when Xander finds the skin of Cameron, one of the swim team and spots a humanoid sea creature with gills in the school cafeteria. To cut a long story short, it is revealed that these 'gill monsters' result from the swimming coach and the school nurse experimenting on the Razorbacks with fish DNA to improve the team's overall performance. Gage (Miller) is one of these team members, and Buffy witnesses his transformation into a sea creature. Earlier, her suspicions had been raised when Angelus (evil Angel) had attacked Gage, only to spit out his blood instead of consuming it.

For his first TV appearance, Wentworth Miller received a featured role in his episode of Buffy, enough to show casting directors that he was a TV star of the future.

Pedro Pascal

Pedro Pascal must have made a deal with Faust back in the early 2010s, such are his recent career successes. Game of Thrones, Narcos, The Mandalorian, The Last of Us, Mr Pascal has been involved with them all. However, before he appeared on our screens in 2014 and charmed us as Oberyn Martell in Game of Thrones's fourth season, Pedro Pascal had been receiving regular TV work for 15 years without breaking through into leading roles. His filmography included one-time or recurring roles on CSI, NYPD Blue, Nurse Jackie, The Good Wife, Homeland, The Mentalist, and three different Law and Order shows. At the start of his career, an unrecognisable Pascal would play a brief but significant role in the season 4 premiere episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

The first episode of Buffy's 4th season, entitled 'The Freshman', follows Buffy in her first few days of college at Sunnydale University. Affected by events at the end of Season 3 (including the departure of Angel) and other factors, Buffy finds it difficult to fit in. On her first night, she finds solace in a fellow freshman named Eddie (played by Pascal). Buffy helps Eddie locate his dorm room, and the two develop a rapport, promising to help each other throughout the year. However, once Buffy leaves Eddie, he is surrounded by a gang of vampires led by Sunday, who turns and sires him. Sunday's mob then ransacks Eddie's dorm room and leaves a note saying that he had left because he couldn't stand the stress of college. Buffy notices Eddie's absence the following day but, after some investigating, believes he has been kidnapped. She eventually finds Eddie that night on the campus grounds. However, she soon discovers that Eddie is now a vampire. After trying to appeal to Eddie, he attacks Buffy, forcing her to dust him.

At the time of his Buffy the Vampire Slayer guest appearance, Pedro Pascal was performing under his birth name of Pedro Balmaceda, hence why people may not know about his appearance. After his mother died in 1999, Pedro Balmaceda took his mother's maiden name as his stage surname.

Even though his time on screen in 'The Freshman didn't amount to more than five minutes, Pedro Pascal's guest appearance on Buffy The Vampire Slayer is now an interesting footnote in his early career.

Rachel Bilson

Rachel Bilson is best known for her role as Summer Roberts in the prime-time teen drama The O.C. between 2003 and 2007. She also appeared in movies The Last Kiss and Jumper and led the CW comedy-drama Hart of Dixie between 2011 and 2015, in addition to guest appearances on Gossip Girl and How I Met Your Mother. Before her big break, Rachel Bilson would guest in one of the final episodes of Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

In 'Dirty Girls', the 18th episode of the seventh and final season, Rachel Bilson appears as Colleen, one of the many potential Slayers being housed and trained by Buffy in preparation for battle against the First Evil. The episode sees the arrival of Caleb as the main underling of The First and the return of Faith to Sunnydale after helping to re-ensoul Angel in Los Angeles. The episode climaxes with Buffy and the Potentials fighting Caleb at his hideout. However, the battle ends in retreat, with two Slayers killed and Xander getting his eye gouged and damaged by Caleb.

In the episode, Rachel Bilson only appears in one scene as part of Xander's vision. In his apartment, Xander has an erotic dream about two potential Slayers, Caridad and Colleen (Bilson), before he is woken up by another Potential, Rona, to fix his broken toilet. A brief appearance from the young actress, but one which would lead to several Leonardo DiCaprio points on future viewings years later.

Doug Jones

Doug Jones is an actor who has made his name while wearing heavy make-up and prosthetics. The Indianapolis native has made a career out of representing non-human characters on-screen, particularly in the Guillermo del Toro films Hellboy, Pan's Labyrinth and The Shape of Water. An early example of Doug Jones's talents for playing silent, non-human characters came in 'Hush', one of Buffy The Vampire Slayer's best-ever episodes.

'Hush' was the 10th episode of Buffy's fourth season. With several characters caught in situations where they wanted to say something to someone else but not having the time or finding the words to say it, a group of intimidating ghouls in suits known as The Gentlemen removes the voices of everyone in Sunnydale. The Scooby Gang now have to communicate with each other and find out what has caused this peculiar and scary situation without the ability to speak. At the same time, The Gentlemen aim to use the silence and potential chaos caused by it to gather seven human hearts.

In 'Hush', Doug Jones portrayed the leader of The Gentlemen. The role saw him dressed in a black suit and tie with deathly pale skin and a face with visible veins, sunken red eyes and a set of silver teeth permanently set into a smile. Complete with a hand clap and gentlemanly gestures performed by Jones and the sight of his long, thin frame bearing this appearance, Jones and The Gentlemen are among the scariest creatures in the history of Buffy, silently moving their way across Sunnydale. The design of The Gentlemen, the performance of Doug Jones and his fellow made-up actors and the accompanying writing make this episode a classic.

Amber Tamblyn

Amber Tamblyn's guest appearance on Buffy stands out as her one appearance marks the only episode to feature a character that is often mentioned but not seen on the show. The future Joan of Arcadia star would appear in Season 6's Halloween episode 'All The Way' as Janice Penshaw, the best friend of Dawn Summers. The character was previously mentioned in passing in the season 5 episode 'Shadow'. However, 'All The Way' would see Janice become part of an episode's main plot.

In an episode which also features Xander and Anya's engagement party, 'All The Way' sees Dawn and her friend Janice spending Halloween night hanging around with two older teenage boys who, unbeknownst to them, are vampires. At the night's end, the boys try to bite Dawn and Janice. While Dawn receives her first kiss from Justin, Zack bites Janice. However, she and Dawn are saved from further harm by Buffy and Giles, who find out that the two girls had lied about spending the night at each other's houses so they could sneak out.

At the time of her guest appearance on Buffy The Vampire Slayer, Amber Tamblyn was already known to daytime TV viewers for her regular role as Emily Quartermaine on the long-running soap opera General Hospital. The 18-year-old had recently finished her six-year-run on the show, with her drug-addled teenage character being written off into a rehab facility.

After 'All The Way', the character of Janice Penshaw would be mentioned four more times across the rest of Season 6. However, the character wouldn't appear on-screen again. After playing Janice, Amber Tamblyn's profile would rise the following year by receiving a featured role in the Hollywood remake of The Ring. She would play Katie Embry, the first character to be killed after watching the cursed videotape. In 2003, Amber Tamblyn would receive her breakthrough role by getting the lead role in Joan of Arcadia, where her performance would net her Primetime Emmy and Golden Globe nominations.

In 2006, Amber Tamblyn shared the screen with Sarah Michelle Gellar once more in The Grudge 2. Tamblyn would take the lead role in the horror sequel, playing the younger sister of Gellar's character, who had been the lead and survivor of the first movie.

Kal Penn

An actor-turned White House staff member-turned actor once more, Kal Penn showed up in Sunnydale in Buffy The Vampire Slayer's weirdest-ever episode, Season 4's 'Beer Bad'. Before he became known for his roles as Lawrence Kutner on House, Kumar in the Harold and Kumar series and Principal Associate Editor in the White House Office of Public Engagement, a young Kal Penn would play Hunt, a student at UC Sunnydale (Sunnydale University) who starts to experience a weird transformation after a night drinking at the student bar.

In 'Beer Bad', Buffy, still recovering from being dumped by her boyfriend Parker, decides to spend the night drinking with fellow students Hunt, Colm, Kip and Roy at the student pub. As Xander, bartending under a fake student ID, watches on, Buffy gets drunk with the four men on Black Forest beer. However, their consumption of this particular beer causes the five students to turn primitive and act like cavepeople, including starting fires and drawing on walls. It turns out that the pub's bartender had brewed this Black Frost, complete with a spell to turn the drinker into a Neanderthal, as revenge for being taunted by male students for so many years. Even though the effects last for one day, the primitive students, including Hunt, start a fire that quickly gets out of control, leading the Neanderthal Buffy to save her friends and Parker from trouble.

This guest role was early enough in Kal Penn's career that he received a featured role in 'Beer Bad' but not too many lines, considering that most of them were primitive grunts. The part came when Penn featured in several TV shows, including Sabrina the Teenage Witch, Spin City, ER and NYPD Blue. One year after 'Beer Bad', Kal Penn would also guest star on an episode of Angel, playing the Brain Man in season 3's 'That Vision Thing'.

Zachery Ty Bryan

Try as he might, Zachery Ty Bryan has been unable to escape the most famous role of his career. Between the ages of 10 and 18, Bryan was Brad Taylor, the oldest son of Tim 'The Toolman' Taylor on the hugely successful sitcom Home Improvement. Being part of the main cast in a show that ranked inside the top-10 programmes on American television throughout the 1990s, attracting up to 32 million viewers an episode, it was always difficult for Bryan to escape the shadow of this role. However, he would try. After some small film roles and guest appearances on ER, Touched By An Angel and Boston Public, Zachery Ty Bryan would turn up as the 'Villain of the Week' in Buffy The Vampire Slayer's seventh and final season.

In 'Help', the fourth episode of Season 7, Buffy begins her role as the new school counsellor at Sunnydale High. One of her first appointments is with a student named Cassie Newton, who appears to possess precognitive abilities and tells Buffy that she believes she will die the following Friday. Despite attempts to investigate this claim and tries to help Cassie, the Scooby Gang cannot figure anything out. Cassie's suspicions about her death almost come true as she is kidnapped by a bunch of students led by Peter Nicols (played by Zachery Ty Bryan), who wants to sacrifice her to summon the demon Avilas. However, Buffy stops the sacrifice and, when Avilas appears, burns the monster. Before its death, Avilas bites Peter on the shoulder, causing him to bleed. Buffy makes no effort to help Peter in his distress.

In the context of the season, Zachery Ty Bryan's guest appearance in 'Help' amounted to little more than a 'Villain of the Week' appearance, a villain that Buffy could defeat early in the season while reintroducing the importance of the school library and the Hellmouth situated beneath it to the series. After his Buffy appearance, Zachery Ty Bryan would continue his search to become relevant in his own right outside Home Improvement.

Willie Garson

During his career, the late Willie Garson was one of the ultimate 'Hey, it's that guy!' actors. With over 140 TV and film roles during his 35-year career, most of them being minor or one-time appearances, Garson was almost ever-present. On TV, he was known for his roles as Stanford Blatch on Sex and the City and Mozzie on White Collar, but he also seemed to appear on every major TV show of the time. In between appearances on Melrose Place, Ally McBeal, Party of Five, Star Trek: Voyager and Friends, Willie Garson even popped up in a season 2 episode of Buffy.

In 'Killed By Death', Buffy becomes sick with the flu and is admitted to Sunnydale Hospital. It is revealed that Buffy had feared hospitals ever since her cousin died in one when Buffy was eight. One night, Buffy meets Ryan, a young boy who claims to see a monster every night in the children's ward, where several children have recently died. The beast is the demon Kindestod, a creature who feeds on the life of sick children, like Buffy's late cousin. Buffy eventually defeats Kindestod by infecting herself with the children's virus.

In 'Killed By Death', Willie Garson's guest appearance is brief, playing hospital security guard Don Hauk. We see Don intercept Cordelia when she and Xander enter the hospital's records room to find out information about Tina, who Buffy witnessed being wheeled out of the children's ward one night. After confronting Cordelia, she distracts Don by playfully seducing him, giving Xander enough time to find Tina's records.

A brief appearance but another role to add to the extensive filmography of Willie Garson.

John Hawkes

John Hawkes was a late bloomer in Hollywood, not finding his most considerable fame until middle age. After starting his acting career in 1984, Hawkes would not receive anything close to a significant breakthrough until the mid-2000s, when he was cast as Sol Star in the HBO western drama series Deadwood. He would then establish himself as a critical darling on the big screen, earning praise and award nominations for his roles in 2010's Winter's Bone and 2012's The Sessions. Before all that, John Hawkes played minor roles in several notable films and TV series. In the 1990s, he would appear in Congo, From Dusk Till Dawn, Steel and Rush Hour and earn guest roles on Wings, ER, Northern Exposure and Nash Bridges without landing a more prominent role in either field.

During this run, John Hawkes would land a memorable scene in 'I Only Have Eyes For You', the 19th episode of Buffy The Vampire Slayer's second season. The episode's plot involves a pair of spirits that haunt Sunnydale High School, causing a specific event to repeat itself over many years. The event in question consists of a couple from 1955, where a male student was having an affair with a female teacher. After an argument in the school, the student shot the teacher dead. In the present day, Buffy stops another male student from shooting a female student, after which the gun disappears. The Scooby Gang investigated and found out that the spirits of the original student and teacher from 1955 still haunt the part of Sunnydale High where the original argument and murder occurred. At any moment, another man and woman can, without warning, become unwilling re-enactors of that fateful crime, leading to more death.

One of these incidences involves a teacher named Miss Frank and a janitor named George (played by John Hawkes). Despite barely being acquainted, a brief conversation soon leads to the two people re-enacting the lovers' argument, with George playing the male role. A gun appears in George's hand, and he shoots Miss Frank, causing her to fall off a balcony to her death. Giles, hearing the commotion, tackles George but is too late to stop the shooting as the gun vanishes into thin air. This spiritual cycle is eventually closed by Buffy shooting Angelus, meaning that the scene does not end in death. However, in his brief appearance on Buffy, John Hawkes plays an unwitting murderer who has no memory of killing anyone as soon as he has completed the ritual.

Later in 1998, John Hawkes would forge another link to Buffy The Vampire Slayer, albeit a more tenuous one. Months after his role as George, Hawkes would appear in the first scene of the horror sequel I Still Know What You Did Last Summer, where his character, Dave, would be the first to be killed by returning killer Ben Willis. The first movie, I Know What You Did Last Summer, starred Sarah Michelle Gellar in a leading role, and her character was also murdered by Ben Willis.

John Ritter

Throughout his career, John Ritter was mainly known as a comedic actor. He was best known for his seven years on Three's Company, with his character Jack Tripper being the only lead to last the show's entire run. His major film roles also tended towards comedy, with Problem Child, Bad Santa and Hero At Large being successful. However, Ritter also showed his dramatic chops in projects like IT (playing the adult Ben Hanscom) and Sling Blade. Ritter would get another chance to prove his dramatic potential when he appeared as a principal guest star in Buffy The Vampire Slayer's second season.

During the 1990s, John Ritter was an in-demand guest star for numerous TV shows, leading to him turning up in Ally McBeal, Wings, NewsRadio and King of the Hill. Buffy The Vampire Slayer would be another feather in his cap. John Ritter's character would serve as the titular character and 'Villain of the Week' in Season 2's 'Ted'. In this episode, Ritter plays Ted, Joyce's new boyfriend. While he is kind and amiable to Joyce, Xander and Willow, he acts meaner towards Buffy. No one believes Buffy when she tells them about this, considering how well Ted treats them. However, one night when Buffy comes home from slaying, she finds that Ted has read her diary and has discovered her identity as Slayer. Ted threatens to tell Joyce and slaps Buffy after she defies him. In anger, Buffy kicks Ted, causing him to fall down the stairs, presumably to his death. However, days later, a guilt-ridden Buffy is shocked to find that Ted survived and is a robot. Ted plans to kidnap Joyce and keep her until she dies, which he has done with four previous women. However, Buffy eventually defeats Ted, saving her mother's life.

John Ritter is excellent as Ted. As well as showing the amiable charm he became known for, he also shows off a more menacing side in the scenes that Ted shares with Buffy. The quick turnaround between the two states is delivered so well that the audience cannot help but feel unnerved. However, when Buffy seemingly kills him, Ritter's performance is such that you cannot help but feel Buffy's guilt.

In 'Ted', John Ritter delivers one of Buffy's best guest performances, one that may be known by those who mainly know Ritter for his comedic work.