In every generation there is a chosen one, and Generation Alpha’s has just been announced. 15-year-old American Horror Story and Star Wars: Skeleton Crew actor Ryan Kiera Armstrong will be joining OG Buffy the Vampire Slayer star (and reboot producer) Sarah Michelle Gellar in the series revival Hulu pilot.
No further character details have been announced for the new role – including a name or whether or not Armstrong is actually playing a new slayer as is being reported elsewhere. Deadline report that her character will be “an introverted high-school student”. Will she come into her Slayer powers in the pilot, or could she be playing, say, Buffy’s teenaged daughter? Time will tell.
Whatever the specifics of the role, it’s being touted as the new lead. On a video call with Ryan and her actor-producer father Dean Armstrong, Gellar welcomed the youngster to “the new Sunnydale,” telling her that ever since she saw her audition tape, that “there was only one girl that [she] wanted by [her] side”. She had one question for the 15-year-old (who’s a few years off the age that 19-year-old Gellar was when she first started playing Buffy Summers): are you ready to save the world? A tearful yes was the answer.
Armstrong has already been acting for over a decade, with movie appearances in IT: Chapter Two, Black Widow, and the Firestarter remake under her belt. On television, she played the spirited and mischievous Minnie-May Barry in Canadian Netflix series Anne With an E, violinist child prodigy Alma Gardner in American Horror Story: Double Feature, was recently seen as Fern in 2024 Disney+ series Star Wars: Skeleton Crew (pictured above), and will soon be seen alongside Ethan Hawke in FX series The Lowdown.
