Amber Benson

Novelist, indie filmmaker, audiobook narrator, and co-creator of the 2023 Audible drama Slayers: A Buffyverse Story.

After the show

Benson left Buffy after Tara’s death in season six (2002) and turned to making her own work. She directed, produced and starred in the independent film Chance (2002), then wrote and directed Lovers, Liars & Lunatics (2006). In 2010 she co-directed the office comedy Drones with Adam Busch, who played Warren on Buffy, and appeared in the thriller The Killing Jar.

Starting in 2003 she and Christopher Golden created Ghosts of Albion, an animated supernatural story for the BBC produced with Cosgrove Hall, and co-wrote the novels that followed. Her solo fiction includes the five-book Calliope Reaper-Jones urban fantasy series (2009 to 2013), The Witches of Echo Park (2015) and its sequels The Last Dream Keeper (2016) and The End of Magic (2017). Her comics work includes Shadowplay, Among the Ghosts, and Clueless: Senior Year and Clueless: One Last Summer, co-written with Sarah Kuhn. She has also narrated many audiobooks.

On February 10, 2021, after Charisma Carpenter’s statement about Joss Whedon, Benson wrote on Twitter: “Buffy was a toxic environment and it starts at the top.” She said she supported Carpenter fully, and added that a lot of damage was done during that time and that many in the cast were still processing it more than 20 years later.

Lately

Benson and Golden wrote and directed Slayers: A Buffyverse Story, a nine-episode Audible original released in October 2023. It reunited Benson as Tara with James Marsters, Charisma Carpenter, Anthony Head, Emma Caulfield Ford, Juliet Landau and Danny Strong, with Carpenter’s Cordelia as a Slayer. In February 2024 Golden said Disney, which controls the Buffy license, would not allow Audible to make further seasons.

In May 2024 she appeared in Jane Schoenbrun’s film I Saw the TV Glow from A24. The same year she narrated the first two audiobooks in the Blood & Ancient Scrolls series.

Off screen

Benson appears regularly at fan conventions. Her 2025 schedule included Iron City Comic Con in Alabama (May), Wales Comic Con (September) and Twin Cities Con in Minnesota (November).