Sarah Michelle Gellar decided to step back from acting following Robin Williams' 2014 death. "I had children back to back. I started The Crazy Ones when my son was 3 months old. I was breastfeeding the entire time," Gellar, 48, said during an appearance on the "Shut Up Evan" podcast, released on Wednesday, January 7. "Then, Robin passed away, and everything just sort of hit me." Gellar - who shares two kids with husband Freddie Prinze Jr. - starred alongside Williams on The Crazy Ones for one season. The show got canceled in May 2014, months before Williams' death by suicide at age 63 in August of that year. "The postpartum hit me, and that loss was so huge. I felt a little directionless for the first time in my life," Gellar continued during Wednesday's podcast appearance. "I thought, maybe that's my sign that I'm not living the moments enough because they can go away so quickly. At that point, I just said I needed to take a break." Sarah Michelle Gellar Turns 48! Her Photos Through the Years Gellar stepped back from acting for eight years, returning to the screen in 2022 with a cameo in Clerks III and Do Revenge. "I'm so glad I did [it] on so many levels," Gellar explained. "First of all, I'll never get that time back with my kids. I didn't miss a show, a performance, a first step, a lost tooth." The actress continued, "Every moment I was able to be there for, and that's not something you can do as a working actor. Our days are long. We travel a lot. I couldn't have done that." Taking a break from acting also changed Gellar's mindset about her career. "I also got to a place where I realized how much I actually missed it. Now, I appreciate it in a different way. I also pick my projects differently now," she explained. "I don't have this desire to prove stuff that I used to have. I also didn't want to be that person that, all of a sudden, my kids left, and then I was directionless again." 'Buffy the Vampire Slayer' Cast: Where Are They Now? Gellar added, "When you do step away from acting, you never know if there's going to be a career to go back to. It doesn't matter who you are. Sometimes audiences move on, that's OK, that's acceptable. I'm very, very grateful that I have found that's not been the case, and there's still a place for me." More recently, Gellar nabbed a recurring gig as Tanya Martin on Dexter: Original Sin and will appear in Ready or Not 2: Here I Come later this year. She is also set to reprise her iconic role as Buffy Summers in an upcoming Buffy the Vampire Slayer revival. "It's not a sequel, it's not a reboot, it's a continuation," Gellar said during Wednesday's podcast appearance. "Where is she now in this world, and what is this world that Buffy lives in with her and without her?" She added, "It's not a reboot. It's not picking up with all of the same characters right away. It is not like a sequel. ... That's why the name was even important to me. Buffy [in] new Sunnydale, like it's, it's Buffy, but it's also something else."