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Kristy Swanson the ‘Vampire Slayer’ in the Campy Summer Comedy

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“If I’d gone to high school I wouldn’t have been a cheerleader--I wouldn’t have had the time and it didn’t interest me,” says Kristy Swanson.

The 22-year-old actress has the starring role as a vampire-killing song girl in 20th Century Fox’s campy “Buffy the Vampire Slayer.” “She’s got a special power behind her--that’s how she slays ‘em.”

Swanson was schooled at home due in part to her workload as a child actress and also because she was fed up with the resentment by her fellow students in Orange County. “I was gone (working) for seven weeks in seventh grade. If you let the other kids know what you were doing, you were (considered) stuck up, and if you didn’t you were stuck up. They didn’t understand in Mission Viejo.”

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Fortunately, her schoolteacher parents understood, and they agreed to instructing her daily at home. “It was difficult at times, but good overall because we got to spend more time together.” Eventually, Robert and Rosemary Swanson rented an apartment in North Hollywood for their daughter’s benefit. She amassed more than 30 commercials as a child.

“They’re my biggest supporters and understanders,” she says of her parents. They’re also in “Buffy,” her dad as a coach; her mom is an extra.

Co-star Donald Sutherland made the biggest impression on the actress, whose previous credits are “Hot Shots!,” “Mannequin II,” “Highway to Hell,” “Flowers in the Attic” and TV’s infamous “Nightingales.” “Donald was unbelievable. I was blown away by how supportive and sweet he is.”

Swanson lives in “the 213 area code” with her three cats. “I haven’t had a boyfriend for a year. It’s not like I haven’t had the time.”

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