You might know Michelle Trachtenberg from Harriet the Spy, Buffy the Vampire Slayer,
or even Gossip Girl. It seems like there's nothing this talented actress can't do, but
what has she been up to lately? Keep watching to discover what happened to Michelle Trachtenberg!
Trachtenberg's Hollywood journey began,
as many do, in the ad game. As she revealed to the Chicago Tribune back in 1996,
"I saw a friend of mine in a commercial and walked over to my mom and said,
'Mommy, I want to be on TV.'"
Her first commercial was a spot for Wisk laundry detergent when
she was just 3 years old, and she could still sing the jingle for the
Tribune. She went on to star in over 100 commercials for a variety of companies.
Trachtenberg made the leap from commercials to episodic TV when she played a dying child
on a 1991 episode of Law & Order. She then went on to appear on the Nickelodeon show
Clarissa Explains it All before landing a multi-episode arc on the soap opera
All My Children as an autistic child, which she found challenging because she couldn't talk much.
Nevertheless, she did a great job, as she soon caught the eye of some important producers.
After garnering some attention for her work on All My Children, young Michelle Trachtenberg
landed the role of Nona on Nickelodeon's The Adventures of Pete & Pete. She enjoyed so much
success on that show that she just had to leave it, as she ended up getting cast in the lead role
of the Nickelodeon movie Harriet the Spy, which was based on a book of the same name by Louise
Fitzhugh . Trachtenberg had read the book, and even though she was familiar with the character,
she still had to audition at least 15 times, as she revealed on her Instagram in 2020.
The actress ended up stealing hearts as the sneaky Harriet, who spied on neighbors,
wrote in her super secret journal, and ultimately learned the importance of honesty. Trachtenberg
learned a few things about herself as well. As she told the Chicago Tribune in 1996,
"I learned about the value of friendship.
I learned that a good friend is hard to find and you should never let them go.
I also learned that you should always tell the truth, unless it might hurt someone."
Then she quipped to the interviewer,
"Like I really hate that shirt you're wearing, but I don't want to hurt your
feelings so I'll tell you how cute that shirt is. See what I've learned?
While Harriet the Spy was a decent success, it was Buffy the Vampire Slayer that really
brought Trachtenberg to the world's attention. She joined the show during its fifth season as Buffy's
younger sister, Dawn Summers, and she stayed on as a main cast member for the final three seasons.
When landing the part, Trachtenberg had a serious connection in the form of Buffy herself,
as she'd worked with Sarah Michelle Gellar on All My Children, and they'd kept in touch after Gellar
left that show. In fact, she actually invited Trachtenberg to visit her on the Buffy set,
which set the casting process in motion. As Trachtenberg revealed to Girl's Life in 2000,
"When I came to visit, I met with Joss Whedon, who created the show. I kind of
saw how it worked behind the scenes. Then, later on, I got the call. It was an exciting process."
"You're not special. You're extraordinary."
Gellar and Trachtenberg continued to be friends during their time together on
the show, with Trachtenberg noting to Girl's Life,
"Sarah's actually been all about teaching me how to bowl. That's our new hobby – bowling.
It's fun. Sarah has her own ball, and she's convincing me to get my own, too. It's fun!"
Trachtenberg played a little sister that needed protecting on Buffy,
but in 2004 she made a serious switch to a naughty thrill-seeking party girl in the movie EuroTrip.
The raunchy film tells the tale of a geeky boy who gets dumped by his
girlfriend and then goes on a grand beer-filled European adventure with his two best friends,
one of whom was played by Trachtenberg. There's one scene that makes it particularly clear that
she's saying goodbye to her good girl persona, as she leaves little to the imagination while
wearing a blue bikini. She talked about that moment with Entertainment Weekly, confessing,
"It was a little stressful. It was the first time that I've ever taken off that much clothing."
Also in 2004, Trachtenberg turned up the heat once again when she played a spoiled
singer named Celeste on four episodes of HBO's Six Feet Under. As she noted to EW,
"She's an actress, she's a b----, she's a diva in training."
Clearly, Trachtenberg was proving that she could play both naughty and nice,
and nail it every time.
As if she wasn't already impressive enough, Trachtenberg added ice skating to the
special skills section of her resume when she starred in the 2005 Disney movie Ice Princess.
She played Casey Carlyle, a whip-smart high schooler who decides to put her ice-skating
dreams ahead of her academic career, much to her parents' chagrin . To convincingly play
an ice skater, Trachtenberg had to become one herself. As she revealed to People Magazine,
before beginning her training, she'd only taken one single ice skating lesson
back when she was about eight or nine. But it didn't take long for her to conquer the rink.
"Just come watch me skate, and then tell me that I should stop."
Trachtenberg was skating five days a week for about two hours per day,
while simultaneously taking ballet classes every other day. Her hard work paid off as
she was able to do an outside-edge spread eagle move for one particular shot, something that
not even all Olympic-level skaters can pull off. As she revealed to Entertainment Weekly,
"My coach said that if I was to continue ice skating after
the movie finishes, I could go on to compete."
Zac Efron is the epitome of many girls' fantasies, but not Michelle Trachtenberg's.
The two of them starred together in 2009's 17 Again, in which Efron plays a middle-aged man
who's magically transformed into his 17-year-old self and then attempts to
recapture the dreams of his youth. Trachtenberg plays his daughter who tries to seduce him,
not realizing that it's her father in teenage form. Efron was perfect for the role because
of his boyish charm, but Trachtenberg was cast for a very different reason:
her lack of chemistry with the leading man. As producer Jennifer Gibgot told SyFy Wire,
"There were certain girls that we brought in to read for that role,
and we actually had to read them together because they literally wanted to jump his
bones. So he and Michelle had no chemistry, so it worked."
"I've been in love. I've been in love with the same girl since I was 17, Maggie."
"Does she go to our school? Do I know her?"
Trachtenberg was far from insulted about the reasoning behind her casting,
as it actually helped her to be comfortable on set. She explained to SyFy Wire,
"He's my daddy, and it's weird for a father and daughter to have sexual chemistry. Personally,
Zac and I interact as brother and sister."
There are TV characters that we love, and TV characters that we hate.
But best of all are the ones that we love to hate. And Michelle Trachtenberg
relished the opportunity to play one of them as Georgina Sparks on Gossip Girl.
She plotted and schemed and looked fabulous while doing so in 28 episodes of the iconic CW show.
Georgina first shows up in Season 1 as a former friend of Serena van der Woodsen who escapes
rehab to wreak havoc on the Upper East Side. Though her original plans are quickly foiled,
she continues to cause trouble and create plenty of drama throughout the
series. While we love to hate Georgina, how did Trachtenberg feel about her?
As it turns out, she had a blast playing the bad girl. As she told Seventeen in 2009,
"[Playing bad] is definitely a lot more fun than playing the good girl. I love the reaction you
get. I never understood why some actors don't want to play villains or evil characters."
"Did you give this to anyone else?"
"No. Oh, unless you count everybody here."
In 2013, Trachtenberg proved once again that she shouldn't be underestimated when she appeared
in the National Geographic TV movie Killing Kennedy. The film tells the story of President
John F. Kennedy's final years, as well as the backstory of the man who killed him,
Lee Harvey Oswald. Trachtenberg played Oswald's wife Marina. A lot of people,
including her agents, assumed that Trachtenberg would be gunning for the role of Jackie Kennedy,
but she actually got the part that she wanted all along. And it was perfect for her, because,
as it turns out, she speaks fluent Russian! As she noted to the New York Daily News,
"Being very proud of my Russian roots,
I've wanted for almost my entire life to bring this secret talent to my work."
Trachtenberg originally learned the language from her Russian-born mother,
and she then had to work with her mom for the film to refine her dialect to
reflect the way that a woman in the late 50s and early 60s would speak Russian.
Trachtenberg doesn't just stun in front of the camera, she also rocks behind it. In 2010,
she added "producer" to her resume when she began work with The CW on a new teen show.
It was a juicy drama that she was also set to star in about a
criminology student who solves cases but also has a dark past of her own.
Sadly, that show never came to be, but Trachtenberg's producing days were far
from over, as she went on to produce and star in a 2015 web series called Guidance.
She played a guidance counselor named Anna who falls down a rabbit hole of
teen drama after discovering racy photos of a student on social media.
We don't know if Trachtenberg has any plans to produce anything in the future,
but she's clearly proud of her status as a producer, as her Twitter bio notes that she's an:
"Actress/producer/writer/believer in Unicorns."
When she isn't gracing TV screens, Michelle Trachtenberg often spends her time working
for various causes and charities. In 2009, for example, she collaborated with designer
Monica Botkier on a dark blue leather satchel and promised that 50 percent of the proceeds
would go to Oxfam. She even advertised the bag by wearing it on Gossip Girl.
Trachtenberg's charitable activities actually date back to long before she was Georgina Sparks. In
fact, she was even featured on Teen People's list of "20 Teens Who Will Change the World."
And for good reason, as she'd already worked with organizations like The Starlight Children's
Foundation and DARE Across America. She even helped launch the Coalition for Drug Free
America with then-president Bill Clinton, as she revealed in a throwback post on her
Instagram in 2014. As she declared in a 2005 interview with Radio Free,
"I think as long as one person tries to make an effort to do something,
that is changing the world in itself."
As if starring in TV shows and movies, speaking fluent Russian,
ice skating, and being active in several charitable organizations isn't enough,
Michelle Trachtenberg is also a writer. As she told Entertainment Weekly in 2016,
"My love of writing came from reading and being Harriet the Spy [...] Harriet would be proud."
Trachtenberg also noted in that interview that she's sold several projects, while adding,
"I feel like [I’m living] a Hollywood version of Harriet’s life."
She was 23 when she sold her very first writing project, which was about a serial killer
She also penned a pilot for a TV show about a woman who wants to be a writer,
as well as a period piece that's based on a true story and spans a period of about 30 years,
beginning in the 50s. Based on what she's accomplished so far,
we can't wait to see the final versions of whatever Trachtenberg is working on!
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