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Michelle Christine Trachtenberg (born October 11, 1985) is an American television and film actress, known for her roles on Nickelodeon in both television and a movie as well as Dawn Summers in the television series Buffy the Vampire Slayer in the later seasons. A New York based child actor who had her juiciest chance as the title role in the 1996 feature film "Harriet the Spy", Michelle Trachtenberg moved into primetime series in the fall of 1997 playing one of three children who choose the extraterrestrial Bronson Pinchot to be their nanny on "Meego". Trachtenberg has been acting since the age of four, when she broke into the business the way so many other kid actors have through TV commercials. By the time she was eight, Trachtenberg was appearing regularly on the Nickelodeon series "The Adventures of Pete & Pete" and also did two years in the recurring role of the autistic Lily Montgomery on the daytime drama "All My Children". Trachtenberg was born in New York City in a Jewish family, the youngest of two daughters to Lana, a manager, and Michael Trachtenberg, an engineer. Her father is American and her mother was born in Russia and Trachtenberg can speak Russian fluently. Her family celebrates both Christmas and Hanukkah, her grandparents live in Israel. Trachtenberg was raised, along with older sister Irene, in Sheepshead Bay in Brooklyn and attended P.S. 99 Elementary School and Bay Academy Junior High School. Trachtenberg made her first television appearance at the age of three, in a commercial for Wisk Detergent. She went on to feature in over 100 more commercials. She appeared in her first credited role as Nona F. Mecklenberg in The Adventures of Pete & Pete from 1994 until 1996. During the same period she played Lily Montgomery in All My Children, in which she first worked with future Buffy star Sarah Michelle Gellar. She made her TV-movie debut in "Christmas in My Hometown" (1996) and has also guest starred on "Law & Order". But it was as the fearless investigator being nurtured by Rosie O'Donnell in "Harriet the Spy" Nickelodeon's first feature film that Trachtenberg joined the ranks of viable kid star performers. Her profile was raised higher in 2000, when she joined the cast of the popular cult series "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" in its last season on (2000-01). playing the title character's hitherto unknown sister Dawn. When the series jumped network to UPN in the fall of 2001, Trachtenberg was along, continuing to assist her older sibling in the fight against supernatural creatures. In 1999, she appeared as Penny in “Inspector Gadget”, the live-action rendition of the popular cartoon. After traipsing the Old World in the long forgotten teen sex comedy “Eurotrip”, she starred in “Ice Princess” (2005) as a high school student who puts her Harvard ambitions on hold to pursue dreams of becoming a champion ice skater. Trachtenberg's film career began in 1996 with the lead role in Harriet the Spy. She then returned to television for Meego, for which she won a Young Artist Award. She returned to film in 1999 for Inspector Gadget, as the gadget-master's niece, Penny. She also starred in the film Can't Be Heaven. In the summer of 2000, Trachtenberg took up the role of Dawn Summers in Buffy the Vampire Slayer. She remained in the role until the show ended in 2003. After Buffy, she returned to film in the comedy movie EuroTrip, co-starring Scott Mechlowicz, Jacob Pitts and Travis Wester and directed by Jeff Schaffer. She also had a recurring role in the HBO series Six Feet Under as Celeste, a spoiled pop star for whom Keith Charles served as a bodyguard. In March 2005, Trachtenberg played the title character in Walt Disney Pictures' family comedy/drama Ice Princess with Kim Cattrall. In this film, Trachtenberg plays a science whiz named Casey Carlyle who gives up her future academic life in order to chase her newfound dream of being a professional figure skater. In November 2006, Trachtenberg guest starred in the sixth season of the Emmy-nominated crime drama Law & Order: Criminal Intent. In the episode "Weeping Willow", she played the role of Willow, a kidnapped video blogger based on lonelygirl15. Trachtenberg also made a cameo in the Fall Out Boy music video for "This Ain't a Scene, It's an Arms Race" (with "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" costar Seth Green), Joaquin Phoenix-directed video "Tired of Being Sorry" for Balthazar Getty's band Ringside, and Trapt's video "Echo". She was recently cast as the female lead in an ABC comedy pilot called The Hill, set in Washington, D.C. Trachtenberg provided the voice of Tika Waylan for Dragonlance: Dragons of Autumn Twilight, a direct-to-video animated movie based on the novel of the same name. Trachtenberg now appears on the CW hit show Gossip Girl as Georgina Sparks, who recently left rehab and brings back the dark past Serena van der Woodsen desperately wants to leave behind. The recurring role will continue through next season. Michelle will continue to work on films as well. In 2008 she is starring in the movie 17 Again, along with Zac Efron. |
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