Starbursts artical on Michelle Trachenberg(Jan 2001)

MICHELLE
TRACHTENBERC

The Key to all the secrets in Sunnydale, Starburst
tracked down Butty’s sister, Michelle Trachtenberg

THE IDEA of joining the cast of Buffy the
Vampire Slayer, one of her favroite TV
shows on the air, excited her The concept
of playing the character of Dawn. younger
sister of Sarah Michelle GeIlars Buffy sounded
just great. After all, Trachtenberg and Gellar
were old friends, having worked together on the
soap opera All My Children. Still, swell as it all
promised to be, so much also could go .wrong.
"I was wondering a little bit about how the fans
could accept Dawn, admits Trachtenberg. who
made her memorable debut [“Mom’!!] as Dawn in
the coda of Buffy Vs. Dracula. the fifth-season
opener. The first couple of episodes. people
weren’t quite sure who she really was So they
were a little skeptical. Immediately after the
explanation episode they understood who Dawn
was and they began to respect her and began to
really love her storyline. She was Buffy s new
mission. She is what Buffy has to deal with for the
fifth season. She has to protect Dawn. otherwise
it’s pretty much the end of the world. So the fans
were very curious as to all of Dawns secrets.
but, of course, I was not able to tell them. At least
I got their interest sparked, which was exactly
what we wanted to do. When you create a new
character, especially on Butty, theres always a lot
of ‘Hmm, who is this person? What does she add
to the show?’ But Joss does his storylines so
wonderfully that new characters are explained
and the viewers accepct it.

“There were a lot of episodes so far that were
great, episodes that were about Dawn and episoded
that were not about Dawn. Blood Ties was Dawn —
being who she is, the Key and everythrng— getting
a little suspicious of all the whisoers garç r
around her It’s her putting two and two together.
She’s tying to understand and cope. Real Me and
No Place Like Home were probly the two big ones
for me. No Place Like Home was great because I,
myself, got to find out what Dawn really is. Before
that I did not know. I just knew that Dawn was not
what she looked to be It was fun to try to deceive
the audience. Is Dawn evil, Is Dawn good? With
every scene we were trying to trick the audience.
You saw her with a cup of tea. Is there something
poisonous in there? Am I the one poisoning Mom
(Kristine Sutherland]? In the end you found out
that I wasn’t And I love the way Buffy accepted
Dawn as her sister in the end In all sense, Dawn
is human. She is what she is. but she’s been molded
into human form. She is now Buffy’s sister and all
of her memories are true because everyone accepts
them to be true.

Adolescent secrets
Wait a second, though. Is the 15-year-old actress
really saying that series creator/producer/writer
Joss Whedon didn’t give her details about Dawn,
wouldn’t tell her what was in store, and failed to
explain Dawn’s role in the bigger picture?‘At the
beginning, I had a meeting with Joss to talk about
how Dawn would develop and what the character
was like,” Trachtenberg explains. ‘The meeting
was rather short because pretty much all Joss
could say was, ‘She’s a normal teenage girl. She
has crushes and opinions. blah-blah-blah. She has
all the traumas that 14-year-old must go through
But she has a little secret. All I can tell you right
now is that she’s this force. She’s this energy.
We don’t know the details, but have fun.’
“So it was interesting to develop Dawn. That’s
where Joss’s brilliance stems from. When he gets
an idea, he doesn’t know where he’s going to take
it, but then he just starts to develop I think a
little bit of that rubbed off on me in the sense that
I just kind of believed that Dawn was who she was.
I wasn’t going to do anything very mucn different
from myself because Dawn ann I are both very
outgoing, both very opinionated and not shy
whatsoever. We also both have older sisters, so
we know the whole thing about sisters bickering a
little bit here and there. So I just based Dawn on a
normal teenage girl. Then, as facts about her
started unraveling, I could add a little bit of this in
there and a little bit of that in there I added a little
bit of paranoia, in the sense that, ‘Why are all
the people having such odd reactions to me’?”’
And make no mistake, those reactions were well
founded. As the Key, Dawn is the be all and end all
of the future. In other words, without her safe and
sound, there is no future. Keeping her safe and
sound falls, of course, to the already put-upon
Slayer. However, Buffy has had to tread carefully
around Dawn. She’s just a kid, or so she thinks.
Why crush her? or expose her to danger7 And, as
Buffy’s gotten usend to the sister act she and Dawn
have not only fought like sisters, but in Listening
to Fear, they dealt with the emotinal fallout of
Joyce’s illness like genuine siblings.

Surrogate slayer
When fans discuss Dawn, they often debate
impact of the character’s arrival on Bully
Technically speaking and strange as it me, sound.
however Dawn has made no impact whatsoever
on Buffy. The way Joss has done it. Buffy has
always known Dawn,” Trachtenberg argues. The
Monk tweaked with everyones's mind so that Dawn
was there always. But as a viewer. Dawn has
made Buffy a little more protective of her family, a
little more aware of whats going on at home.
Going back to the idea Dawn is Buffy’s new
mission. Buffy has become very, very protective
and almost motherly to Dawn While Mom has
been sick. Buffy has taken on the role of mother
and is taking care of Dawn dealing with her
maturity. Hecause of Dawr you’ve gotten to see a
more sensitive side of Buffy
And because of Butty the Vampire Slayer,
audiences have gotten to see a lot more of
Trachtenberg. The talentec young actress, who
was born and raised in New York City, began her
career in TV commercials, appearing in more than
100 of them. She then turned up as a regular in
the serise The Adventures of Pete and Pete, as
well as in the short-lived sd-fl sitcom Meego,
making guest appearances on the likes of Law and
Order and Space Cases. Among her big screen
credits are Harriet the Spy. Inspector Gadget
and Snow Day And we won’t even mention the
made-for-video outing Richie Rich’s Christmas
Wish. Movies, she observes, are quite diifferent
from TV shows. And, to be sure, Buffy is different
from her previous TV ventures. “in movies, you
only have two hours to relate this one story and
you can really only have one storyline going on,
she explains. “In a series, you have the same
series for x-amount of years. five so far in Buffy’s
case, and every week you have a new storyline for
the characters to go through. In our case, its an
hour show, so it’s almost ltke they are mini-movies
that are running for years. Buffy is shot very
much like a film, so the experience of making Buffy,
is almost exactly like making a movie I
almost like Buffy a !ittle bit more because
I get to see where the characters are
going much faster I don’t have to wait
until the sequel comes out. I just
have to wait until next Tuesday

Living daylights
Trachtenberg sticks to the party
line so far as revealing future
storylines, which is to say she’ll
say nothing at all about them.
However, the actress expresses
a desire to return next season, to
learn more about her character
end to keep fans guessing about
Dawn’s origins, powers, inten-
tions and motivations. All in all,
she’s having a Hellmouth of a
good time; “I’ve been able to do
a little bit of comedy, a little bit
of drama, a little bit of sarcasm
here end there.’ she says,
bringing the conversation to a
close. “I’ve gotten to play the
insecure teen and the confident
teen, I’ve gotten to play the scene
when I say, Hmmm, look at me. Am
I evil? Nope, I’m just mad at my
sister.’ I’ve gotten to have a lot of
fun with my character, which I’m very
fortunate to be able to say A lot
of actors, when they get a show,
start out with a character they love.
But then they just become bored with
it. I’m not bored with Dawn and I don’t
think ill ever be bored with her There are
so many holes in Dawn’s mind
that I haven’t even jumped into yet, I
know that I’m talking about Dawn like
she was a person, but she is. She lives in
TV world , but the way to develop a
carrracter is to believe that she is you when
you are in front of the camera It’s all very exsiting
Dawn is new and fresh and I’ve still got
so much of her to show the audience.”