Michelle Trachtenberg helped a generation find their purpose

There is a whole generation of women who picked up a notebook, carefully printed out the word ‘private’ in big letters on the cover and started writing because of Michelle Trachtenberg. Playing the titular Harriet in the 1996 film Harriet the Spy, Trachtenberg was inquisitive and sharp, while always remaining endearing and lovable, as she chronicled her imagined spy adventures and (sometimes mean) thoughts about her schoolmates and friends. The film inspired so many of us to start writing and – as became clear from the tributes that have been pouring in since the announcement of the 39-year-old’s death yesterday (February 26) – it marked the beginning of many professional writers’ and journalists’ careers. 

Whether it was Harriet, or the characters that she went on to play in films and TV shows including Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Gossip Girl, Ice Princess and Mysterious Skin, a generation of young women grew up with Trachtenberg. In her short life, she created work that meant an awful lot to a lot of people. After her breakout role in Harriet the Spy, she joined the cast of Buffy as the slayer’s younger sister Dawn, a character who sometimes annoyed viewers, which was a testament to how pitch perfectly she played it. She was the ultimate younger sister who gets in the way, messes up and can be a bit bratty but who you ultimately would die for (quite literally, in Buffy’s case).

Trachtenberg brought a warmth and fierce tenacity to Dawn, and a deeply emotional vulnerability to her relationship with Sarah Michelle Gellar’s Buffy. It was a performance that seemed so effortless and natural, a character that felt so real, and Trachtenberg made it look easy. It was a quality she would bring to all her work: as Casey in Ice Princess she elevated the Disney movie to a childhood classic, while her performance in Gregg Araki’s Mysterious Skin was praised as remarkable and magical, one that stayed with you long after watching it. In 2008 she joined the cast of Gossip Girl, where she played against type in the role of villain Georgina Sparks, a gleeful agent of chaos full of delicious insults and wit. It was a character that, despite appearing in only 28 of the 121 episodes, made such an impact that she was brought back for the 2022 reboot of the series.

It’s a testament to Trachtenberg that so much of the work she created over her career was so meaningful to people. The huge place that Buffy the Vampire Slayer has in people’s hearts, for example, became clear when it was announced earlier this month that a reboot was in the works.  Of course, she was so much more than the characters she played, a real person with a life and family, friends, pets, a home of her own. That she was widely loved off-screen is clear from the outpouring of tributes from fellow cast and crew members who worked with her over the years.

There are, of course, lessons here for all of us: while the cause of her death is not yet known, there have been reports that Trachtenberg may have experienced complications following a liver transplant. In the months leading up to her death, the actor had also become the target of negative comments about her appearance by people online. The situation has drawn comparisons to the late Black Panther star Chadwick Boseman, who faced a barrage of comments about his weight before he died of cancer in 2020. This tragic news is yet another stark reminder that you never truly know what is going on in someone’s life. As we pay tribute to Trachtenberg, her life and her work, we must always remember to give each other grace.