--- title: Michelle Trachtenberg Radiated Vulnerability and Joy description: On screen, the star of Buffy, Gossip Girl, and Eurotrip, who died at 39, was full of life and meltingly vulnerable. canonical: https://time.com/7262111/michelle-trachtenberg-legacy-buffy-eurotrip/ author: Stephanie Zacharek article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2025-02-26T22:08:18.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-03-10T23:51:14.012Z article:section: Entertainment og:title: Michelle Trachtenberg Radiated Vulnerability and Joy og:description: On screen, the star of Buffy, Gossip Girl, and Eurotrip, who died at 39, was full of life and meltingly vulnerable. og:url: https://time.com/7262111/michelle-trachtenberg-legacy-buffy-eurotrip/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt81e8aab7a7a5c03b/6998c46bc8dcb49730b4fe6d/Michelle-Trachtenberg-02.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: "The Lord Of The Rings: The Return Of The King" - Los Angeles Premiere og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Michelle Trachtenberg Radiated Vulnerability and Joy twitter:description: On screen, the star of Buffy, Gossip Girl, and Eurotrip, who died at 39, was full of life and meltingly vulnerable. twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt81e8aab7a7a5c03b/6998c46bc8dcb49730b4fe6d/Michelle-Trachtenberg-02.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Michelle Trachtenberg Radiated Vulnerability and Joy ## Video: Michelle Trachtenberg, Star of 'Harriet the Spy' and 'Buffy the Vampire Slayer,' Dies at 39 [Watch (HLS stream): Michelle Trachtenberg, Star of 'Harriet the Spy' and 'Buffy the Vampire Slayer,' Dies at 39](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/BLWsjA2a.m3u8) (1:16)  _Published 2025-02-26. Michelle Trachtenberg has died at the age of 39. The actor, who was best known for her breakout role on Nickelodeon's Harriet the Spy as well as later stints on Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Gossip Girl, was reportedly found dead Wednesday in her New York City apartment by her mother just after 8 a.m. local time._  by [Stephanie Zacharek](https://time.com/author/stephanie-zacharek/)  ## Stephanie Zacharek Film Critic Feb 26, 2025 10:08 PM UTC  Michelle Trachtenberg in Westwood, Calif., in 2003. Michelle Trachtenberg in Westwood, Calif., in 2003.Jon Kopaloff—FilmMagic/Getty Images  by [Stephanie Zacharek](https://time.com/author/stephanie-zacharek/)  ## Stephanie Zacharek Film Critic Feb 26, 2025 10:08 PM UTC When Michelle Trachtenberg suddenly appeared among the already-familiar cast members of Joss Whedon’s much-loved turn-of-the-21st-century TV show [_Buffy the Vampire Slayer_](https://time.com/3722132/buffy-debut-1997/)_,_ at the beginning of the fifth season, no one knew what to make of her. For one thing, her character, Dawn, was a young teenager who’d emerged from nowhere, though the implication was that she was the younger sister of the show’s heroine, Buffy Summers, played by [Sarah Michelle Gellar](https://time.com/4608633/sarah-michelle-gellar-elf-on-the-shelf/), and that she’d been there all along. Who knew Buffy had a younger sister? Exactly no one, and yet suddenly there Dawn was, eager to be accepted by her older, cooler sister and that sister’s gang of older, cooler friends. I remember that first episode with Dawn: she was an outsider, an interloper, among a group of characters who already meant a great deal to me. She was annoying. _I_ didn’t want her hanging out with Buffy and her friends. I wanted her to just go away. That feeling didn’t last long, and Whedon’s gamble—that we too would come to accept this character as family—paid off. Trachtenberg’s Dawn was so full of life, so adorably awkward and insecure, so meltingly vulnerable, that no matter how aggravating she could be, it would have been unthinkable to shut her out. If you were Dawn’s age, you related to her; if you were older, you felt, as Buffy did, protective of her. That was the magic of Michelle Trachtenberg, who [died on Feb. 26 at age 39](https://time.com/7261976/michelle-trachtenberg-dies/). Her presence in early 2000s TV—later, she would play the scheming socialite Georgina Sparks on [_Gossip Girl_](https://time.com/4948290/gossip-girl-creators-jared-kushner-ivanka-trump-cameo/)—exemplifies the hold that even secondary characters can have on us. You don’t have to be the star of the show to earn viewers’ affection and loyalty, as Trachtenberg did. **Read more:** [_Michelle Trachtenberg’s Co-Stars Pay Tribute in the Wake of Her Death_](https://time.com/7261964/michelle-trachtenberg-death-tributes-reactions/) Her career had begun long before she found her way to _Buffy:_ She’d been doing TV commercials since the age of three, and had been a regular on the Nickelodeon show _The Adventures of Pete & Pete._ At 10, she made her film debut in _Harriet the Spy_ (1996). Post-_Buffy,_ she played supporting roles in films like Greg Araki’s _Mysterious Skin_ (2005), Burr Steers’ _17 Again_ (2009) and Kevin Smith’s _Cop Out_ (2010), though her finest hour in the movie realm may be Jeff Schaffer, Alec Berg, and David Mandel’s delightful teen comedy _Eurotrip_ (2004), a seemingly throwaway picture upon its release that's now considered a not-so-secret classic. Trachtenberg plays Jenny, one-half of a set of twins who, along with some boisterous male buddies, sets off on a summer tour of Europe. The mishaps pile up: the kids get their money stolen, and realize they’re stuck in Prague with only $1.83, in American dollars, between them. Whatever will they do? Cut to Trachtenberg’s Jenny in a luxurious spa bubble bath, making the most of a preposterously favorable exchange rate. Trachtenberg, with her sunny demeanor and sly timing, was a marvelous presence in _Eurotrip_—it’s a shame she didn’t get to do more comedies. And if her years on _Buffy_ were the high point of her career, in retrospect they carry a sting: several of Trachtenberg’s fellow actresses on the show, among them Charisma Carpenter, have in recent years accused Whedon of behaving inappropriately, and often cruelly, on set. (Whedon has [denied these allegations](https://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-60036933).) [Trachtenberg said that it became a rule](https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/tv/tv-news/michelle-trachtenberg-says-joss-whedon-was-not-allowed-to-be-alone-with-her-on-buffy-4132256/) among the women that she, the youngest of them, must never be left alone with Whedon. They felt protective of her, just as the rest of us felt protective of her character. Even so, as a performer Trachtenberg radiated more than just vulnerability. She was a joyous presence too. As Dawn, she was rapturous reminder of our own adolescent enthusiasms, our eagerness to figure out our place in the world, our frustration at not being included in the activities of our older, cooler siblings and their friends. Trachtenberg spent the bulk of her teenage years playing Dawn: some _Buffy_ fans grew up with her, while others, like me, merely watched her grow up. Either way, those years are a reminder of the gifts actors leave with us, even if, in those years of just showing up on set one day after another, they were unaware they were giving us anything at all. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/7262111/michelle-trachtenberg-legacy-buffy-eurotrip/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/7262111/michelle-trachtenberg-legacy-buffy-eurotrip/"},"headline":"Michelle Trachtenberg Radiated Vulnerability and Joy","datePublished":"2025-02-26T22:08:18.000Z","dateModified":"2026-03-10T23:51:14.012Z","description":"On screen, the star of Buffy, Gossip Girl, and Eurotrip, who died at 39, was full of life.","url":"https://time.com/7262111/michelle-trachtenberg-legacy-buffy-eurotrip/","keywords":["remembrance","culturepod"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt81e8aab7a7a5c03b/6998c46bc8dcb49730b4fe6d/Michelle-Trachtenberg-02.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Stephanie Zacharek","jobTitle":"Film Critic","url":"https://time.com/author/stephanie-zacharek/"}],"articleSection":"Entertainment","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt81e8aab7a7a5c03b/6998c46bc8dcb49730b4fe6d/Michelle-Trachtenberg-02.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"\"The Lord Of The Rings: The Return Of The King\" - Los Angeles Premiere","caption":"\"The Lord Of The Rings: The Return Of The King\" - Los Angeles Premiere","creditText":"Jon Kopaloff—FilmMagic/Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/entertainment/","name":"Entertainment"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/remembrance/","name":"remembrance"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/7262111/michelle-trachtenberg-legacy-buffy-eurotrip/","name":"Michelle Trachtenberg Radiated Vulnerability and Joy"}}]},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"VideoObject","name":"Michelle Trachtenberg, Star of 'Harriet the Spy' and 'Buffy the Vampire Slayer,' Dies at 39","description":"Michelle Trachtenberg has died at the age of 39. 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