March Celebrity of the Month: Michelle Trachtenberg

From AOL - by Ann Huber - March 2001

Introducing our March Celebrity of the Month: Michelle Trachtenberg. You probably recognize her as Buffy's little sister, Dawn. You may also remember her as the lead in Harriet the Spy or as Penny in Inspector Gadget. But the most impressive thing about Michelle isn't her resume -- it's her supercool attitude.

You see, we offered to take Michelle shopping on Melrose where she could drown in the hippest clothes on the planet. But she wanted to share something else with us: her favorite store, the Heritage Book Shop. The Heritage isn't your typical bookstore. It specializes in rare, antique books. You can't get a cappuccino there, but you can see the first published collection of Shakespeare. (Watch the video for the tour.)

Want to collect antique books too? You can start by trying to win a gift pack from Michelle that includes a rare edition of L. Frank Baum's "The Land of Oz" (signed by the illustrator) and a catalogue of the Heritage Book Shop (signed by Michelle). Just answer this trivia question: What is Dorothy's last name? Send your responses to EntAsylum@aol.com and you'll be entered in the contest! (See contest rules.) Note: The contest entries were accepted March 1st through 21st, 2001.

After our tour through the bookshop, we asked Michelle a few questions about her hobby.

EntAsylum: What was the first book you ever read?
Michelle: It was probably "The BFG (big friendly giant)."

EntAsylum: Do you think it's geeky to love books so much?
Michelle: Anyone who reads books is just enriched. You're open to a world of all different things and you're constantly learning. And you can go to sleep and you're dreaming about what you read. So it's totally fun. And book readers are not geeks ... but geeks are cool too!

EntAsylum: How has literature inspired Buffy The Vampire Slayer?
Michelle: We have different quotes from different things. We have, like, Hogwarts references, which is the school that Harry [Potter] goes to. We all love literature and we all love to learn and read.

EntAsylum: Do you have a favorite book? One that's changed your life?
Michelle: I think it's really hard to pick a certain book that's changed my life because so many books have influenced me in so many ways. I loved "A Tree Grows in Brooklyn," which is not a very famous book but it's a wonderful story about a girl growing up in Brooklyn -- where I'm from. And then there's "Jane Eyre," where women have confidence. It's my second favorite book right after "A Tree Grows in Brooklyn." It's so like, "Go women!"

EntAsylum: Is there a book you'd like to see turned into a movie?
Michelle: There are a bunch of books out there that would make wonderful movies. I would love to play Tinkerbell one day. Of course, it's very hard to take a book and make it into a screenplay. When I did Harriet the Spy, one of the big reasons I wanted to do it was because it was almost exactly to the book. And girl power again. She was such a determined character that I absolutely loved it.