Buffy Star's Dual Life

Think being an apprentice Scooby on Buffy the Vampire Slayer looks like hard work? Try being a rising starlet, says Michelle Trachtenberg, who plays the Chosen One's kid sis Dawn. Not that the just-turned-17-year-old is complaining, of course, but between hitting the books and dusting blood-suckers, she often winds up feeling drained. "It's very strenuous," she admits to TV Guide Online. "I would never deny that it's a lot of things to have on a plate."

But she's not griping — no way, no how. She knows that, in these, her formative years, her future as a college coed is at stake as well as her prospects for a longterm showbiz career. "I guess I'm hungry for it — I love to pile a lot of things on," she insists. "I love being in front of the camera, and education is very important to me, too, so I couldn't give either of them up."

If the whippersnapper did have a quibble — and we're not saying that she does — it would only be that her peer group doesn't understand the rigors of her dual life. "I've met kids my age, younger and older, and they're like, 'Oh, congratulations — you're in such a glamorous business,'" she remarks, sighing. "But y'know, it's not that glamorous if you actually stop for a minute and think about it. There are tons of sacrifices."

And absolutely, positively, that was not grumbling that you heard, not from this junior achiever. Uh-uh. "I'm very lucky," she concludes, "to have the best of every world. I talk to my friends via e-mail and I get to see them over the weekends, and my sister takes me out often to go shopping and to the movies; I'm getting a wonderful education and working a full-time job; and I also have time to crash in front of the TV occasionally."