Now, we all know Dawn was not a very widely beloved character, but how did Trachtenberg feel about her? It’s safe to say the actress has mixed feelings about her involvement in the series, given her complicated relationship to the “Buffy” creator, but does she reject the show? And, more specifically, is she a member of the sparsely populated Dawn fan club?
Even before she joined the cast, Trachtenberg loved “Buffy.” At her audition, she gushed about her love of one character in particular — and her chic whimsigoth wardrobe. “I was a fan first, I was a huge fan of the show,” she recalled at a 2017 cast reunion with People. “I went and read for Joss and Marti [Noxon, writer-producer] again, and it was like three pages. And I was like, ‘I really like Willow, she has really cool clothes and stuff.’ […] But I was a fan. It was really prevalent throughout my whole school, how big ‘Buffy’ was in influence.”
She might have been a huge fan of “Buffy,” but “Buffy” lovers were not huge fans of her character. In fact, the actress is still hearing about how unlikeable Dawn is to this day.
“I still get comments like, ‘Oh my God! I think Dawn is so annoying!'” she revealed to Entertainment Weekly in 2017. “I get it. It’s fine. It used to be a 60-40 ‘I hate Dawn.’ Then, it became 50-50. Now, I think it’s 60-40 being supportive of Dawn. Maybe even 70-30.”
Despite the backlash, Trachtenberg has come to appreciate and understand the whininess of Dawn that viewers hate so much. “Hi, were you a teenager?” she added. “Oh, you were docile, sitting in the corner, doe-eyed and happy to be there? No. There’s a reason why teenagers have a stigma and that is what Joss wrote.”