Famous for her roles in the Scream Franchise, as the ambitious country-pop singer Juliette Barnes on Nashville, and cheerleader Claire Bennet on Heroes, Hayden Panettiere has been acting since before she could walk.
It all started about 35 years ago when she first appeared in a commercial at eleven months old for a Playskool toy train. She later went on to follow in her mother, Lesley Vogel’s, soap opera footsteps in 1994 when she played Sarah Roberts in One Life to Live until 1997. She played Lizzie Spaulding in The Guiding Light from 1996 to 2000, and it’s been an upward trajectory ever since.
Panettiere currently stars opposite Beverly D’Angelo in Sleepwalker, a psychological thriller from Leonardo DiCaprio’s APPIAN WAY and Verdi Productions, about an artist haunted by the traumatic loss of her daughter in a car accident that leaves her abusive husband in a coma.
It’s common horror ground for the diminutive actress and singer, who starred opposite Neve Campbell, Courteney Cox, and Emma Roberts in Scream 4 and recently reprised her role in the newest installment in the franchise, Scream VI.
“It’s one of those genres that once you get your hands on and feet into, the opportunities start coming up,” the Golden Globe nominee tells LA Weekly. “Those are my favorite kinds of films that I love to watch. Those who like this genre are avid, dedicated fans, and I just love getting people on the edge of their seats.”
In addition to starring in the film, which was completed in a breakneck speed of 15 days, Panettiere also got her feet wet and hands dirty in the production end of things, another aspect of the business she is exploring next. Directing is also on the horizon.
“As an actor, I thrive on creativity,” she says. “I got to produce and use the whole arsenal of things I’ve learned over the past 35 years. I jumped into anything they’d let me be involved in. Working directly with hair, makeup, and wardrobe, and the physicality of a character, helped me as an actor get out of myself. Blocking – I love figuring out how to coordinate those dances and what’s going to look the best on camera, and how the equipment operates. That way, when they go in and edit, they have a lot to work with. I love working with the actors and figuring out the best way for a scene to unfold and when to bring in the proper emotions.”
Working with the seasoned D’Angelo on Sleepwalker made the experience that much more fulfilling.
“When Beverly walked into the wardrobe room the first day I met her, we put our faces together in the mirror, and I was actually surprised that she had never played my mom before,” says Panettiere, who was the narrator and the voice of Princess Dot in 1998’s A Bug’s Life. “I don’t think anyone has ever been physically as perfectly cast as she is in that role. We look so similar and have similar personalities too.”
Those highs as well as some lows, including her battles with postpartum depression after the birth of her daughter, Kaya Evdokia Klitschko, addiction, and romantic hurdles, will be detailed in her no-holds-barred memoir coming out this year.
“I’ve been writing the book for about a year and a half, which has been a very therapeutic and cathartic experience,” says the mother of 11-year-old Kaya. “It’s not easy to find the courage to put your entire life down on paper and share it with the world and be judged. I hope sharing my stories might make people feel less alone in their own journeys. It’s definitely been a learning curve. I touch on anything and everything; it’s very honest. If you’re going to share, you’ve got to share it all. It’s as scary as it is exhilarating.”
Panettiere, whose favorite Hollywood memory was her role in the film Remember the Titans opposite newcomers Ryan Gosling and Donald Faison as a 10-year-old, admits that might be too tender an age to read her book.
“She’d have questions about it,” she says of her champion equestrian daughter. “There are some lessons in there that I’m not sure I want to share with an 11-year-old yet, but there will come a time when she will be old enough to read it and learn from them. I hope I don’t embarrass her too much.
“There have been so many people in my life over the years who told my story for me, and I’m just grateful to have the opportunity to finally put my story out there in my own words.”
