Hayden Panettiere has laid bare the price being a child star had on her ability to connect with her peers — as well as the 'identity crisis' working on camera sparked at age 12. Now aged 36, Panettiere had a childhood unlike any other, with time spent both on the film set and at school. It was a world her classmates were unable to understand, and one that made her feel like an outsider in the lunchroom.
The painful memories were resurrected by Panettiere as she discussed her new memoir, This Is Me: A Reckoning, during a discussion at Harmony Gold in Hollywood on Tuesday — where she recalled the dread of having to find a place to sit in the cafeteria. 'Anyone else struggle with the lunch room, finding a table?' she asked. 'I remember thinking, "Maybe I can get through the day if I just don't have to choose a place to sit in the lunchroom."'
Even once Panettiere found a place to sit, she still struggled to connect with them due to the frequent interruptions work had on her schooling. 'Because I was on set, I'd missed out on so much,' she said. 'You're sitting there going, "Well, let me tell you about my day on set!"... Who can relate? Nobody could relate at that age.'
Panettiere shot to fame in 2006 aged 17 playing Claire Bennet — a high-school cheerleader who can spontaneously regenerate — on Heroes. But she had been on camera since she was a baby, landing her first role at just 11 months for a Playskool toy train. The consistent acting jobs also took a toll on her. Constantly shifting from real life to a character sparked an 'identity crisis' in Panettiere at just age 12. 'I had my first identity crisis. I remember exactly where I was standing, I was standing in my bedroom at 12 years old, and I was existing either playing characters or in and out of an audition room,' she said. The audition room 'can be the most brutal experience,' she said, 'like this dark cold room, and just this row of people judging you.'
Her discomfort with Hollywood's ruthless work ethic continued into adulthood. While heavily pregnant with daughter Kaya on the set of Miss Julia, she claimed she was asked to hold a bathroom break as they had just finished setting up the scene. 'I remember being doing a scene on Miss Julia, and I was like about to pop pregnant, and they wrote in that I'm doing yoga, okay?' she recalled. 'And I finally, after all day, I'm like, "I have to go 10 one", which is how we say we have to go to the bathroom. And I remember looking at the first AD going like "Please, she's dancing on my bladder", and he just looked at me and goes, "But we're set up, can you just hold it?" And I was like "Okay".' Panettiere said she decided to comply as she felt 'that was gonna get me to the bathroom faster than having the argument of that "This is wildly inappropriate."'
After appearing in commercials when she was a baby, the actress was cast as Sarah Roberts in the soap opera One Life To Live. She portrayed the character from 1994 through 1997. Beginning in 1996, she started to play the role of Lizzie Spaulding in another soap opera titled Guiding Light. The actress gained more recognition when she became a main cast member in the series Heroes from 2006 to 2010. Two years later, she portrayed the character of Juliette Barnes on the show Nashville. However, the star also made appearances on the big screen in films such as Bring It On: All Or Nothing (2006), I Love You, Beth Cooper (2009) and Scream VI (2023). In her new memoir, This Is Me: A Reckoning, Panettiere details the uncomfortable and disturbing experiences from her early career in Hollywood. The book, which debuted on May 19, takes a look at her battles with alcoholism, depression, abusive relationships and the intense pressures of growing up in the entertainment industry.
