Hayden Panettiere Offers Young Actors Some Crucial Advice While Reflecting on Her Hollywood Return

May 26, 2025

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Disney’s Remember the Titans is celebrating its 25th anniversay this year, believe it or not. And that firecracker of a young girl who called her daddy “Coach” throughout the hit movie? Yes, that was Hayden Panettiere, who has kept busy with a variety of other projects in the years since. That includes a pair of Scream films and the wildly popular series Nashville. Fans might forever know her as Juliette Barnes from the drama series centered on country music stars — and since Panettiere herself is a celebrity, she would later speak about how the story of Nashville even mirrored her own life at times.

Hayden Panettiere is an established Hollywood actress with a career spanning thirty years, having first rose to prominence in Pixar’s A Bug’s Life.

In the years following the show’s conclusion, the actress took a break from Hollywood and has since discussed her four-year hiatus. MovieWeb recently caught up with Panetierre amid the release of her new film, A Breed Apart, one of the first projects since her break, and the celebrated performer took time to share more about her time off, as well as offering some sage advice to today’s young actors.

“I certainly had no plan to take four years off, but the schedule on Nashville was grueling — I mean, 10 months out of the year, super-long days,” Panettiere told MovieWeb. “There are amazing parts, and then you just get so exhausted. And by the end of the season, I mean, you could tell that the crew is like — we’re barely holding it together. But that break was definitely good for my psyche and to have time to really focus on me and my health. And growing up and being a child actor in this industry, you learn pretty quickly to just become a yes man. If somebody tells you to jump, you jump. If somebody tells you to wear this, you wear that. And you can very easily lose yourself in that noise.”

“So, my advice to any young actor and actress is to always stand up for themselves and know when to say, ‘No, that’s too much.’ It doesn’t mean you failed… You shouldn’t feel guilty. Our health is important, and I think it gets put on the back-burner sometimes, you know, a lot. So yeah, just stand up. I think more and more people are, and young females are calling people out and standing up for themselves. And that’s really amazing to see.”

Hayden Panettiere Is an All-New Action Hero in ‘A Breed Apart’

Hayden Panettiere as Claire Bennet on Heroes

Hayden Panettiere leaps into action as an all-new action hero in her new movie A Breed Apart. Watch her battle rabid dogs on a remote island with a helicopter and an array of heavy-duty weapons. Since the ravenous nature of the canines was pulled off using special effects, that means Panettiere’s scenes mainly involved her literally punching the thin air. She opened up to MovieWeb about the unique production process:

“It definitely feels awkward at times. You know, you really have to use your imagination… When I got there that day, I learned the choreography of that fight, so I knew that I didn’t have time to mess it up, and I had to get it right. I didn’t know what it was gonna look like when all was said and done, or if I looked like I was, you know, punching correctly and looked whether I was gonna look like a badass or I was gonna look, like, goofy. So I just had to go with it. I just had to run with it and make it as fun as I could. And I think the scene, you know, came together really well. I was proud of myself. Like, thank god I have a history of stunt work.”

From Lionsgate, A Breed Apart is now available in theaters, on demand and on digital.