Hayden Panettiere has appeared in many memorable projects over the years, but there’s one show she’s bummed to have missed out on.
“There was one audition I was supposed to do for Landman,” she exclusively shares in the latest issue of Us Weekly. “[My former Heroes costar] Ali Larter‘s role is what I was reading for, and as much as I wanna work with Taylor Sheridan — who’s just genius and, the creation of his characters and their relationships and stuff, he really is a genius — I was like, ‘There’s no way I am getting this.’”
Panettiere, 35, notes that she regrets not auditioning and seeing where the process took her. “I have to be careful to not pigeonhole myself as an actor,” she shares. “[I have to] not judge what I am capable of or judge what others think that I know what others are gonna be looking for. You have to go for it. I’m just trying not to get out of my own way. … I can be a fool sometimes for not just doing it.”
Following her memorable run as country singer Juliette Barnes on the TV series Nashville, Panettiere took a step back from acting until reprising her iconic horror character Kirby Reed in 2023’s Scream VI. The hiatus is something she tells Us she “desperately needed,” but Panettiere admits she was worried about jumping back into the acting world.
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“I went four years without really having to memorize the dialogue constantly. That muscle atrophied a little and when I first stepped back in, it scared me a little,” she says.
“I was like, ‘Oh, my God. Am I ever gonna get that muscle back?’ Because that’s what it is, a muscle that you have to exercise. And slowly but surely, it has come back. And especially on this [upcoming] project I did, Sleepwalker, I felt like I was finally back to being myself.”
Panettiere tells Us that she loves roles where she can be a “chameleon,” something she got to do in her new film A Breed Apart. The horror comedy — which also stars Grace Caroline Currey, Virginia Gardner, Riele Downs and more — sees Panettiere go toe-to-toe against a hoard of mean-eating dogs on a private island.
“One of the biggest things that drew me to this character was the action,” she says of her character. “It’s fun. You get to be physical. I get to use my athleticism. … I got to fly a helicopter and do some fighting with non-existent animals that weren’t there, and there was humor in it too. There’s a lot of humor in it.”
After playing many memorable kid and teen roles over the years, Panettiere says she’s happy to focus on more mature, “multilayered” roles in the current era of her career.
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“I’ve never been this version of me, I’ve never been as OK with being who I am without feeling the need to apologize for anything,” she tells Us. “I feel like I’ve finally earned the right to an opinion. I’m finally at the age where I feel like I’ve earned a right to an opinion and being listened to and not just brush[ed] aside like I’m a young kid [that] doesn’t know what they’re talking about.”
Inspired by the “very different part of my life,” Panettiere teases that she’s currently working on an autobiography. “I feel hopeful for the future,” she adds. “I’m excited for people to see both of these projects and, and to keep going.”
A Breed Apart premieres in theaters and on demand Friday, May 16.
