Panettiere in arguably her most famous role, Juliette Barnes on 'Nashville.' Mark Levine/Disney General Entertainment Content/Getty Images From her first TV role in the daytime soap One Life to Live at the age of five, Hayden Panettiere proved she was born to be onscreen. A precocious child star who grew into a magnetic actor on the big and small screen, she graduated from Disney fare to brassy teen queen roles and dramatic performances. She was a part of animated hits like A Bug’s Life, sitcom juggernauts like Ally McBeal, and more. Panettiere was working so much for so long that when she died on Sunday at just 36 years old, she left behind a staggering resume of nearly 60 credits. Here are six performances that shouldn’t be missed.
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‘Remember the Titans’ (2000)
Image Credit: ©Buena Vista Pictures/Everett Collection Disney’s Remember the Titans featured several future stars, including Ryan Gosling, Scrubs’ Donald Faison, and Panettiere, who was just 10 years old when she landed the role of the spunky football-obsessed tomboy Sheryl Yoast, daughter to T.C. Williams High School assistant coach Bill Yoast (Will Patton). The film, based on the real-life story of an integrated high school football team in 1971 Virginia, starred Patton and Denzel Washington as two coaches navigating racial tension in the South — and Sheryl was angry on her daddy’s behalf after he was demoted and replaced by Washington. With her thick Southern accent and mess of curly blonde braids and baseball tees, Panettiere was responsible for many of the film’s comedic moments, and has a heartfelt arc as Sheryl eventually warms up to Washington and offers him her takes on strategy (and hilariously refuses to be girly with his daughter, saying, “I don’t play with dolls”). In her memoir This Is Me: A Reckoning, Panettiere recalled almost not getting the part because she was deemed the pretty “JonBenét Ramsey type,” which made her even more determined to nail the audition. She also described the job as the “biggest role” of her life. “It was the happiest I’d ever felt as an actor,” she wrote. “If I could go back and do it all over again, I would in a heartbeat.” —Angie Martoccio
