Hayden Panettiere was already working in front of a camera before she was old enough to walk or talk.
The actress, who died Aug. 17 at age 36, began her career as a baby model at just 8 months old before booking her first commercial at 11 months. The commercial was for a Playskool toy train, marking the beginning of a career that would eventually include Heroes, Nashville, Scream and Remember the Titans.
Panettiere looked back on that unusual beginning during a 2026 interview with NPR, explaining that she started baby modeling when she was 8 months old.
“I did my first commercial when I was 11 months old,” she told the outlet. It was a Playskool toy train commercial.
She later joked that she wasn’t sure the commercial really counted as acting because she didn’t have any lines. She was simply playing with the toy.
But the commercial was only the beginning.
At 4 years old, Panettiere landed the role of Sarah Roberts on the ABC soap opera One Life to Live, beginning a run of television work that continued into Guiding Light. She played Lizzie Spaulding on the CBS soap from 1996 to 2000. The Television Academy notes that Panettiere appeared in more than 50 commercials as a child.
Her early career eventually expanded into movies and voice work. She voiced Dot in Pixar’s A Bug’s Life and appeared in Remember the Titans before becoming a household name as Claire Bennet on Heroes. She later starred as Juliette Barnes on Nashville, earning two Golden Globe nominations for the role.
Looking back, Panettiere acknowledged that growing up in the entertainment industry meant she didn’t have the same childhood as other kids. In her 2026 NPR interview, she described feeling caught between the adult world of Hollywood and the normal childhood she wanted.
Her career, however, had begun long before she could understand just how far it would take her.
RELATED: Hayden Panettiere Called Losing Custody of Daughter Kaya ‘Gut-Wrenching’ in Her Memoir