I’ve never cried as much

Hayden Panettiere has said that the writers of Nashville drew on her real-life experiences with alcoholism for storylines, describing the process as “traumatising”.

The actress spoke to The Messenger about her perception of the way the show’s narrative developed, noting that it had a detrimental effect on her own well-being.

“Straight from the beginning, it was like, I’m dating a football player, [and then] Juliette dates a football player,” Panettiere said. “And then they turned her into an alcoholic. Then they turned to her leaving her daughter and going to this crazy [place] in Europe, and it was very obvious…They weren’t doing their homework. They weren’t creating new storylines. They were just looking at my life and going, ‘Oh, let’s just take what she’s going through and put our little spin on it.’ And then, ta-da! It’s done and done.”

The actress, who has previously been open about her struggles with addiction, added: “I didn’t have time to take care of myself [and] to think about and go through the pain I was experiencing physically [and] emotionally. I just wanted to drum it out and watch mindless television and great shows. Anything to keep my mind off of that because I knew that next day I was going to be back at it again. I was like, tear central. I don’t even think on a soap opera that I cried as much [as I did] on Nashville.”

Nashville chronicled the lives of a group of fictional country singers in the eponymous city, with Connie Britton playing the fading star Rayna Jaymes, while Panettiere’s Juliette Barnes is the rising prospect threatening to usurp her.

The show premiered on ABC in 2012, and ran on that network for four seasons before being cancelled. The Country Music Television network picked it up for two further seasons, wrapping for the final time in 2018.

Panettiere received two nominations at the Golden Globes for her role in the show. She has also starred in the superhero series Heroes, and has appeared in two recent instalments of the Scream franchise.