Hayden Panettiere was just 14 years old when she arrived at the audition for ‘Malcolm in the Middle’. No one was betting on her for the role of Jessica; she did not even seem to fit what they were looking for.
But Bryan Cranston, who was directing that episode and also played Hal, looked at her and told her something she never forgot: “You’re the wrong person for this, but we’ll make it work”.
Years later, in an interview with Entertainment Weekly, Panettiere confessed that this phrase was the first time she felt that someone truly believed in her.
Interestingly, her connection with Cranston went back further: in 1984, her mother, Lesley Vogel, had been his love interest on the soap opera ‘Loving’, long before their paths crossed again in front of the cameras.
A two-decade coincidence that ended up opening a door for her that she would not have been able to cross on her own.