Hayden Panettiere didn’t want to undermine Connie Britton IRL.
Hayden was clearly concerned that life would imitate art, as his own billing for the series “increased significantly” following the pilot’s success, while Nashville’s Juliette Barnes’ rising country music career threatened the career of Rayna James, who played Connie.
“My character was never meant to be the star of the show, and it never even came close,” Hayden writes in his current memoir, This Is Me: A Reckoning. “That honor went to Connie, who was Rayna James in the twilight of her career, facing a dramatic turning point, really because of you. Juliette wasn’t necessarily Rayna’s enemy, but she was an adversary.”
However, Hayden noted that she “quickly went from probably fifth place in terms of importance to following Connie” on set, and said he was “very uncomfortable with this development.”
“I was 23 and Connie was in her 40s and had been nominated for three Emmys,” the Heroes alum continued. “This should have been her time to shine, and in many ways it was, but I was afraid to make Connie worry that she was trying to compete with Connie instead of her own character.”
