Justin Chatwin says the Hayden Panettiere he came to know while making her final movie seemed different from the young actress he had crossed paths with years earlier.
Chatwin worked opposite Panettiere in Sleepwalker, the psychological thriller filmed in 2025 and released in January 2026. One day after her death at 36, he told PEOPLE that the two became close during production and that Panettiere spoke candidly with him about addiction, trauma and difficult periods in her life.
Although Chatwin remembered her as warm, authentic and enjoyable to work with, he said he also felt she was struggling beneath the professionalism she brought to the set.
“I really loved working with her,” he said, “but I also know that she was really lonely.” His comments offer one costar’s perspective on Panettiere during the final stretch of her acting career.
Chatwin Says Panettiere Opened Up During ‘Sleepwalker’
Chatwin said he and Panettiere “hit it off great” while filming Sleepwalker in the winter of 2025. The actors had met in passing years earlier, when Panettiere was starring on Heroes, but they had not developed much of a personal relationship. Panettiere herself said in a January interview that she had previously met Chatwin but did not know him as well as some of her other Sleepwalker costars.
Working together on the film changed that. “We hit it off great and it was an awesome shoot,” Chatwin told PEOPLE. Panettiere played Sarah Pangborn, an artist struggling with the death of her daughter in a car crash that also left her abusive husband in a coma. As Sarah’s sleepwalking intensifies, she begins experiencing frightening visions and has increasing difficulty distinguishing reality from nightmare. Chatwin played Michael Anders.
Chatwin said the film’s domestic abuse themes appeared to resonate personally with Panettiere. “It was about domestic abuse and it was subject matter that may have hit close to home, because she did mention it,” he said. “She opened up to me about a lot of things.”
Panettiere had previously spoken publicly about surviving domestic violence as well as addiction and other traumatic experiences, and she addressed those subjects extensively in her 2026 memoir, This Is Me: A Reckoning. Chatwin said Panettiere told him about rehab and the “struggles that she’s had with trauma” early in the process of making the film.
He could relate to part of that experience personally. Chatwin told PEOPLE that he has been sober for 15 years and therefore understood something about the world of addiction that Panettiere was describing.
He Says She Seemed Different From the Person He Remembered
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Chatwin told PEOPLE that Panettiere appeared different from the person he remembered encountering during her earlier years in Hollywood. “Hayden seemed different when I met her this time than when I met her in the early years,” he said.
Chatwin connected some of what he observed to an entertainment industry that he believes can take a particularly heavy toll on people who begin working young. “I’ve been sober for 15 years, so I know this world of addiction, and Hollywood, it takes, and it takes from youth,” he said.
He also recalled sensing that whatever Panettiere was dealing with extended beyond the emotionally difficult film they were making. “I could tell she was struggling, and I was like, ‘I don’t think it’s this movie,’” Chatwin said.
According to Page Six, Chatwin emphasized that Panettiere was sweet and professional on set and described her as someone with “a beautiful heart.” He said actors become accustomed to being “on” while working, but what he particularly valued were moments when Panettiere dropped that professional layer around him. “She was delightful and super open and we had a great time together,” Chatwin said.
He added that he enjoyed spending time with her because “she took that off” and was authentic with him about her life and her struggles with addiction. “And who knows where it comes from?” he said. “Does it come from Hollywood? Does it come from home? And a lot of times, it’s both.”
Panettiere Said ‘Guilt and Loss’ Helped Her Connect With the Film
Chatwin’s recollection is only one perspective on Panettiere’s experience making Sleepwalker. Before her death, Panettiere spoke for herself about why the film appealed to her and how she approached its difficult material. In a January interview with Moviefone, she said she was attracted to layered characters who had experienced trauma.
“Guilt and loss, they’re topics that I’m familiar with, so I had a lot to pull from from my real life,” Panettiere said. The production moved at an unusually fast pace. Panettiere said the movie was shot in just 15 days, leaving the cast and crew to move quickly through material she described as very dark.
She nevertheless emphasized that the people around her helped prevent that darkness from consuming the atmosphere off camera. Panettiere said the cast could move in and out of the difficult scenes, finding lighter moments and laughter between takes.
She became particularly close with Beverly D’Angelo, who played Sarah’s mother, Gloria. “We kept each other laughing,” Panettiere said, describing their chemistry as immediate and saying D’Angelo made the work “incredibly easy and fun.” Panettiere also spoke positively about working with the children in the film. Having started acting herself as a child, she said she felt especially protective of young performers when scenes involved intense subject matter.
Panettiere Called the Work ‘Challenging’ but ‘Rewarding’
As PEOPLE reported, she described shooting highly emotional material as demanding both mentally and physically. “Keeping that level of heightened emotions and staying in such a dark emotional place definitely is challenging and can be exhausting, but is ultimately rewarding for me,” she said.
She also said scenes involving Sarah’s daughter made emotion readily accessible because she was a mother herself. “When it’s dark subject matter like this, I feel very accomplished when I know that we got it, that we hit the nail on the head, and that I did my job to the best of my ability,” she told Moviefone.
She also served as an executive producer on Sleepwalker, something she said gave her another outlet during production. Moving between acting and producing duties allowed her to step outside the dark emotional state of a scene and focus on practical aspects of making the movie before returning to the material.
Director Brandon Auman Remembers a ‘Deeply Introspective’ Panettiere
Writer-director Brandon Auman also remembered Panettiere’s openness after her death, while drawing a firm boundary around the private things she had shared with him. Auman told PEOPLE he was “completely gutted” by the news. “She was such a bright, open, numinous spirit,” he said. “I keep thinking back to our time on set and how much she taught me.”
Like Chatwin, Auman said Panettiere had discussed some of the difficult years preceding the movie and how those experiences related to Sarah. Unlike Chatwin, he chose not to disclose the substance of those conversations. “I’m keeping those conversations private,” Auman said, adding that he had been struck by how “complex and deeply introspective” Panettiere was.
“She lived a dozen lives in one short beautiful life,” he said. “I’ll miss her forever.” Auman also shared his own public tribute to Panettiere after her death, remembering what she taught him during production and the stories she shared about growing up in the entertainment industry.
‘Sleepwalker’ Became Panettiere’s Final Feature Film
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Sleepwalker opened in theaters and on VOD on Jan. 9, 2026, with Panettiere leading a cast that also included Chatwin, D’Angelo, Mischa Barton, Lori Tan Chinn and Kea Ho.
The movie became Panettiere’s final feature-film performance. Her screen comeback had begun with her return as Kirby Reed in Scream VI in 2023 after several years away from acting, followed by roles including Amber Alert and A Breed Apart.