Hayden Panettiere reveals shooting Nashville was 'traumatising time'

Hayden Panettiere noticed troubling similarities between her real and on-screen lives when she was shooting Nashville.

The actress, 34, has opened up about working for six years on the hit TV series at the same time as she was struggling with alcohol addiction.

Hayden believes the show’s writers took inspiration for her character, Juliette Barnes, from her personal life, which she admits was spiralling into chaos as a result of years-long opioid and alcohol dependence.

“They weren't creating new storylines,” Hayden told The Messenger.

“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.'

Hayden identified a number of details that she feels were replicated from her real life, including a bout of postpartum depression after the birth of her now 9-year-old daughter, Kaya.

"Straight from the beginning, it was like, I'm dating a football player, Juliette dates a football player,” Hayden explained.

“And then they turned her into an alcoholic. Then they turned to her leaving her daughter… it was very obvious.”

While she says the experience was overall a positive one that included “such great things”, Hayden believes her time on the show was nonetheless “very traumatising because I felt like I was acting out my own life."