Hayden Panettiere Reveals Bryan Cranston Got Her the Malcolm in the Middle Role
Hayden Panettiere says Bryan Cranston helped her land Malcolm in the Middle — and years later, she still gushes over playing scene-stealing Jessica.
Hayden Panettiere is still thinking about Malcolm in the Middle, and she gives a lot of the credit for landing that gig to Bryan Cranston. In a new EW interview, she walks through the audition, the chaotic hair situation, and a surprisingly sweet soap-opera connection that ties it all together. It is a little bit of inside baseball, and it is fun.
The 14-year-old with a resume and a shot
Panettiere was barely 14 when she first showed up on Malcolm in the Middle. She was not some unknown kid, either — by then she had already racked up seven film credits and a couple of daytime soap roles. Still, she thinks the real reason she got hired was simple: Bryan Cranston was directing.
Cranston the director, taking a swing
According to Panettiere, Cranston sized her up in the room and, as an actor himself, decided to roll the dice on someone who did not fit the obvious mold. As she tells it, he basically said the quiet part out loud:
"You are so wrong for this. But we are going to make it work."
For her, that was the first time someone in the industry truly took a chance on her.
Jessica arrives in season 4
Panettiere ended up playing Jessica, the babysitter who quickly became one of those memorable recurring agents of chaos the show loved to deploy. She made her debut in season 4, and fans still talk about Jessica like she is a key piece of the Malcolm puzzle.
The hair and the switch-up
Her first day came with a very specific kind of TV pain: the hair department teased her hair within an inch of its life, and getting it brushed out afterward was, in her words, a total nightmare. But she loved the part for a different reason — Jessica let her play against how people normally saw her, which she found oddly freeing.
A full-circle soap-opera moment
The EW chat also surfaced a great little TV history crossover. Panettiere’s mom once played Cranston’s wife on the old daytime soap Loving. When Cranston eventually ran into her on Malcolm, he needed a second to place her — his face went from polite confusion to instant recognition — and the whole reunion was one of those unexpectedly special set moments.
Not a bad legacy for a role that started with a skeptical director, a backcombed hairdo, and a 14-year-old who was determined to make it work.