Hayden Panettiere on being 'protective' of child actors on set: 'My experiences growing up weren't always pleasant'

Hayden Panettiere is driven in her new film.

In Amber Alert, the actress plays Jaq, a young woman whose routine rideshare goes off the rails when she gets an alert on her phone and spots what she believes is the car sought in a child-abduction case — and she’s hell-bent on finding out for sure.

The role comes at a time when Panettiere is navigating a career comeback after what had been a four-year acting hiatus. She tells Yahoo Entertainment that serving as an executive producer on the feature film, a first for her, has been “empowering” on her path.

“After I read the script, I felt almost an obligation to do it because it's kind of a PSA too,” Panettiere says. “[Emergency alerts] pop up on my phone as well — sometimes they’re weather-related, but sometimes they’re Amber alerts — and I will never again not look around me and do my due diligence in checking to see if I can report anything. And if everyone did that same thing, we could [help] so many children.”

Despite there not being much information to go by beyond the make and model of a popular car — not even a license plate — Panettiere’s character is guided by her intuition as she and the driver she just met, Shane, played by Abbott Elementary’s Tyler James Williams, race to try and save the missing child. The movie has car chases, amateur sleuthing and a kidnap house so creepy your arm hair will stand on end.

Panettiere says she’d 100% be as fearless as her character. “Especially being a mother” to her 9-year-old daughter, Kaya, with ex-fiancé Wladimir Klitschko, “I can say that I would do exactly what Jaq does.”

The Nashville and Heroes actress has been finding her footing in film after pausing her career entirely to prioritize her well-being and deal with personal loss after the death of her brother. Her life has been under a microscope, leading her to respond to social media chatter over the weekend.

But her professional comeback continues. Last year, she appeared in Scream VI, reprising her role as Kirby Reed, and next she’ll appear in A Breed Apart, another thriller bringing together the worlds of social media and survival horror. Giving her an extra shot of “confidence” on her path back was serving as an executive producer on Amber Alert.

“I would absolutely love to do more of it,” she says of her EP role. “It felt empowering. I felt like I was looked to more for an opinion, and it was easier for me to give an opinion.”

Panettiere, who appeared in her first commercial before she was 1 and starred in soap operas starting at age 5, continues, “Growing up in this industry, when I was younger, it was very much: ‘Just get to the right mark and get the lines right.’ Nobody wants to hear from a 10-year-old, a child, what their opinions are. … Now I'm of an age where people do listen, and being an executive producer gave me that strength and confidence to do it.”

With her background, Panettiere says it’s also been important to her to look out for the young children she works with.

“I always feel protective of children on set,” she says. “My experiences growing up weren't always pleasant. Not everyone loves to work with kids or has patience to work with kids. … Having had that experience, I have the ability to protect them, emotionally and mentally.”

She did just that in Amber Alert for the young actress Ducky Cash, who played the missing girl, Charlotte. Cash “was genuinely terrified” filming scenes in the kidnapper’s house, Panettiere says. “When we stepped into it, I think we were all shocked at how well they built the set and how terrifying it was to be in it.”

While it’s just a movie, at the end of the day, Panettiere hopes the film inspires viewers to “change their mindset” and be vigilant when a sometimes-pesky alert sounds on their phone at an inopportune moment.

“You hear stories of children who were abducted and then finally found a way, years later, to escape,” she says. “Those are the lucky ones that are alive to tell the tale. There are many that are not.”

Amber Alert will be released in select theaters and on demand on Sept. 27.