Director Griff Furst, who helmed one of Hayden Panettiere‘s final films, is revealing more details about his time working with the actress — including how her team asked him to participate in an “intervention.”
Furst took to Instagram Wednesday night to share a second video remembering Panettiere, who died at age 36 on Sunday. In the video, he reflected on Panettiere’s career, her struggles with addiction and the challenges child actors can face after growing up in the entertainment industry
“When I think about this, it’s not just a Hayden story. I grew up on movie sets, and I know a whole lot of child actors very well, and I understand what it does to somebody to grow up in front of a camera before they’re old enough to consent,” he said. “Hayden started acting when she was 11 months old, so I was rooting for Hayden to beat the addiction that she spoke about openly and publicly in her memoir.”
Furst went on to reveal that Panettiere’s team eventually asked him to participate in an intervention
“When we wrapped, however, I stayed in touch with her team,” he continued. “What eventually got determined was that she might need an intervention and I got asked to participate. I said yes, and that intervention did not happen, at least not that I’m aware of, and I wasn’t leading the charge on that and it wouldn’t have been appropriate for me.”
“A producer or director, no matter how certain you are that an actor or crew member is in a bad situation, you don’t have the proof or the benefit of the time to verify it,” he said. “You can adjust the schedule, you can collect internal reporting and you can assign a handler to make sure that that individual is being taken care of as best as they can.”
A Breed Apart was released in May 2025
Furst previously spoke about Panettiere’s time on the set of the film, recalling that “something was off” and that the “energy in her room was pretty dark” when her on-again, off-again boyfriend Brian Hickerson visited her
“What I will say is my opinion, and it’s about what I saw on my own set: Somebody fighting to stay sober and who deserved better company around them than what I observed,” Furst said in his Wednesday Instagram video
Panettiere was recognized for her roles in Heroes; Nashville; Ice Princess; I Love You, Beth Cooper; and the Scream franchise. She was found unresponsive and in cardiac arrest inside an apartment in Greenville, South Carolina. Officials on a 911 call were reportedly heard mentioning an “overdose” and “cardiac arrest” around the time of her death. An official cause of death has not yet been announced. ABC News reported Wednesday that the Drug Enforcement Administration had joined the investigation into Panettiere’s death.
Panettiere had previously detailed physical abuse by Hickerson in her memoir, This Is Me: A Reckoning, which was released earlier this year. Hickerson was sentenced to 45 days in jail in 2021 after pleading no contest to two felony counts of injuring Panettiere
Furst concluded: “Hollywood has an extremely sad history of stars not getting the help that they deserve. Our business has no fix for that, so our observations get written down and thrown into a production report. Then a year later, you’re just reading the news. I was very lucky to work with Hayden. I wish she was still here.”
