Looks like perky petite cheerleader Hayden Panettiere is lined up to play the frisky homocidal exchange student in the true story turned TV movie The Amanda Knox Story.
The story of Amanda Knox, the U.S. exchange student convicted by an Italian trial jury of brutally murdering her roommate, is getting the Hollywood treatment as a TV movie with Heroes star Hayden Panettiere as Knox. Lifetime has greenlighted the project, tentatively titled The Amanda Knox Story, from reality producer Craig Piligian (Ghost Hunters). It will air in 2011.
I don’t mind Panettiere as an actress and she is certainly easy to look at. She really needs something like this to stretch her out of her “cheerleader” typecast that those adorable good looks tend to inspire.
Her most notable film efforts? Bring it On: All or Nothing and I Love You, Beth Cooper. Both in which she played cheerleaders and no one cared.
She has some other projects on the list already where she isn’t playing a hot cheerleader, but this appears to be the most serious and challenging role for her. And its a TV Movie.
Hopefully it will open doors for her.
TV movies are great, more often than one might think (this kinda relates to what someone else mentioned about how acting on television is lower than acting in film).
It’ll be nice to see Panatierre in a more serious role fo sho.