Ice Princess director reveals what Hayden Panettiere and Michelle Trachtenberg were like together

After Hayden Panettiere’s death, people have been remembering her role in Ice Princess with Michelle Trachtenberg, and the film’s director has now spoken out about what it was like to work with the pair.

The 36-year-old actress died on Sunday after suffering a cardiac arrest, just over a year after actress Michelle Trachtenberg passed away at the age of 39. She was found unresponsive at her New York apartment on 26th February 2025 by her mother and pronounced dead at the scene. A toxicology report later revealed that she died from natural causes due to complications of her diabetes.

They worked together in Ice Princess, a 2005 American teen sports comedy-drama about a girl called Casey, played by Trachtenberg, who wants to become an ice skater, but her mother isn’t happy about it, so she goes to training in secret. Panettiere played Gen, the ice skating coach’s prodigy daughter, who’s the popular girl in school. Hayden was 15, and Michelle was 19 at the time. 

Credit: SMG/Shutterstock

Losing both actresses so young is a huge tragedy, and the Ice Princess director, Tim Fywell, called them an “amazing pair” and “delightful to work with”.

“It was really upsetting to hear yesterday of the death of Hayden Panettiere at the age of 36,” he told Variety. “I remember a brave, sparky, dedicated young actress who lit up the set in rehearsals and then the screen with her vibrant talent. Michelle Trachtenberg, Hayden’s co-star in the movie, and she were an amazing pair.”

He said they had “very different personalities” but got on so well. Trachtenberg was “kooky, fun, with an infectious laugh and her brilliant sad-funny comic timing,” while Panettiere was “plucky and determined and perfectionist, spending hours practising her skating and utterly focused on getting every acting take spot-on and truthful, which she did”.

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“In what was often a tough and technically complicated shoot, and my first Hollywood movie, they were delightful to work with and great to have around. I remember them both with huge affection, how they were 20-odd years ago, at that relatively uncomplicated time of their lives, two shining talents, gone far too soon,” he continued.

Credit: Walt Disney Pictures

Authorities responded to a 911 call about an “unresponsive female” at a property in South Carolina on 16th August, and Panettiere was sadly pronounced dead at the scene, the Greenville Police Department told NBC News. 

Police have since confirmed that her boyfriend Brian Hickerson was asleep in a bedroom, and his brother, Zach Hickerson, found the actress in a living room armchair at around 1.30pm on Sunday. When they couldn’t wake Panettiere up, they called 911. Paramedics “located a female in cardiac arrest” and “initiated advanced cardiac life support measures” but were unsuccessful, the Greenville County Coroner’s Office said.

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Featured image credit: SMG/Shutterstock and Ice Princess/Walt Disney Pictures