Hollywood likes child actors to be precocious, to convey an “old soul,” to give the impression of hidden depths that, if we’re being perfectly honest, you only occasionally see when you’re dealing with actual children. But precocity isn’t the same as maturity, and when young actors grow up, it isn’t always easy to make that transition — to go from being a child who performs in ways that are recognizably adult to being an adult who performs in ways that are recognizably human. From her earliest screen appearances, Hayden Panettiere excelled at precocity. I’ve already had debates today, in the aftermath of Panettiere’s tragic death at the…
