Heroic Hayden.

Despite her on-screen prowess, the actress is hurt by the 'It Girl' label. Steve Pennells reports.

HAYDEN PANETTIERE ticks all the right boxes. She's young, attractive, has a hit show and a strong fan following.

When her Hollywood contemporaries crashed and burned around her, the Heroes star reluctantly found herself crowned the industry's new It Girl.
"Don't call me that. I don't want to be called that," she said last month, sitting back in one of Munich's top hotels a few days after her 18th birthday.

Over the past few months, Panettiere has found out the hard way the baggage that comes with a label pre-worn by Paris Hilton, Britney Spears and Lindsay Lohan. The US press portrays her as everything from homely teenager to spoilt brat. Online criticism is particularly vicious. She is seen as a partying Lolita, a view not helped when a provocative photo of her graced the cover of UK's FHM last month when she was still 17.

It doesn't matter that none of it is true (Panettiere still lives with her parents and shuns the party circuit). The label has stuck.

The TV veteran has been acting since she was five but she says she never expected the frenzy that has surrounded her since she took on the role of cheerleader Claire Bennet in the hit show Heroes.

"A lot has changed. It becomes kind of an invasion of your personal life," she says.

Born in New York, Panettiere started appearing in commercials when she was 11 months old. She starred as Ally McBeal's long-lost daughter in that show's final season and as Jessica in Malcolm in the Middle. She has been in more than 12 movies.

But it is her role as the regenerating cheerleader in Heroes - a drama about ordinary people who discover they have superpowers - that has turned her into one of Hollywood's hottest stars and an unwitting target for an obsessive media and internet fan base.

Over recent weeks, concerned Heroes cast members have rallied around Panettiere during a world tour to promote the DVD release and upcoming second season.

Masi Oka, who plays Hiro on the show, labelled the British media "a bunch of perverts" for turning the teenager into a men's mag sex symbol. "She's only 18. I remember 1989 - I was in high school," he says.

And Jack Coleman, who plays her adoptive father, also hit out at the treatment dished out to his co-star: "It is shocking what they say about Hayden and young girls in particular. There is a ruthlessness which is so ugly. It is amazing the grace with which she handles this."


Panettiere says she has decided to deal with it by not reading much of what is written about her.
"Hollywood is like playing the game of telephone. You say one thing and by the time it gets to the end it's something so far from what you said. If you want any self-esteem at the end of the day, you don't look at that stuff."

And the most hurtful thing that has been written?

"Probably that I'm a snotty little girl and I'm a diva, which is so far from true."

"I think people think they have the right to judge people based on something somebody else has said about them. The fact that you can judge whether you like that person or not by something you read about them is ridiculous. It's completely immature. It's hurtful and the fact people can be so dumb and naive is just shocking to me."

Heroes executive producer Dennis Hammer, an Aaron Spelling veteran who started his career on The Love Boat and watched over Panettiere during the recent world tour, says the public is to blame for the increasing obsession.

"They do buy magazines when these people are on the cover and they do enjoy watching rich, young, privileged people fall down. They love that," he says.

The media allocation of the It-Girl label to Hollywood's recent train wrecks and to Panettiere continues to upset the teenage star. She says: "If that's what they mean, Britney Spears and Lindsay Lohan, then no, I don't want to be called that. I think that's what Hollywood has become and I think it's a shame. I think those were unfortunate people who didn't have good people surrounding them."

When asked about the cast, Panettiere smiles. "They've been protective. Very protective. We are closer than you could ever imagine. All of us. Ninety per cent of the time in TV that's not how it is."

She says she didn't have that feeling on Ally McBeal, her first major prime-time role. She had turned up in the last season and the cast had been already well-established.

The camaraderie on Heroes, which the entire cast repeatedly refer to, is an unexpected bonus.
Panettiere admits she took on the role to boost her film career.

"To be completely honest, when I first thought of doing a TV show, it was because of the fact that when you go out for films, a lot of the time they want people with names," she says.

"And a lot of names and followings come off of people from TV shows. I thought if I'm going to get involved in a show, I might as well do it while I'm young. I got into a TV show at a really good time. And a really good show, if I do say so myself."