By: Izumi Hasegawa

Izumi Hasegawa: Do you know the name of the kind of clothes you are wearing? 

Hayden Panettiere: I don’t know. I don’t get in the habit of looking. I should because I get asked more often than not, but I never know…

IH: I was curious about the costume and character from the movie. Did you demand a bonus for putting on a cheerleader outfit or being a cheerleader?

HP: I wish! I think I’m just going to start putting in my contract that I refuse to wear a cheerleading outfit for the rest of my career. [Laughs] In this film, I only had to put it on once for a picture, but that was it.

IH: And then you do a cheer in street clothes… You should cash in on this ’cause that’s a big selling point for them.

HP: I know. I don’t know why I always manage to find my way back to the cheerleading outfit.

IH: Did you like your character? Was this a girl you could relate to?

HP: I think so, absolutely. It’s kind of like a metaphor. Even though, specifically, I haven’t gone through exactly what she’s going through, it still stems from these insecurities and not believing in yourself, and I think we all have our own insecurities, and I know I have plenty.

IH: Like what?

HP: Like body image insecurities. The older I get, the more comfortable I get with it, but I still have my days where I don’t feel great and I don’t like this outfit or that outfit, and I’m having my fat day where I have to put something baggy on and sweatpants…or just with the way that people perceive me… I have plenty of insecurities. I can go on and on.

IH: You look completely brilliant. I can’t believe you have insecurities. Do you work out a lot?

HP: I’ve never been one of those people who’s been obsessed with working out or being super skinny ’cause I’m just not that. I have the body that I have, and that’s not going to change as long as I try to stay as healthy as I can. It’s a little hard when someone is standing behind you with a camera on the beach, takes a picture of your rear end, and points out all your bumps or whatever, puts some shading in… You become much more critical of yourself because you’re in the position of just such extreme judgment and scrutiny, and people love to point out flaws and love to build people up and let them down again.

IH: We saw recent photos of you on Elton John’s yacht. How did you end up there?

HP: I was just on vacation. Friends were going, so I decided to come along and it was quite an experience.

IH: On vacation on Elton John’s yacht — not an every day thing?

HP: No, it’s not. It’s actually a very interesting and very strange world, and I was glad that I had the experience because it just shows you how out of balance the world is. You go to these places during the film festival, and these people have more money and wealth and all of that, and it’s just imbalanced. Knowing what a lot of the world looks like, it’s crazy. I would never want it. It’s great to have a friend with a boat, and a friend with a plane and a friend with houses all over the world. It’s a responsibility. But it was quite the experience.

IH: Apparently you have a misspelled tattoo?

HP: Are we talking about the movie or are we talking about personal rumors? It is misspelled. Whatever. Vivere senza rimipiantic (means “live without regret” in Italian) — I put my own spin to it.

IH: You can laugh and live with it?

HP: Yeah, I mean, chances are I’ll probably get it fixed, but that’s why I love having it on my back because I don’t get bored of it. I don’t have to stare at it all the time. But then you have it on your back and you don’t realize that it’s misspelled either.

IH: Did you do many of the stunts in the movie?

HP: I did as many as they would allow me to do. I was always an athlete growing up and I love sports, but now I can’t participate on a team like I could in high school, so stunts are kind of my sport. I do it as often as I can, as many as they’ll let me. It was fun, though, it was a great experience. It was a fun film. It’s full of action and it’s funny, and Chris Columbus is the nicest man I’ve ever worked with.

IH: Which stunts did you do?

HP: They allowed me to do some of the driving. I think that was most of the stunts — her reckless driving. Other than that, it wasn’t really a stunt to fall in his lap –- that was more him. He has to fall in my lap. [Laughs]

IH: What about the shower scene in the locker room? Is that you? Did you actually have to get naked?

HP: Yep.

IH: Yeah, right. Really?

HP: Dude! Yeah! It didn’t bother me. I think when the person who is doing it gets all uncomfortable and shy, then it’s other people around who get more uncomfortable because they’re uncomfortable, but I was fine. Everyone was really professional.

IH: But is that not hugely embarrassing?

HP: If I can’t flaunt it at 20, come on! I mean, I might as well show it now! [Laughs] No, just on set.

IH: Did you get to drive through anything?

HP: No, I didn’t get to drive through the house, but I got to back out of the house, and that was very cool because I took half the house with me.

IH: What about the theme of this movie in that the fantasy and reality don’t necessarily go together? Do you identify with that aspect of this movie? And guys falling in love, because there’s a lot of this film where you say, “Guys fall in love with me every day.” Have you ever experienced that in your own life, that guys might fall in love with you for the wrong reasons?

HP: I think people might, at this point, only fall in love with me for the wrong reason. Most of the time, if somebody is doing a confession or something like that, it’s a fan or someone who watches what I do, and how can you really say “I love you,” which is kind of the theme in the film. He says, “I love you, Beth Cooper,” and Beth Cooper is this image of perfection to him, but he really doesn’t know it at all.

IH: How do you know when someone is being real with you or when someone just likes you because of your celebrity?

HP: After a while, there are certain tell tale signs that become really good at reading people, but how could you ever really be sure? People surprise you sometimes, and most of the time, when it’s a surprise, it’s generally for the worst. But I just surround myself with good people and I have really great friends and people that I trust, and I trust my instincts. But there’s no specific tell tale sign that someone is interested in you for any other reason.

IH: Do you have a certain type that you go for?

HP: I’m a big personality person, so you need to be cool with who you are. You need to be confident with who you are, because in order to be with someone like me in the industry that I’m in…we’ll go out and have to mingle at parties…that line is blurred between our jobs and our personal life, and it goes beyond just standing on set and acting. I like somebody who gets my sense of humor, ’cause I can have a very dry sense of humor sometimes.

IH: I was thinking there might be a little bit of an uproar when the movie comes out over some of the reckless behavior. Do you think some recklessness is part of the growing-up process?

HP: Absolutely. All the kids I grew up with were the same. I think people are being a little naïve if they don’t know that’s going on, and they don’t want to come to terms with it. It’s a funny film, but you can’t be too nervous to speak the truth, because probably chances are your kids aren’t off in college or high school drinking juice boxes. It’s probably not likely. But this is a character; it’s not me. It’s a character that we’ve created and tried to stay true to with the book and the story, and if they want to uproar, they can do it all they want.

IH: When you were a bit younger, who was your idol, in terms of actors or music? Did you have a massive pin-up that you idolized from afar?

HP: Not really. I have a lot of people that I look up to as an actor, like Meryl Streep is obviously one of, if not the best actor of all time. I think she’s brilliant. I mean, there’s a million people, and I think, in my position, the people I wind up looking up to now are people who have their shit together — people who know who they are and are confident in who they are — people who I look up to personality-wise and go, “Gosh, I just want to be like you because you’re so likable and you’re so smart and you’re so together and so with it…” Everyone has their flaws, but it’s more of the genuinely cool people now that I look up to and go, “Oh wow.”

IH: In the movie, dating is very problematic. How does high school compare with Hollywood? Would you rather be dating in high school or would you rather be dating in Hollywood?

HP: God, I don’t know. Both of them are terrible. In Hollywood, it’s either you’re single or you’re not; there is no in-between. There is no dating. No one allows you the ability to have fun and be young and hang out with people and just. They don’t give you the ability to just say, “Hey, I’m just enjoying someone for who they are.” Just because it’s a guy doesn’t necessarily mean I’m dating them. Every girl I walk down the street with doesn’t mean I’m dating them.

IH: No?

HP: Well, not every girl. [Laughs]

IH: What about Steve Jones? There’s all this speculation…

HP: He lives in London, guys. The distance is a bit too… I have a lot of good friends.

IH: How surprised are you by this whole celebrity thing since Heroes took off? How have you coped with it for the last three or four years?

HP: I don’t think you can ever prepare yourself for it. There’s no amount of preparation, no amount of anyone telling you, “Oh keep your head on straight!” I was really lucky because I was fortunate enough to have a great family, a great upbringing, and I think I was really fortunate to have gotten to this point of “celebrity.” I hate that word, but being in the public eye and the age I did…because I think if I was older and if I was on my own and on my own terms and wasn’t as receptive to people telling me, “No, that’s not okay,” and still didn’t have parents that I had to listen to, I don’t know if it would have gone quite as smoothly. You get to the point where you’re on your own for a certain period of time, and you go and no one’s told me what to do for a couple years now. I’m not used to it. “No, you can’t tell me what to do, I’m an adult.” But at 16 years old, I still had parents who said, “No”; still had parents that said, “You’re going to be home at this time”; still lived at home; still had the ability to hear “No” and knew that I needed to listen. I also was fortunate enough to come to this place with a group of really grounded, strong people which were my cast, because if I had gone there by myself, whether it had been a film, and I had hit that level of success by myself without these older people that I really looked up to, I got to see how they handled it, how they interacted with people and just the way they dealt with it… I don’t know if it would have gone quite as… I’d like to think it would have gone the same, but it really was great to have people to look up to.

IH: How much more Heroes will there be?

HP: We’re in the fourth season now, so I have no idea. We sign on for six years.

IH: What’s coming up for Claire?

HP: She’s at college now. She’s in college and she’s got a great roommate who’s…I really don’t know about her in the beginning. There’s this new group of people called The Carnival, and they are kind of the opposite of the company.

IH: How hard was it when Brian Fuller left again? And do you want to go to college?

HP: Since I haven’t read all the scripts and haven’t been involved in the writing process like the writers are… We work hard, and everyone is bright and we have a blast together. He’s going off and he’s doing some great stuff, so we’re all just really proud of him. But college: I do very much believe in education. I’ve got 15 alumni on my mother’s side from Duke University, and my grandpa was valedictorian, and my grandparents met there. My great uncle was the Dean of the Law School. I have a huge side of my family that is very well-educated, so genetically I’m well-educated, but my thought of college has always been that it’s not only continuing your education but it’s also a social experience. It’s your first time on your own. It’s your first time not having someone sit there and go, “You need to go to bed at this time, you need to do your homework, you need to get up at this time to go to class…” You’re on your own terms, and most of what I saw from my friends that came back from their freshman year is they’re all hanging from their fingernails, going, “I almost just failed out of school. I almost just flunked,” because they have to juggle these new responsibilities that they didn’t have before, and you generally learn the hard way. You learn from mistakes and doing it over and over again, and that social experience — because I’ve been on my own, because I know so clearly, hopefully, what I am going to do for the rest of my life — I wouldn’t get that social aspect the same, not to mention it is a really big thing that you want to go and you want to have the social experience, and you want go out to the bars like the other kids are going to. Everyone does that, whether you like it or not, and you have to deal with the fear of somebody taking a picture of you with a drink in your hand, a fear of going and getting it placed all over the place. I find it hard to do normal things that most people my age are doing because of the criticism, because doing what’s normal isn’t right, because we’re the ones that are completely corrupt, which is so not true. I’ve had the opportunity to travel all over the world and see beautiful countries; I’ve talked to incredibly intelligent, well-educated people; I’ve been involved with politics; I’ve been involved with environmental studies and work and have gotten a great education on the things that I’m curious and passionate about, whether it be the ocean — I’m really well-educated on the ocean just from spending time with really smart people and this is their field and this is what they know, and you learn so much from them. Also I’m very interested in history and I have a bunch of history books at home, and I sit there all day and I watch the History Channel for 12 hours straight about Chris Columbus and the ocean blue, and the layers of the ozone… Science has always been a big thing and I’ve really been educated having not gone to college. Would I have liked to? Yeah, but it didn’t quite pan out that way.

IH: How was it to work with Chris Columbus?

HP: Incredible — one of the nicest human beings I’ve ever worked with. So talented with no ego, and with someone like him with a background that he has to come in with no ego and completely open to collaboration, just open-minded and fun, but somebody that you could trust and you know is going to pull you and lead you in the right direction, it’s great. It’s nothing less than great!

IH: What are your dreams and goals?

HP: I’ve never been somebody who has said, “This is where I want my career to go, this is the kind of film I want to do…” I just love everything. I love what I do, I love creating characters. and I love doing it all. and I’m just excited to see what my career will be.

IH: Anything coming up for you next?

HP: Just the show right this second — the only thing that’s sure right about now.

IH: You might receive the cheerleader school scripts. What kinds of things do you get offered?

HP: Frankly, it has fallen in my lap. That’s about it. It’s literally just happened that way. It was not planned. It was not something that I had sought out. It was just the way the cards fell, and I’m just really excited to see what comes. I have no idea. I’m not going to try and guess. I just want to be surprised and excited.

IH: What’s next?

HP: I’m just doing the fourth season of Heroes. There are things in works. I have been very involved with pitching projects and going to the studios…

IH: Your own development?

HP: Yes, developing it either from a book or just an idea… We’ve developed TV shows.

IH: As a producer, or do you want to direct?

HP: I would love to direct at some point. Directing is something I would very definitely want to take a major break from acting to do, because you have to live with the project for so long afterward. I would want to dedicate. I wouldn’t want to spread myself too thin. I want to dedicate my time and my energy to that, and eventually, maybe down the road, that will happen.

IH: Are you tired of your character? You’ve been with her for four years and the show has gone up and down. Would you like to let go of the character?

HP: Letting go of the character? Well, it’s all different –- it’s movies, it’s film, television and theater. There are great aspects and bad aspects of both. Movies are great because you get to play all these different characters, you never get tired of one thing, you get travel, and it’s a much bigger world. TV — I’ve gotten to spend almost four years in a character and really gotten to know her and develop her myself, and grew up with her in the beginning. Yeah, I’m excited to do other things, but I also do love what I do, and then theatre is great because you have the same layout every single night doing it, but you get to perfect and live with it every single time, and try to make it fresh and new every time — just the different aspects of acting.

IH: How much fun is acting? Is it exciting? You’ve been doing it for so long…

HP: Absolutely. I would not put myself in this if it wasn’t. I mean the misspelled tattoos and the can’t-walk-down-the-street-to-get-a-cup-of-coffee-without-five-or-ten-cameras-in-your-face. It really is a very invasive industry, and the line between your work and play is so blurred, if not nonexistent, that it’s tough. I’m not going to lie — it makes it hard to live, and I’m not sitting there going, “Oh, woe is me, my life is terrible,” but people get this idea in their head that what we do isn’t hard, and it is. It’s work, and do I want to get up every morning and go to set? No. There are sometimes I’m like, “I don’t want to go to work today.” But I love what I do.

IH: What was the most fun part of making this film?

HP: I always enjoy the traveling, working with new people, and eventually, down the road, what you wind up learning from those people that you might not realize right off the bat. Every time I work with somebody and travel to a different place…your experiences make up who you are, and I may not be able to tell you right now who I am, but down the road I’ll get to look back and go, “Oh, that’s who I was, and I was that because of X, Y and Z… I was that because of all the wonderful experiences and roles that I’ve played and the people I’ve gotten to work with and the places I’ve traveled… It’s not too shabby.

IH: You worked with Isabel Lucas. Have you kept in touch?

HP: I haven’t seen her in a while, but she’s doing great.

IH: She’s in a low-budget movie coming out…

HP: Oh yeah, Transformers or something?

IH: Why do you think Heroes has struggled with the fans?

HP: I don’t know. I think it set a very high bar for itself, and I think it’s very scrutinized now because…it’s not an easy crowd to please all the time, but I still enjoy watching the show.

IH: How was Japan?

HP: I loved it. It’s a beautiful country with lots of great people.