Hayden Leslie Panettiere (born August 21, 1989) is an American actress, singer, and Grammy Award nominee. She is perhaps best known for her role on the NBC series, Heroes, as Claire Bennet.
Hayden began professional modelling at the age of 8 months old. She then began appearing in commercials at 11 months, first appearing in an advertisement for Playskool She later landed a role as Sarah Roberts on the ABC soap opera One Life to Live (1994- 1997) and later as the child Lizzie Spaulding on the CBS soap opera Guiding Light when she was eight years old (1997 - 2001). In Guiding Light, for Hayden's character Lizzie's battle with leukemia, the show received a Special Recognition Award from the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society for bringing national awareness of the disease to the attention of daytime viewers.
Panettiere currently stars as Claire Bennet in the NBC series Heroes as a high school cheerleader with regenerative healing powers. Due to her role on Heroes, she has become a regular on the science fiction convention circuit, having been invited to attend many popular conventions around the world in 2007, including New York Comic-Con and Fan Expo Canada. In regards to the roles she has played, Panettiere admits that options are sometimes limited because "people look at [her] as either the 'popular cheerleader' type or just 'the blonde.'"
She has appeared in over a dozen full-length feature films, as well as several made-for-TV movies. She provided the voice for Dot in the Pixar CGI animated movie A Bug's Life for Disney. In addition, she had a leading role as the voice of Kairi in the highly successful Kingdom Hearts series of video games for the Playstation 2. She had a starring role in FOX's Ally McBeal as Ally McBeal's daughter, and a recurring guest role in Malcolm in the Middle. She guest starred in Law & Order: SVU. She played Sheryl Yoast in the film Remember the Titans. She starred in Bring It On: All or Nothing as a cheerleader.
