Hayden Panettiere

Playing pom-pom princess Claire Bennet on NBC’s Heroes, actress Hayden Panettiere must stay in fighting form to save the world. That’s why Hollywood’s newest “it” girl can often be found pumping iron at the celeb-friendly gym Crunch, with its brightly colored walls and hall of showers with translucent doors.

After working up a sweat, Panettiere takes a breather at a coffee shop. “Crazy” is the word she uses to describe tonight’s episode (9 ET/PT), which flashes five years into a possible future with the heroes having failed in their season-long mission to save New York from devastation.

As the season reaches its climax May 21, Panettiere teases, “Claire has to make a very hard decision. She is put in a position of serious power — to stop (destruction) in a pretty heartbreaking way. Or not.”

Less than six years ago, Panettiere lived through a nightmare scenario similar to tonight’s “what if” episode. Up until this year, her family lived in New York, and her father, Skip, retired as a fire department lieutenant just six months before the 9/11 attacks.

The family mourned many lost friends.

Panettiere was left with an enriched appreciation for life. “I want to go crazy,” the 17-year-old says of her own future.

With Hollywood already heavily stocked with hard-partying ingénues whose craziness has led them into rehab, could Panettiere be the next Lindsay Lohan, Britney Spears or Nicole Richie?

No way, she says, calling the recent rehab craze “like a publicity stunt.”

Panettiere prefers her own definition of “crazy”: “Discovering who I am and enjoying myself. I’m not talking drugs. I’m talking about traveling the world and seeing different things. Possibly doing what Angelina Jolie does — to go over there and bring food.”

Before rolling your eyes, consider that Panettiere spent several months living in South Africa while shooting the 2005 family film Racing Stripes.

After the project ended, Panettiere chose to stay in Africa to complete her freshman year of high school.

“It was definitely eye-opening, seeing shantytowns,” she says. “It makes you thankful for what you have, but at the same time you admire how simple life is in other places.”

Austin provided her a different kind of simplicity. She recently spent a week there shooting a small role in the art-house feature Fireflies in the Garden. The drama stars Julia Roberts, Ryan Reynolds and Emily Watson, with Panettiere playing a younger version of Watson’s character.

The shoot provided a brief but refreshing break from tabloid shutterbugs, who Panettiere believes are working hard to portray her as the next out-of-control party girl.

Helping shape that image is her merlot Porsche Cayenne SUV and 21-year-old boyfriend of nearly a year and a half, actor Stephen Colletti, who became a reality star on MTV’s Laguna Beach: The Real Orange County.

But Panettiere says appearances can be deceiving. “Paparazzi will take pictures of me coming out of a club, and they’ll say I’m partying, that I’m drinking underage at a place I’m not supposed to be,” she says.

“But they have absolutely no idea what they’re talking about. At El Scorpion the other night, I had a lime juice and Sprite, and I was looking at it thinking, ‘Somebody’s going to take a picture of this and say I’m drinking.’ So I put it down and grabbed a bottle of water.”

But how exactly does a 17-year-old get into a nightclub where alcohol is served?

Close friends with Rumer Willis (18-year-old daughter of Bruce and Demi) and an “acquaintance” of Lohan and Paris Hilton, Panettiere says it is not difficult.

“When you have a ‘name,’ they want you to be in the club,” she explains. “When celebrities are seen at a certain place, it all of a sudden becomes a mob scene. And it’s a given that people have fake IDs.” And “once you’re in, you’re in,” meaning, she says, that underage celebs are routinely served booze.

But for the most part, Panettiere says, clubs aren’t her scene.

Having gone to parties with her look-alike mom — former soap opera actress Lesley Panettiere (All My Children, Loving) — Panettiere says, “I usually want to leave long before she does.”

She stays grounded, she says, by heeding these words of wisdom from Heroes co-star Adrian Pasdar (Nathan): “Always wear my undershorts, never go nude or buzz my head. Unless it’s for an Oscar.”

Source: USA Today