HAYDEN PANETTIERE’S VULNERABLE SIDE

August 28, 2007

The indestructible cheerleader dishes on the ‘Heroes’ Season 1 DVD and offers up some Season 2 teases

Season 1 of NBC’s smash hit “Heroes” hits DVD tomorrow, with a ton of special features including the original 2-hour pilot and commentaries by the cast and crew. At a recent roundtable interview, Hayden Panettiere, who plays rapid-healing teen Claire Bennet, looked back on that phenomenal first year, talked about Season 2 (which premieres Sept. 24) and revealed why she thinks she’d make a great bad girl.

With everything that you’ve gone through this past year on the show, how has that changed the way you view what people have had to go through working on a weekly series like this?

PANETTIERE: I did do “Ally McBeal” for a season but it’s just a totally different groove, and I wasn’t in every day and wasn’t one of the major characters, but it’s been crazy. But this show is unlike probably any show that anyone shoots because we shoot it like a movie, and it’s like we’re doing a full-length feature film every day. So in that aspect, my past feature film career has definitely prepared me for that. But there’s no place I’d rather be. I love my cast, I love my crew.

Jack Coleman told me that HRG is sort of back to his old tricks in Season 2. How do you feel about that dynamic coming back?

PANETTIERE: “Mean dad” coming back?

Going back to the sneaky stuff?

PANETTIERE: Well, I think we all have proven that in this show we all have our dirty little secrets. Him going back, I think him becoming the house dad, the good dad, wouldn’t be very exciting. People like watching good bad people and you sometimes want to hate Jack’s character and sometimes love him. It was kind of a toss-up depending on what side you’re on. But how do I feel about that? I think it’s exciting. I think it’s exciting for him. I’m not sure if that’s exactly what’s going to happen. As I said, everyone always has their dirty little secrets. But I’m excited to see what happens with everyone. I wish I could turn bad. I would turn bad in a second.

What sort of special extras did you get involved with for the DVD release, and was it your first time doing that type of stuff?

PANETTIERE: There are commentaries and there’s a ton of deleted scenes, which I didn’t knowingly participate in. But there’s 50 deleted scenes, which is…

(more…)