Hayden Panettiere

Perky, petite and equally at home in earnest drama and mainstream comedy, Hayden Panettiere began her career as a child model and soap opera actress. As a preteen, she worked steadily as a voiceover actor in family films like "A Bug's Life" (1998) and "Dinosaur" (2000) before a recurring role as the long-lost daughter of "Ally McBeal" (Fox, 1997-2002) raised the actress' profile. Her energy and spunky can-do persona made her well cast for competitive teen features like "Ice Princess" (2005) and "Bring it On: All or Nothing" (2006), both of which helped lead to her major career breakthrough as a high school cheerleader endowed with superpowers on the primetime phenomenon, "Heroes" (NBC, 2006-2010). The show brought Panettiere to the attention of worshipful fanboys who had never met a cheerleader they did not like, giving the still young actress the tricky challenge of balancing both the sexy and the innocent as she moved into adulthood. Mainstream film projects like "I Love You, Beth Cooper" (2009) and "Scream 4" (2010) made her a presence on the big screen after the cancellation of "Heroes," although it was her next regular series, "Nashville" (ABC, 2012- ), that brought the young actress even wider exposure. As talented as she was beautiful, Panettiere mined her all-American girl persona to produce Hollywood gold.