We mostly know Hayden Panettiere as the actress that plays Claire Bennet; lonely, innocent, hopeful. Claire just wants to be accepted.

But the actual Hayden? We don’t know this 17-year old personally, but certain stories and photos are leading some to believe that this could be the next Lindsay Lohan or Paris Hilton, troubled young stars that spend more time at clubs than charity functions.

We don’t wanna base too much off a few pictures, of course, but the ones below - including a shot with co-star Adrian Pasdar - are showcasing this youth at her rebellious best… 

Missy Peregrym, who plays the evil Candice on Heroes, celebrated her birthday at Tangerine Friday night.

Missy and her family got down her birthday with a special pre-party meal prepared by Executive Chef Joe Elevado. After enjoying some the finest cuisine in Las Vegas, the Peregrym clan headed downstairs to the dance club.

After Missy was presented with a birthday cake, the lovely ladies partied like rock stars all night long, dancing on the burlesque stage behind the bar, singing along to every song and living it up on this special occasion.

In its most recent issue, Entertainment Weekly names 100 stars it loves. Topping the magazine’s list? None other than Hayden Panettiere.

Why does the magazine feel so strongly about Panettiere? We shouldn’t need to tell any fan of Heroes, but here are the reasons given…

WHY HER The breakout star of TV’s hottest new drama, Heroes, Panettiere plays Claire Bennet, an unbreakable high school girl who became synonymous with the show when the catchphrase ”Save the cheerleader, save the world!” entered the pop culture lexicon. ‘

‘I think it was very clever,” says the New York-born actress, although she admits that calls of ”Hey, cheerleader!” now follow her around Los Angeles. ”But it’s fun. It’s not an obnoxious thing.” Technically speaking, Claire doesn’t actually spend much time shaking pom-poms. ”I told [Heroes creator] Tim Kring I need to cheer at some point,” the actress says with a laugh. ”She wears the outfit all the time!”

CROSSING OVER Her debut record, due in 2008, reflects her diverse tastes. ”I wanted to make every song sound as different as possible,” she says. ”I hate sitting down and listening to an album where every song sounds the same.”

Panettiere, who trained to be a singer for a while and even sang jingles, co-wrote most of the album’s tracks, including ”Saved,” about the death of a friend. ”You come in with an idea of what you want to write about,” she says of the collaborative process. ”It’s fun when you have a lot of different people that you get to bounce ideas off of.”

NEXT Panettiere’s day job should keep her busy for years, but she’ll start working movies into her schedule before long. First up is the indie drama Fireflies in the Garden, with Julia Roberts. It’s a dream job, obviously — and definitely worth sacrificing a vacation for.

”I really wanted to set the tone for the kind of things that I want to do,” she says. In the film, Panettiere will portray a young woman who leaves home to get an abortion.

SECRET TALENT ”I can ride a zebra! I had to ride one in Racing Stripes, and I’m, like, one of the only people who’s ever ridden one. The trick is to hang on tight. They’re bouncy little things. And never, ever go by the rear of it. It’s not fun. They’ll kick the bejesus out of you.”

During the on-set press conference in which creator Tim Kring announced a Heroes global tour, sponsored by Nissan, other details about season two emerged.

Here is a summary:

• According to Greg Grunberg, he begins filming today. After realizing that he’d sort of let the cat out of the bag, he said: “Well, I could be on a hospital bed … or in a coffin.”

Hayden Panettiere tried to help by joking that the entire cast would be standing around, lowering him into the ground. Therefore, it’s a pretty safe bet Matt will survive those four bullets to the chest.

• Sylar (pictured) will be back.

• The end of season one, with Hiro in Japan wasn’t really the ending … it was a teaser of the first scene from the first episode of season two. Hiro will be in feudal Japan for “a handful of episodes,” according to Kring.

• Kring envisions season two as consisting of three big story arcs.

• Heroes: Origins is an “anthology show.” However, it’s not a midseason show; it will air after the season two finale, and not during sweeps. They have not yet begun writing or filming it.

• Adrian Pasdar was sporting a full beard, and Milo Ventimiglia had an extremely short haircut.

NBC had a special event on the set of Heroes today to announce that they’re going global. Literally.

The cast and creators will be traveling to at least seven major cities to promote the first season of the show in places in which it hasn’t premiered yet. The confirmed cities so far are:

• Toyko
• Hong Kong
• Singapore
• Munich
• Paris
• London
• New York

Hmmm…. hasn’t it been on in New York already? Anyway, we’ll move on.

As reported by TV Squad, Nissan will be sponsoring the tour, which will also be going green in an effort to “reduce the carbon footprint,” Kring said. Whatever that entails.

Greg Grunberg, who plays the mind-reading Matt Parkman, said he was visiting Paris with his wife recently, and emphasized hat show hasn’t even premiered on the air there. However, he had people coming up to him left and right who recognized him from seeing the show on their computers.

The tour is focusing on season one and the upcoming August 28th release of the DVD box set, which includes 50 deleted scenes, commentaries, and the full 73 minute premiere episode.

Get ready to grow attached to a handful of new Heroes.

We’ve already reported that Dania Ramirez and Nick D’Agosto will be joining the show in the fall. Meanwhile, TV Guide now tells us to lookout for these series newcomers in season two, as well:

• David Anders (Alias‘ Sark) will play Takezo Kensei, an ancient samurai warrior and Hiro’s childhood hero. Kensei, of course, is the original owner of the sword Hiro sought during much of season one.
• Asian pop star Eriko Tamura has been cast as a Japanese princess.
• Barry Shabaka Henley will portray Detective Fuller, a New York police officer.
• Holt McCallany is Ricky, the ringleader of a group of Irish thugs.
• Lyndsy Fonseca (Ted’s future-daughter on How I Met Your Mother) and Dianna Agron (pictured) are cheerleaders, one sweet, one tart, in a Southern California town to which Claire is expected to move.

We know you need your fix of Heroes spoilers for season two.

Fortunately, Michael Ausiello of TV Guide is here to hook you up with information on next season.

I caught up with Hayden Panettiere at last Thursday’s Entourage premiere and she revealed that the first episode picks up four months after the finale.

“A lot of things happened [during those four months] that people don’t know about,” she teased. “A lot of things changed and people will be like, ‘Whoa!’”

The portrayer of Claire Bennet also hinted that someone did NOT survive the season-ending bloodbath, and here’s more on who that may be:

NBC is holding a Heroes press conference tomorrow on the show’s set, and all primary cast members will be present and accounted for. That includes Santiago Cabrera, Jack Coleman, Greg Grunberg, Ali Larter, Masi Oka, Hayden Panettiere, Adrian Pasdar, Zachary Quinto, Sendhil Ramamurthy, Leonard Roberts and Milo Ventimiglia.

Hmmm… someone is missing from that list. Do you know who?

According to Heroes creator Tim Kring, the character of Mr. Bennet changed a lot over the course of season one.

On an NBC blog, he talks about this character’s evolution, while Hayden Panettiere chimes in with how Claire also overcame obstacles on her way to heroics:

Tim: The character that went through the most change for me was Jack Coleman’s character - Claire’s father. Because if you paid close attention to the pilot, he only had about 8 lines of dialog. While I always imagined he’d have a presence on the show, I never imaged the big role he had and a lot of that is because of the chemistry between him and Claire. And in many ways, the most central relationship of the entire season was that between Claire and her father.

Hayden: You know, I think that in the beginning she was a normal girl dealing with normal things who wanted to date the quarterback and just fit in. I think it was a fabulous idea to make her a cheerleader cause it made her relatable to people - it reminded people of normal adolescent behavior.

And she discovers this thing she has and she looks at it as the worst thing in the world. To a teenager, it was completely dramatic, but over the course of the season she’s evolved into a young woman with a beautiful naiveté who is still a young girl but who has come into her own, who has learned to embrace who she is and the ability that she’s been given.

Tim: She literally became a hero. She went through the hero’s journey: from reluctant and unwilling to someone who is willing to make the ultimate sacrifices. So in some ways, she’s the most heroic character on the show.

We reported yesterday that Nick D’Agosto had landed the plum role of Claire’s boyfriend on the next season of Heroes.

Well, TV Guide just sat down with D’Agosto and discussed the part…

TVGuide.com: Were you nervous when you auditioned, knowing that Heroes is one of the more popular shows on TV?
Nick D’Agosto: I guess there’s a little bit of that. I don’t want to portray it like I’m different from every other actor and I don’t feel nerves when I walk in the room, but at the same time, I felt confident that I knew who this guy was and I knew what I needed to do. So I didn’t let the fact that I was auditioning for a high-profile show consume me.

TVGuide.com: Were you already a fan of the show?
D’Agosto: I’d watched it before, but I hadn’t watched it a lot. I just moved and I haven’t gotten cable television yet. But I watched it a couple of times, and I love the concept. It’s also extremely exciting that I get to have a superpower.

TVGuide.com: Reports say your character will have a “very cool” superpower.
D’Agosto: [Laughs] Well, I honestly don’t know what that is yet. I only have the few [audition] scenes I was given, about four pages. From what I can tell, you know this kid is confident and mysterious. He’s seems to be very comfortable in his own skin. The scenes seem to revolve around a blossoming of [Hayden Panettiere’s] character in certain ways. I think West will be a facilitator of that. But that’s mostly speculation from the little information that I’ve been given.

TVGuide.com: There are a lot of guys out there who wouldn’t mind playing Hayden Panettiere’s boyfriend. Maybe West’s superpower is that he’s great with the ladies. Would you be comfortable as a Super Don Juan?
D’Agosto: I would feel [cheated], because I already possess that superpower in real life. [Laughs] No, I’m just kidding. I think I could handle that power. It would be a burden to bear. I mean, I have a lot to live up to. I’m sure there’s going to be a bunch of people who see me with her on the show and they’re going to be like, “Who’s that skinny punk? Who does he think he is?” So I feel humbled and I will do my best to prove to the male population that I’m worthy of the task.

TVGuide.com: Well, if that’s not your superpower, what ability would you like to have?
D’Agosto: I know there’s a character that can read thoughts. Playing with time would be an awesome power, but I guess that’s already taken. I guess a part of me hopes that the power is darker and a bit more mysterious, one that can be used for good or ill. Rather than having claws come out of my hands or rays shoot out of my eyes, I’d like if it were something psychological.

TVGuide.com: You costarred opposite Marisa Tomei in the CBS pilot The Rich Inner Life of Penelope Cloud. Unfortunately the network didn’t pick up the show. A year earlier CBS decided not to pick up a pilot you starred in called Orpheus. Now that you’re on an NBC show, is there anything you’d like to say about CBS’ judgment?
D’Agosto: [Laughs] Honestly, I’d like to say thank you. I know that may sound odd, but the truth is all the networks are just as tough. I’m thankful about Orpheus, because I got the opportunity to play the lead character in a drama. Then I was thankful that they took me on the following year in a big role on a 30-minute comedy. It made it seem like it wasn’t about me. I will say that things work out in favorable ways sometimes. If Penelope Cloud had been picked up, I wouldn’t have been able to do Heroes. So for me, things couldn’t have worked out any better.

TVGuide.com: You’ve had roles on TV’s ER, Cold Case, Six Feet Under and House, and in the movie Election. When people who recognize you come up to you, what role are they most likely to bring up?
D’Agosto: It’s funny, people still recognize me most from Election. When you do a lot of guest spots, you look familiar, but people tend to remember the regulars. For me, it’s mostly Election, because it’s the type of movie certain people loved and watched numerous times. I’ve got this movie Rocket Science [coming out later this year] and then Heroes, so I hope that will change.

Nick D’Agosto has landed a recurring role on our favorite show for next season.

The young actor he will play Claire Bennet’s (Hayden Panettiere) boyfriend, West, who is said to have “a very cool superpower.”

D’Agosto is the second new addition to the cast of Heroes for next season, joining recently appointed new regular Dania Ramirez.

This past development season, D’Agosto co-starred opposite Marisa Tomei in CBS’ comedy pilot The Rich Inner Life of Penelope Cloud. Last year, he played the male lead opposite Mena Suvari in another CBS pilot, the drama Orpheus.

D’Agosto will next be seen in the indie Rocket Science, which premiered to strong reviews at the Sundance Film Festival in January.