Hayden Panettiere: 'You've got to have a DUI to make the headlines'

Celebrities only make the headlines when they are arrested, says Heroes star Hayden Panettiere.

The blonde - who campaigns for a number of causes and admires Angelina Jolie for her charity work, says: "You've got to have a DUI or get arrested in Los Angeles to have any headline not turn into last week's news."

Panettiere made her comments during an interview with Seventeen, a US magazine for teenage girls. The actress is on the cover of the April issue.

Inside, she spoke about her charity work including her recent trip to Japan with a group of animal activists. The 18-year-old made headlines for surfing through bloody waters to protest the slaughter of whales.

She says: "I was really surprised about how much people were impacted by it and how much publicity it got.

"You've got to have a DUI or get arrested in Los Angeles to have any headline not turn into last week's news.

"But this has stuck around. People have been so interested.

"To have paparazzi actually ask me that question [about saving the whales] instead of: 'What do you think of Lindsay Lohan going back to rehab?' was totally cool.

"And it's wonderful having people come up to me and be like: 'I support you with that 100 per cent' and 'What a great thing you did' and 'I had no idea that was happening'."

The trip to Japan was a gutsy move for the New York native who risked her safety to protest. But she says that fighting the whalers was "great."

"The whaling in Taiji, Japan, turns the bay red with blood - like so red you could dip a paintbrush in it and paint a picture," the teenager says.

"[But] there's very little that scares me. I've always been a physical person.

"And I feel like a lot of times in this industry, a lot of people loan their face to a cause, which is great, but it doesn't do as much as getting out there and actually physically doing something.

"We knew we were doing the right thing - and we held our ground.

"Doing what I did made me feel so good; it made me feel like I was actually participating in something."

It's not the only campaign that the actress is spearheading. She is also involved with PETA and supports the ethical treatment of animals. She reads to children, donates some of her clothes to Invisible Children (a charity started during the war in Northern Uganda) and she confronts teen pregnancy.

Panettiere also finds time to encourage her peers to vote in the upcoming US general election. She says: "It's important to have an opinion - because the youth are the people who all of the world's messes are going to be left to.

"It would be so great if every single person just got together and did little things to fix the world.

"There are so many people who say: 'I'm just one person. I can't do anything'. And then the person beside you says: 'I'm just one person. I can't do anything'.

"And all of a sudden, everyone's saying: 'I'm just one person. I can't do anything'. And then no one does anything.

"But it's so simple. Like registering to vote; You're like: 'Oh, I don't want to go through the process - it's a nightmare'.

"Most kids who turn 18 don't even think about voting. But it's so easy to do and it's so important.

"And it ties straight into the environment, helping children and saving animals.

"Voting and choosing [a presidential candidate] who's on the same page is going to give us a lot of help in the future."

Admitting that she hasn't always been so socially conscious, she goes on to say: "I didn't get intensely involved until recently.

"I think being on Heroes and being in the public eye gave me such a strong, powerful voice.

"Angelina Jolie and people like her have always been role models to me."

But Panettiere says that she is no goody-two-shoes.

"I have a million different layers to my personality," she says. "I love shoes and if I was a wonderful person I'd run around in whatever clothes and have one outfit - and then I'd donate the rest of the money to charity.

"But no one is perfect and no one is saying you have to give up everything in your life to change the world."

One thing that the actress is very passionate about is separating herself from the wild antics of some of her peers in Hollywood.

Also gracing the cover of the US April edition of Cosmopolitan, she tells the magazine: "I think that people look at me as just another one of those girls who's going to screw up, like: 'She's going to get into drugs, and she's going to get into the parties'."

She does break the law to some extent. The legal age for alcohol consumption in the US is 21 but at 18 Panettiere enjoys champagne every now and then.

She says: "I have the occasional glass of champagne when I'm celebrating something, but generally I don't drink.

"I'm a pizza and a movie girl."

The actress, who plays cheerleader Claire Bennet in the TV series Heroes, has been acting since she was seven.

During that time she has shared the screen with Denzel Washington in the film Remember the Titans and played Calista Flockhart's daughter in Ally McBeal. Yet the New Yorker intends to stay grounded.

She tells Cosmopolitan: "The biggest thing is just to surround yourself with good people who keep you driven and keep you going where you want to go; people who let you know that it's okay to be you."

In Seventeen, she says that teen actress and singer Hilary Duff is one of those friends.

Panettiere says: "Hilary is one of the closer people to me in the business.

"She's a very down-to-earth person. She's humble, very sweet - she's low-key."