NEWS'Heroes' Creator Remembers Late Hayden Panettiere as an 'Extraordinary Actress' After Her Tragic Death: 'Pure Talent'
Tim shared that Hayden had 'something offbeat about her.'
Sept. 29 2026, Published 7:48 a.m. ET
Tim Kring is remembering Hayden Panettiere and what made her perfect for Heroes.
Reflecting on the hit NBC series for its 20th anniversary, Kring, 69, opened up about casting the late actress as cheerleader Claire Bennet and said Panettiere immediately stood out during the audition process.
“We did not look very far; we saw her, and that was it,” Kring said in an interview published Friday, September 25. “First of all, she was an extraordinary actress.”
Tim shared that Hayden 'embodied that girl-next-door quality.'
Kring added that Panettiere “embodied that girl-next-door quality” while possessing the range needed to bring Claire to life.
“It was just pure talent that walked in the door,” he recalled to Entertainment Tonight. “There’s nobody in my head that we saw other than her.”
Tim Says Hayden Had 'Something Offbeat About Her'
Tim shared he remembered Hayden as a 'kind and gentle person.'
Panettiere was only 16 years old when she landed the role of Claire, a high school cheerleader who discovers she can regenerate from injuries.
For Kring, the actress had exactly the unconventional quality he envisioned for the character.
“I described her as the cheerleader who you had the crush on, not the one that everybody else had the crush on,” he explained. “So not the golden girl, but slightly quirky, with something offbeat about her.”
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The star died in August.
Panettiere starred in all four seasons of Heroes from 2006 until its conclusion in 2010. The show's famous phrase, “Save the cheerleader, save the world,” helped make Claire one of its most recognizable characters.
By the time she joined the NBC drama, Panettiere was already an experienced performer. She began working as a baby and later appeared in Remember the Titans, One Life to Live, and voiced Dot in A Bug's Life.
Hayden Panettiere Died at 36
Tim wrote an emotional essay following the star's death.
Kring's latest comments come a little more than a month after Panettiere died at age 36 on August 16.
Following her death, the Heroes creator remembered the actress as a gifted performer and a kind person.
“You dream of writing for an actress like her,” Kring said in a statement at the time, noting that despite her young age when she joined the show, Panettiere could naturally find the “drama, humor and pathos” in a scene.
He also remembered Panettiere as a “kind and gentle person” who was an “inspiration to work with.”
Kring expanded on those memories in an emotional essay following her death, writing that Panettiere arrived at Heroes as a seasoned professional but didn't possess the jaded quality sometimes associated with actors who grow up in the industry.
