Over the years Heroes star Hayden Panettiere has brought a little of that heroism into the real world. Passionate about animals, in 2007 Panettiere traveled to Japan to protest the annual dolphin hunt in Taiji. The young actress and several others on surfboards confronted a group of fisherman before they were forced to return to shore — an encounter that was featured in The Cove, a 2009 documentary about dolphin slaughter. The following year she lobbied the Norwegian ambassador to halt Norway's whale hunting, a cause she also supports in Japan. The 22-year-old clearly relishes the platform her celebrity status has afforded her, once telling People, "I feel the need to be a voice of worthy and important causes whose efforts impact the lives of every person on earth."