In person, Hayden Panettiere is a real beauty. Enthusiastic and articulate, Panettiere seems much more mature than most young actresses her age. Strolling the red carpet at the January 8, 2005 World Premiere of "Racing Stripes," Panettiere spoke about the fun she had working with zebras:
INTERVIEW WITH HAYDEN PANETTIERE ('Channing'):
How do you train to ride a zebra?
You don’t. You can’t train to ride a zebra (laughing). I went through six weeks of training in South Africa and it’s really about developing your muscles. To hold that jockey position for that long is like excruciatingly painful. And I had to learn what’s called holding pace because when we were on the track, we would have the camera car and the camera coming off of it, and I would be racing along side of it. Either in a pack of horses or when it’s alone, I would have to hold my horse back. When horses race and race and race, their mouths get very tough and they have the will to run and run and run. They get sort of crazy. So you have to build up your body strength in order to be able to hold them back so that the camera can stay with you.
That’s crazy.
(Laughing) It’s a little crazy, but it’s fun. I have guns [flexing].
Knowing what you know now, would you do it again?
Oh my God, yes. It was one of the most amazing films that I’ve ever done in my life.
How do you compare riding a zebra to riding a horse?
There’s no comparison. A zebra is short and wider, and they sort of seem to zigzag. They’re pack animals and they’re hunted in the wild and so they run in zigzag lines. They’ve got very hard mouths so in order to be able to hold them, you have to try very hard to get them to go in a straight line.
Did you ever get bucked off?
No. No, we had some good zebras. We had some really nice zebras. Out of five months, we did pretty dang well.
ADDITIONAL “RACING STRIPES” INTERVIEWS:
Frankie Muniz / Frederik Du Chau / Bruce Greenwood / Jeff Foxworthy / M Emmet Walsh / Jeff Gordon
