interview - KATHERINE HEIGL

Maid to Order

In 27 Dresses, Katherine Heigl plays a single gal who’s been a bridesmaid so many times, she’s a pro. And wouldn’t you know, it took working on this romantic-comedy to finally get her own wedding off the ground

After shooting last summer’s big hit Knocked Up during her summer hiatus of 2006, Grey’s Anatomy star Katherine Heigl hoped she’d spend her following summer off laying on a beach at some fancy foreign resort.

“I wanted to believe I’d at least get a couple weeks off to go to Cabo or something,” laments the 29-year-old, dressed in jeans and a T-shirt during a recent L.A. interview. Alas, if Heigl wanted to keep up the momentum she’d built with Knocked Up, she knew she’d have to forego the beach for another movie.

“I spent a lot of years out of work, so I’d rather be tired and overworked than bored and underworked,” says Heigl, whose early film roles include appearances in Bride of Chucky, Valentine and Under Siege 2. “Look, good scripts don’t come around that often, and while I’ve just had an amazing couple of years, you never know what could happen. I’m making no assumptions about anything anymore, because everything is a risk. I mean, I watch Lost.”

The script Heigl ultimately chose was for the romantic-comedy 27 Dresses, about a perpetual bridesmaid desperate to become a bride. Penned by The Devil Wears Prada’s scribe Aline Brosh McKenna, Heigl felt the screenplay was head and shoulders above most of the offers she’d received.

“For some reason, a lot of them are horror or monster movies,” says the woman who won a 2007 Emmy Award for her portrayal of Grey’s Anatomy’s Dr. Izzie Stevens.

“It’s a story that I think a lot of women can understand and even relate to,” Heigl says of 27 Dresses. “Views about marriage and love have changed so much in our culture over the last couple of years. I think the film hits on a lot of that confusion about when we are supposed to get married or when it’s too late. It’s also done in such a funny, tender way you can’t help but enjoy it.”

Heigl says that even though the pregnancy suit she wore for Knocked Up was a “sweaty, smelly nightmare,” shooting that movie kicked her maternal clock into gear. And in much the same way, 27 Dresses motivated her to get on with her wedding plans.

“While I was doing Knocked Up, I realized that having a baby was nothing like I imagined it would be, but it got me thinking about having kids. I was engaged, so after wearing the pregnancy suit all that time, it made me think that after a few years of marriage, it would probably be time to start thinking about children. I’ve always wanted to have a family…. So it just all sort of put it into perspective.

“The same thing happened after pretending to go to all these imaginary weddings,” continues Heigl. “Being around all those weddings got me to thinking, ‘We’ve got to figure this all out. Okay, when are our Christmas breaks? When’s our hiatus? When do I have time? Is it just going to be a quickie wedding and no honeymoon?’ I tell you what, if I didn’t make movies I probably wouldn’t know what to do in my real life.”

Although Heigl doesn’t talk much about her personal life, she does admit she uses Kelley’s music to help her get in the mood when she’s shooting sad or difficult scenes.

“When I need to find those places in myself to bring out the more difficult emotions I find little dark corners of the room to think about all the horrible things that have happened in my life [like the 1986 car accident that took the life of her brother, Jason], and I listen to my iPod and all of the sad music Josh has written,” she says quietly. “But in the last year Josh has written some really beautiful songs about relationships. I kind of make requests.”

At least one song on Kelley’s latest album, Just Say the Word, was written specifically for Katherine Marie Heigl, but she won’t say which one. However, she’s not shy about that fact that she considers herself to be Kelley’s muse. “I better be his muse,” she says with a laugh. “Wouldn’t that be horrible if you were engaged to a musician and he never wrote a song for you? That would be awful.”

As for Grey’s Anatomy, this season’s ratings may be down, but the show is still considered one of TV’s biggest successes. “We’ve got our talons in everyone,” says Heigl. “If we can maintain the sort of fun, levity and the drama of it all, I think that we’ll maintain our audience.”

But it may be that Heigl’s highly publicized salary dispute with ABC (she reportedly takes home about $125,000 [U.S.] per episode), and the firing of cast mate Isaiah Washington after that infamous homophobic slur directed at fellow actor T.R. Knight, has influenced how long Heigl will be at that fictional Seattle hospital. Particularly now that she knows she can find work on the big screen.

“For me, I feel like there is a career with or without Grey’s Anatomy,” she says frankly. “I don’t want to assume that my job is safe. Ultimately, it has to do with what’s best for the character. I think that they have to make their decisions based not on just keeping the actors around, but what really makes sense for the story and the characters,” she says.

Whether the next few years of Heigl’s life are spent primarily on the small screen or the big screen, one thing is for sure. There’s no going back to the days when she could run errands or do her shopping without being recognized.

“It’s very difficult when you’re working the kind of hours I do to have a life as well and to get the things done in your life that need to get done,” she says. “I mean, just going to Costco and getting your toilet paper can get complicated. It’s gotten weird. You’re going, ‘Should I get Charmin or Scott’s,’ and then somebody comes up to you and wants to know what’s happening the rest of the season.”

Earl Dittman is a Houston-based entertainment writer.