What the Hell Happened to Katherine Heigl? by lebeau's le Blog [Archive] - Sitcoms Online Message Boards

TMC

05-18-2016, 07:02 PM

http://www.looper.com/13138/hollywood-wont-cast-katherine-heigl-anymore/

She dissed the projects that put her on the map

To this day, Heigl’s biggest blockbuster is Knocked Up (2007). She reportedly had a beef with the rom-com, but waited until her check cleared before speaking out. Heigl told Vanity Fair in 2008, “It paints the women as shrews, as humorless and uptight, and it paints the men as lovable, goofy, fun-loving guys. It exaggerated the characters, and I had a hard time with it, on some days. I’m playing such a b****…It was hard for me to love the movie.”

In June 2008, Heigl withdrew from the race for Emmy nominations for her role of Izzie on Grey’s Anatomy, despite winning the award for best supporting actress in a drama series in 2007. She told the press, “I did not feel that I was given the material this season to warrant an Emmy nomination and in an effort to maintain the integrity of the academy organization, I withdrew my name from contention.” Translation: “I believe the writing sucked and want attention, and possibly out of my contract.”

She got called out for hypocrisy

Despite thinking Knocked Up (2007) was sexist, Heigl went on to star in a slew of critically panned romcoms that played up gender stereotypes, most notably The Ugly Truth (2009). Her Knocked Up director, Judd Apatow, dissed her on The Howard Stern Show in 2009, saying, “I hear there’s a scene [in The Ugly Truth] where she’s wearing…underwear…with a vibrator in it, so I’d have to see if that was uplifting for women.”

She’s difficult on set

An insider who worked on Life As We Know It (2010) told The Hollywood Reporter that working with Heigl led to “desperately difficult” situations. “She can cost you time every single day of shooting. Wardrobe issues, not getting out of the trailer, questioning the script every single day. Even getting her deal closed at Warners was hard. She hit that point of ‘no.'” A staffer who worked on 27 Dresses (2008) had a similar experience: “There were movie-star demands—big rooms, the mother there, all the stuff. ‘We need the presidential suite at The Bristol!’ It was just a sense of entitlement. The biggest stars don’t do that kind of thing.”

What’s more, Page Six reports that Heigl demanded $3 million for the ensemble romcom Valentine’s Day (2011). With each member of the cast only filming for three to 14 days, producers laughed her off and worked with Julia Roberts instead.

She burned bridges

In what was perhaps a desperate move, Heigl said in 2012 that she’d love to return to Grey’s Anatomy. That didn’t sit well with Shonda Rhimes, who told The Hollywood Reporter in October 2014, “There are no Heigls in this situation…I don’t put up with bulls**t or nasty people. I don’t have time for it.” Meanwhile, Judd Apatow told Howard Stern, “[You think] at some point I’ll get a call saying ‘Sorry, I was tired…’ and then the call never comes.”

Her momager was out of control

Heigl’s mother, Nancy, has served as her manager since the beginning of her career, and it hasn’t exactly worked out well. A source told OK! Magazine, “Nancy isn’t a producer…but she thinks that she has a right to make decisions and she has angered a lot of people in the process. Katherine doesn’t know when to stay quiet and she has damaged her reputation, and her mother encouraged that behavior. She is very close to her mom, but she knows she needs to salvage what remains of her career with someone else—that is if anyone else will take her.” Another source echoed those sentiments to The Hollywood Reporter. “I have never experienced anything like Nancy Heigl,” the source fumed. “…Whatever you’d say, you were an idiot. The call would be, ‘This is the worst craft service we’ve ever had! There’s nothing to eat! This is the worst wardrobe!’ You knew that every day, you were going to get slammed.”

She’s in denial about her behavior

When a fan asked Heigl about her reputation as rude and difficult to work with, she wasn’t apologetic. “I certainly don’t see myself as being difficult; I would never intend to be difficult. I don’t think my mother sees herself as being difficult,” she told Variety. “It’s always important to everybody to conduct themselves professionally and respectfully and kindly, so if I have ever disappointed somebody, it was never intentional.”

Her publicists ran for the hills

Page Six reports that Heigl ditched her longtime publicist, Jill Fritzo, in 2010 in favor of Melissa Kates. In a move that’s almost unheard of in the media world, Kates fired Heigl later that year. “PR people rarely resign from accounts, especially when starting their own company, and the client in question is a legitimate movie star,” a source told Deadline. Heigl then signed with Kelly Bush, who nabbed a coveted Entertainment Weekly cover for Heigl to do damage control. An insider dished to Deadline, “Kelly did [an] amazing job. That EW piece was initially a takedown but she turned it into a love letter.” Heigl repaid Bush by firing her after just five weeks, then crawling back to Fritzo.

It may have been a big mistake: Variety says that Heigl hardly did any interviews leading up to the premiere of her NBC series, State Of Affairs, and it may have hurt her—the show was canceled in May 2015.

How she can turn it around

Heigl currently has two projects slated for 2016: Unforgettable and a TV movie called Doubt. Aside from State Of Affairs, her most notable work in recent years was actually in commercials. She had a snoring role in a ZzzQuil ad and currently shills cat food.

The actress seems to be self-aware, at least in terms of what projects she’s choosing now. She told Marie Claire, “I love romantic comedies. But maybe I hit it a little too hard. I couldn’t say no. I stopped challenging myself. It became a bit by rote and, as a creative person, that can wear you down,” she said. “That was part of why I took that time off, to ask myself, ‘What do I want? What am I looking for?’ and shut down all the noise…I was thinking I’d maybe open a knitting store, get my money out of retirement accounts and live off that, live off the land. I had my moment where it all seemed so complicated and all I wanted to do was simplify.”

A source close to her told The Hollywood Reporter, “She’s really determined to put everything behind her. The only way to do that is to go to work in film or television with good people and for those people to have good things to report back. And it’s not an overnight thing. There’s a really loyal, huge fan base that’s waiting to see her.”