Q&A with Katherine Heigl - Radio Times, April 2008

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Q&A with Katherine Heigl - Radio Times, April 2008

Katherine Heigl in Grey's Anatomy © Buena Vista

Benji Wilson finds out how the Grey's Anatomy star learned to be stylish.

BW: In Grey's Anatomy your character, Izzie, is devastated that her fiancé's died. Are things always so upbeat on the show?

KH: Ha! Unfortunately there's an idea that happy and healthy doesn't make good drama. So there's always going to be conflict. Wait till you see what happens to her this season! But it would be nice to see somebody happy.

Now that you're a fully paid-up movie star after last summer's hit Knocked Up and your new romantic comedy 27 Dresses, are you finished with TV?

Do you know something I don't? I'll stay as long as they'll have me. I'm grateful to have a job, just like everybody else. I remember when it was a real struggle to pay the rent or pay the mortgage - I lived from pay cheque to pay cheque and did a lot of TV movies and whatever to just pay the bills.

So I'm pretty psyched to have a steady job. For me, the ideal is that I be here nine months out of the year and then I get to do a movie [during the break] and do something different. I love to travel, so I'd love to do a film on location somewhere and play a different character.

Does it get boring playing the same character year after year?

It's really hard. To be honest, I'm kind of going off Izzie. She's making weird choices I don't understand. I used to be really protective of her. Now I just want to slap her.

But she got you a best supporting actress Emmy and a Screen Actors Guild award. Add that to the success of Knocked Up and you're on a bit of a roll.

It's been amazing. I've worked my whole life to get to this place where it isn't so hard to get to play roles that I'm passionate or excited about. I keep thinking back to three or four years ago when every script that came my way would mean an audition with casting directors, and then maybe I'd get to go back and meet the director and then maybe I'd get to go back and meet the lead - and then I still wouldn't get it.

Are you a style icon or a T-shirt kind of girl?

I am so not a style icon! I had to ask my best friend for help. I was getting really paranoid about it, because I felt like every time I just put on jeans and a T-shirt, I'd go out and then I'd be that girl in the back page of the gossip mags, like, "What was she thinking?" And I thought, this is embarrassing, I need to pull it together.

So I had her come over with her sister, and they're both fabulously stylish, and they put together clothes for me. Now I just take the hanger, and there's a picture attached to it of what I'm supposed to wear and I do everything exactly the way they tell me to.

One final question: what's it like for a glamorous movie star to have to wear scrubs for a living? They're not the most flattering item of clothing.

The thing about the scrubs trousers is that they have a drawstring. You don't have to suck it [your stomach] in. Mind you, yesterday I was getting up to go to the set and I looked in the mirror - there are mirrors all around our trailers, which is pretty awkward - and I thought, "Wow, I've got a serious poop sag going on."

A poop sag?

Yeah, they're so baggy around the butt, and I was wondering, "Isn't there a way to slightly tailor that?". I mean, it doesn't look cute - can't they tuck it in a little bit around here and just flare it out at the bottom? They could be cuter.

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