Is the Grey’s Anatomy star the new funny girl lead?
2007 has been quite a year for Katherine Heigl, who saw her star rise first as her TV show, Grey’s Anatomy, maintained its foothold on the nighttime line up, and she transitioned to the silver screen with her lead role in the Judd Apatow megahit, Knocked Up. Heigl cements her status as a leading lady with 27 Dresses, a romantic comedy from director Anne Fletcher about a woman who takes being ‘always a bridesmaid’ to new lengths.
“I am not that kind of girl, really,” says Heigl of her wedding-fanatic character Jane. “I haven’t been to very many weddings. I have only been to a total of four weddings in my whole life.”
Nor did she think of herself as someone who found weddings particularly, shmoopy, I guess is the word—that is, until recently. “At [Grey’s Anatomy costar Kate Walsh’s] wedding, I was so not going to cry, it didn’t even come into my brain. I had nothing on me, no tissues or anything. And I was looking at people with their tissues and stuff, like, ‘Oh you guys are lame. It’s not that dramatic.’ And as soon as the music started, I started crying. I mean, she hadn’t even walked out yet and I was crying. I was sharing a corner of tissue with Keisha Chambers, [Grey’s Anatomy costar Justin Chambers’] wife, trying to stop the flow. So obviously I’m a little more sentimental than I originally thought.”
Heigl was originally drawn to the script because she loved her character. “It was such an awesome opportunity to get to do some comedy as well,” she says, “and not just be the foil or the girlfriend or the daughter or the sister or whatever. But to actually play a major part in the comedy, which is what I love to do.”
Coincidentally, though, it turns out her character wasn’t the only one with wedding fever this year. Heigl got married to musician fiancé Josh Kelley this Christmas. “It was very coincidental timing, though I’ve been planning my wedding for a year and a half, Fox just decided to release this in January so that’s no my fault,” she quips.
“I think it was just interesting because both costar Malin [Akerman] and I were planning weddings and Malin actually went off and got married and came back to work. There was a lot of wedding talk, definitely. All the details, all the planning, how we hoped the day would turn out. It was really funny to see Malin come back to work, and could not stop saying, ‘My husband’ over and over. It was awesome. It was exciting.”
27 Dresses opens January 18 in theaters across the country.
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