Katherine Heigl has put a lot of effort into joining the ranks of ‘actresses no one wants to work with.’ Now, she’s putting as much effort into ridding herself of that brand. The previous Grey’s Anatomy star, known for her flops in the romantic comedy world (though I must say that one time I was drugged at a club and the only thing that kept me from sobbing for 3 days of withdrawal was 27 Dresses), stopped by The Howard Stern Show on Wednesday in what appears to be an effort to get her career back. Heigl half-heartedly apologized for her history of badmouthing her projects. It seems like she just wants to get paid again. After Stern called her out for her past behavior, Heigl tried shouldering the blame for her career, while simultaneously crediting a series of unfortunate circumstances.
Heigl explains that time she pissed off Judd Apatow and Seth Rogen for her less than tactful criticism of Knocked Up:
I know, I always get into it … just stick my foot in [my mouth]. I liked the movie a lot. I just didn’t like me. [The character] was kind of like, she was so judgmental and kind of uptight and controlling and all these things and I really went with it while we were doing it, and a lot of it — Judd allows everyone to be very free and improvise and whatever — and afterwards I was like, ‘Why is that where I went with this? What an asshole she is!’
I was being interviewed for Vanity Fair. Like, I was on the cover of Vanity Fair, it was a huge big deal for me! And the journalist [Norman Jean Roy] was really, really lovely. I don’t mean to imply on any level that she trapped me … she just said, ‘You know a lot of women felt that it was a little sexist,’ so then I felt obligated to answer that and so I tried in my very sort of ungracious way to answer why I felt that it maybe was a little. If you read the whole quote, I’m just saying that can be the nature of broad comedy … but they just took the sexist thing out.
One thing led to another and you know I was really unprepared for this interview and I just ran my mouth and you know it really was harmless. I was in a professional interview, but I thought everything was in confidence, I was really just needing a place to vent. She took the standard excuse, but Apatow and Rogen didn’t take it that way. The two who seem to be two pretty easy, laid-back, full-loving man children held it against Heigl after her comments were released.
I ran into him at a restaurant and I didn’t quite realize that it was as serious as it was … I walked up like, ‘Hey, guys!’ And they were like very, like, [really cold] and I was like, ‘Oh, you’re really mad, I didn’t realize that it was that bad.
I absolutely owe anyone an apology I unwittingly offended or disrespected. I get it. It was an immature dumbass moment.
While I’m not sure everyone knew the extent to which these men would shape comedy as a genre of film, everyone who’s ever been a fanboy would know that badmouthing them would be career suicide. Further showing her ignorance for the path of progressive television, Heigl launched her shitstorm at Grey’s Anatomy and now television royalty, Shonda Rimes. A fiasco which got her Grey’s Anatomy a dead lover and a cancer diagnosis. Note to all acting wannabes, don’t tell everyone you don’t think your writer is deserving of an Emmy.
I went in because I was really embarrassed. So I went in to Shonda and said, ‘I’m so sorry. That wasn’t cool, and I should not have said that.’ And I shouldn’t have said anything publicly. But at the time, I didn’t think anyone would notice … I just quietly didn’t submit and then it became a story, and I felt I was obligated to make my statement, and … ‘Shut up, Katie.’”
Turns out no one considered ‘Katie’ quirky enough to forgive her media mishaps. She’s also earned herself the reputation of high maintenance on set with a wretched momager to boot. Who knows how much of her career falling apart is attributable to age-old sexism or just a general shitty personality, but she wants it back. She wants to try again. So our Katie is in therapy trying to find her groove, trying to be a tolerable person, and trying to find her way to casting outside of Eastern European commercial television.