Katherine Heigl, star of 27 Dresses and Roswell, tells LWLies all about her latest rom-com.
LWLies: So Katherine, why did you say ‘I do’ to this project?
Heigl: Well I’m a huge romantic comedy fan, and in all the 17 years I have worked in this industry, I have hoped and dreamed and wished that one day I could be in a romantic comedy myself. And this was the first one that I read where I actually laughed out loud alone in my living room and I think I just loved the characters. They were very honestly flawed and yet so very welcoming and endearing and I knew that we could identify with them because they weren’t all shiny and perfect all the time.When I said I wanted to star in a romantic comedy my whole life, I don’t think I realised quite how exhausting that was going to be and I guess I’m just used to more of an ensemble cast, it was overwhelming that I had to learn to manage my down time to keep my energy up, and look fresh and on it all the time, and real! It gets very difficult and I didn’t know that when I began – I just kept it going with a lot of coffee.
LWLies: Do you have a lot of bridesmaid experience?
Heigl: I was my sister’s maid of honour last October and it was an honour and I was so excited and grateful that she asked me, but it was a tremendous amount of pressure and stress on that day, and even up to the day. My sister’s a real tomboy so to get her to go and pick a wedding dress and go to a fitting, and wow, she hated the hair and make-up tests – but she had to and trying to get her to do it and make everything run smoothly was very stressful and I would rather not do it again.
LWLies: Did you have as stressful time getting married and filming the film?
Heigl: No, I had been planning my wedding for about 9 months and then they decided to release the film a week or two after I got married, and I was actually quite annoyed with them because I had had so much of weddings by this point and I just needed a breather from it all.
LWLies: You’ve starred in two very different comic role in the past year- is there a different way to approach them, or is comedy just comedy?
Heigl: Well I actually thought Knocked Up was a little more the kind of humour born from experiences vs born from situations. And I think that my character’s comedy in Knocked Up came from playing against Seth’s character – they guy that any woman would want to throttle. Whereas Jane was a little more schticky. It was more physical comedy, it was a little goofier, and she was pretty uptight herself, but it came from a different place. What I’d like to do next is find that perfect comedy that is a combination between that fantasy, escapism world that women love, and then find that edgier, not raunchy, but that kind of film that Knocked Up was, so that women don’t have to drag their boyfriends to go and see films – but they actually want to go.
LWLies: Is your own life anywhere near as ordered as Jane?
Heigl: I did want to take that away from Jane actually, having a little more organisation and having it a little more together like Jane, but I am terrible about being organised. I got really good around the time of my wedding with my hair appointments and my nail appointments and my wardrobe fitting, but after the wedding it all changed back.
LWLies: Were you a bridezilla?
I tried very hard not to be one. I do feel that in America people do make a big fuss about weddings, and in all honesty I have no idea why everybody makes it such a big deal and places such a huge emphasis on it. I agree with Kevin in the film, that as soon as you say ‘wedding’ the cake goes from a couple of hundred bucks to a couple of thousand and it is very frustrating. Everyone tries to take this one day in your life and turn it into this crazy, affluent thing and I just wanted everyone to keep remember that it’s over in like, 8 hours! Marriage has been great, I didn’t think anything would change that much, but it’s been really wonderful so far. I think there is a sort of steadiness to it that wasn’t there before, and a settledness which I know sounds really boring, but in our careers, that is a very safe and wonderful thing to feel – that this person is in it for the long haul. I really do feel like I don’t have to impress him, or leaving him all the time. It’s just a very comfortable and wonderful relationship.
LWLies: How do you feel about the paparazzi and intrusion?
Well you know how it is, you go out in your pyjamas and they just kill you. And again, I have enough of an ego to make sure I look okay, and I I’m going shopping and I know I’m going to get photographed, I will try and pull it together. But you know, I can go to the drug store to get cough medicine in my pyjamas and hey what can you do.I also do think it’s tough a role model and I don’t want to criticise other people over the choices they have made – but I have put myself in a situation where I am being looked at, and looked up to, and I do think to some degree it is up to me to take that seriously. Personally, I don’t have big flaws, but I do try to always make it really clear about my smoking that it’s not something I think it really cool, obviously it is a really stupid habit that I started at a really stupid age and it’s something I will have to fight, and I would never ever encourage anyone to follow in my steps and even try what I did.
