Katherine Heigl Denies Being Difficult, Calls Upcoming Show ‘Extraordinary’

Chris Haston/NBC(LOS ANGELES) — After leaving Grey’s Anatomy a few years back to pursue her movie career, Katherine Heigl briefly became one of the highest-paid actresses in Hollywood, only to suffer a string of flops and weather rumors of diva behavior.

She returns to TV this fall with the NBC drama State of Affairs, in which she plays a CIA analyst responsible for briefing the president every day about threats around the world.

At the Television Critics Association summer press tour in Beverly Hills on Sunday, Heigl was asked why she was returning to TV for the show that she also is producing. She answered, “Because it’s an extraordinary role and it’s an extraordinary opportunity and it’s an extraordinary story and it’s an opportunity for me to flex some different muscles and show a different side of myself as an actor and performer and storyteller.”

In 2008, a year after she won an Emmy for Grey’s, Heigl famously removed her name from contention for that year’s awards, saying she wasn’t given “the material to warrant a nomination.” It was a comment she later regretted.

Making things worse was a 2009 interview with Vanity Fair in which Heigl called Knocked Up — the film that arguably kicked off her movie career — “kind of sexist.”

On Sunday, she addressed the rumors of her on-set behavior, telling journalists, “I certainly don’t see myself as difficult; I would never intend to be difficult. I mean, I think it’s almost important to everybody to conduct themselves professionally and respectfully and kindly. So I never — if I have ever disappointed somebody it was never intentional.”

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