There is this one scene in Grey’s Anatomy, Season Two, that is hard
to forget because of Katherine Heigl superb acting: When Izzie
Stevens (Heigl), meets the love of her life, she gets all dressed up
in a prom-style ball gown and descends the elevator in the episode
that is aptly titled, Losing My Religion.
Heigl is consumed with love and affection for Denny Duquette, a
millionaire who needs a heart transplant that seems harder to get
than a raise these days. She fights tooth and nail to ensure that
Denny gets that heart transplant and does so with such conviction
that garnered this season’s episode with one of the highest ratings
ever.
What is impressive about Heigl is the absolute conversion of her
emotions to something raw, beautiful and real – a transformation
that heightens her acting ability.
For a television series actress to portray that kind of charm and
seriousness and touch millions of viewers with such sincerity is not
easy and certainly substantiates her ability to act.
It is not surprising that Heigl, with her good looks and that kind
of youthful, strawberries-and-cream complexion that would
make even Taylor Swift jealous, started her career as a model.
She garnered the traits of confidence, posture, gait and catwalk
experience at the Wilhelmina Modeling Agency before she turned
her attention to acting. Her first experience
was when she was only thirteen years old,
starring in the coming-of-age film, That
Night.
Her first leading role was in the 1994
comedy, My Father the Hero, and her
acting career still continued while she
balanced her high school life and her
academic studies.
In 1995, she was cast as a 16 year old in the
Steven Seagal action thriller, Under Siege
2: Dark Territory, where her charactor
is held hostage as the train is hijacked
by mercenaries. Even in this film, Heigl
showed the world that although she was
young actor, she could still act well.
She continued to model and appeared in
several magazines, including Seventeen,
and eventually moved to Hollywood with
her mother as her manager in 1997. She
honed her theatrical acting skills when
she costarred with Peter Fonda during a
re-working of the classic Shakespeare play,
The Tempest, that was set during the American Civil War.
After a series of further successes including being featured in
photo essays in magazines such as Life, Teen and FHM, Heigl
appeared in several television movies that utilized a range of her
acting skills from the feeling of horror, Evil Never Dies, to Love
Comes Softly. In 2007 she won a Golden Globe award for her role in playing Izzie Stevens in the medical television drama,
Grey’s Anatomy.
Television helped propel Katharine Heigl to a celebrity status she
had not quite managed to attain when playing characters on the
silver screen. In Grey’s Anatomy, dealing with Danny Duquette, she
was emotional yet grounded, determined to be single yet falling in
love with a tragic figure
Viewers, while they certainly were captivated by the charm and
good looks of Heigl, also concurred that she could certainly play
the part of Lizzie. For Heigl to have landed a core role in this
television series in an age when drama series were becoming as
popular as reality television, meant big bucks for the actress and
also incredible recognition.
Heigl flew high on the aftermath of her Golden Globe, but it was
becoming increasingly clear that she wanted to break free from
her almost cameo appearances on Grey’s to landing more key, core
roles in films like Knocked Up and most recently, The Killers.
She ended up departing from Grey’s Anatomy in March, 2010, and
she cited the reason for her departure was more family oriented
than it was to focus on her movie career. Her on-screen character
in Grey’s was diagnosed with metastatic melanoma and leaves
Seattle after a failed relationship with Alex Karen, her co-star
Justin Chambers.
Since 2009, Katherine Heigl is making more
of a name for herself on the Silver Screen
starring in lead roles in films such as 27 Dresses
and Knocked Up, a movie she describes was
essentially anti-feminist and demoralizing to
women. Whatever Heigl does, she takes a
stance, and there’s no question that her loyalty
and anti-suffragist nature will help her find her
“voice” as she explores various film roles. One
of her famous quotes was, “Guys are kind of
retarded until they’re about 30.”
Although her films have primarily been of the
chick-flick variety, Heigl is solid when it comes
to acting, a role that is the province today of
serious actresses like Scarlett Johansson and
Angelina Jolie. She doesn’t fool around with
the party scene, and while that may make for
bland tabloids, it certainly sows that she is
extremely focused on acheiving her goals.
Heigl grew up Mormon, but admits that she no
longer practices the religion but hopes to come
back to the faith some day when she becomes
“a little less selfish.”
There is no doubt that the world is waiting for Heigl’s Oscar-worthy
performance which may come sooner than people think. Her
fine talents on the screen, her charm and her fine wit make her
extremely well positioned to take flight as a seasoned and
highly-respected actress.
