Katherine Heigl
The former Grey’s Anatomy star is back in the new season of legal drama Suits
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DOCTORS AND LAWYERS Her big break came when she played Dr Izzie Stevens in hospital drama Grey’s Anatomy, and now she’s playing fiery legal eagle Samantha Wheeler in season eight of Suits. Katherine (39), a Suits fan, joins the series after the departure of Patrick J Adams and Meghan Markle whose popular characters, Mike and Rachel, wed.
Samantha arrives at the firm as a partner and raises eyebrows because of her mysterious past. The producers say Samantha “challenges the status quo and could turn out to be either the firm’s biggest ally or most powerful adversary”. RISING FROM THE ASHES Katherine’s role in Suits comes just more than a decade after she found herself at the centre of a media frenzy when she referred to her 2007 film Knocked Up as “a little sexist” in a Vanity Fair interview. A few months later she angered writers and producers of Grey’s Anatomy when she decided not to accept an Emmy nomination because she felt the material she’d been nominated for wasn’t up to snuff.
In a 2010 interview she said of her bold move, “It was between me and the writers. I ambushed them, and it wasn’t very nice or fair.” But the damage was done and earned her a reputation as “difficult to work with”. Audiences also seemed unimpressed, with the movies Killers ( 2010, with Ashton Kutcher) and One for the Money (2012) failing to bring in big bucks at the box office. A few of her movies went straight to DVD and two of her TV series – the Homeland-inspired State of Affairs and legal drama Doubt – were both cancelled after just one season.
S Suits is on M-Net (DStv channel 101) on Thursdays at 9pm
HAPPY FAMILY She’s been married to US singer Josh Kelley (38) for 11 years and they have two adopted daughters, Nancy (9) and Adalaide (6), and a son, Joshua (21 months). After she joined the cast of Suits the family moved to Toronto, Canada, where the series is shot.