After quitting Hollywood back in 2009 to focus on her family, Katherine Heigl, the rom-com queen, is back and better than ever with a new US TV show, State Of Affairs, and animated movie, The Nut Job. 
 
 
 
 Speaking exclusively to us, Katherine explained the reasons behind her break from the limelight and said she was starting to regret taking so many parts in romantic comedies and needed to reevaluate her career goals. 'This thing that was my best friend for a long time suddenly turned on me,' she said of the notorious Hollywood machine. 'And I didnï¿½t expect it. I was taken by surprise and angry at it for betraying me.' 
 
 
 
 
 
 'I had an amazing time. I love romantic comedies. I was so stoked to be doing them. But maybe I hit it a little too hard. I couldnï¿½t say no. Thereï¿½s nothing wrong with them, but maybe I overloaded my audience. I should have done a superhero movie or a psychological thriller.' 
 
 
 
 
 
 'I stopped challenging myself. It became a bit by rote and, as a creative person, that can wear you down. That was part of why I took that time off, to ask myself, "What do I want? What am I looking for?" and shut down all the noise.' 
 
 
 
 Speaking about her return to LA and her now-steady career/life balance, she said: 'I feel like Iï¿½m finally rolling into the next phase of my adulthood.' 
 
 
 
 'We made a deal [with the producers of State Of Affairs] that we will only do 15 episodes a season, so I can go back to Utah and do all the things that inspire me.' 
 
 
 
 'Thereï¿½s still a part of me thatï¿½s a Hollywood animal as well.' 
 
 
 
 
 
 Also this month we have the ultimate AW14 trend report, a Marie Claire kids special, plus interviews with Miranda Kerr, Taylor Schilling and Kate Upton. 
 
 
 
 Marie Claireï¿½s August 2014 issue is out now. 
 
 
 
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 Contrary to what she may have said about overindulging in her love of making rom-coms, Katherine Heigl has not cut them out of her life. She happily talked up two of her most iconic at the NBC summer TCA press tour party Sunday night. One in a gaggle of reporters surrounding the actress asked if she kept in touch with her My Father the Hero co-star Gérard Depardieu. Heigl squealed. “Depardieu! I just watched that movie two weeks ago with my 13-year-old niece. It was eerie, okay?” she laughed. “It was weird, but it was kind of awesome because she got to see her Auntie Katie at 14. It was kind of a tragedy for me. I, like, peaked when I was 14.” A moment later, when another reporter asked about her 27 Dresses co-star James Marsden, she said he was “literally spit-my-food-out kind of funny” and even suggested teaming up again. “We need to do a sequel to that!” she said. 
 
 Heigl appeared to be in especially good spirits following a tense press conference earlier in the day, during which reporters grilled the actress about her Hollywood reputation for being difficult. She spoke fondly of the memories and friendships she made on Grey’s Anatomy (“If I only could lure Jeffrey Dean to [State of Affairs] …”) and elaborated on what’s she’s learned now that she’s older. “I’m feeling more of a sense of peace,” she said. “I definitely get — I’m a neurotic actor, I’m not going to lie. I’m absolutely a neurotic actor. We all kind of are. But I’m less atwitter. I’m less defensive. I’m less afraid of what everybody thinks about me. I can still get my feelings hurt, and I certainly feel frustrated because I want prove I’m something, or prove to people I’m more than they think, but I don’t get quite as aflutter about it as I did in my youth. I have a deeper understanding of what really matters and who really matters and whose opinion really matters.”
– If you thought Katherine Heigl's career was suffering because she's difficult to work with, well, allow the actress to set the record straight: It was actually doing too many romantic comedies that was the problem. "I had an amazing time. I love romantic comedies," she explains in a new interview with Marie Claire UK. "I was so stoked to be doing them. But maybe I hit it a little too hard. I couldn’t say no. There’s nothing wrong with them, but maybe I overloaded my audience. I should have done a superhero movie or a psychological thriller." That's when things changed for her. "This thing that was my best friend for a long time suddenly turned on me," she says, referring to the biz. "And I didn’t expect it. I was taken by surprise and angry at it for betraying me." But that's not the only reason she took a five-year hiatus from the limelight, she explains: Thanks to the plethora of rom-coms, "I stopped challenging myself. It became a bit by rote and, as a creative person, that can wear you down. That was part of why I took that time off, to ask myself, 'What do I want? What am I looking for?' and shut down all the noise." She's back now, with a new TV show. (Speaking of movie romances, a shocking interview out yesterday revealed that Ryan Gosling wanted Rachel McAdams kicked off The Notebook set.)