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. 
 
 
 
 Got a tablet? Take the new look Marie Claire wherever you go, download straight to your iPad & iPhone, Kindle (just search the store for 'marie claire magazine'), Nook or Google Nexus for only ï¿½2.99. ||||| Katherine Heigl will be back on TV this fall in the new NBC drama State of Affairs, which she and her mother and longtime manager, Nancy Heigl, are executive producing. We’ve already begun to hear more about and from Heigl as her small-screen comeback nears. In a recent interview with Marie Claire UK, she said that she’d felt betrayed by Hollywood, that she’d perhaps indulged in one too many rom-coms, and that she had been this close to walking away from showbiz. It made for a lively session at this morning’s NBC summer press tour. One reporter asked Heigl to clarify: How close did she really get to quitting Hollywood? “Not that close, obviously,” she laughed, explaining that she took time off to have a family and “remember what it is I feel so passionately about in this industry.” 
 
 Another journalist asked the panel for some understanding as to what Heigl’s mother did as an executive producer. “She bakes us cookies,” Heigl said with a smile. Nancy spoke plainly. “We have a partnership, we work in the business together. It just seemed like a progressive thing,” she said. “I am her mother for sure, so of course I care about her interests, but I’m just learning about executive producing.” Series executive producer Joe Carnahan said both mother and daughter’s contributions to the show have been “instrumental.” NBC entertainment president Jennifer Salke, fielding the same question earlier in the day, said the network and studio knew Katherine and Nancy came as a team. “Nancy’s someone who has a strong opinion, but we’ve found her to be nothing but adamant to the process. Also, Katie really relies on her in her life,” she said. “I would call her a momager, her best friend. She’s a partner in her life.” 
 
 Yet another reporter went whole hog with a multi-pronged question about previous interviews in which Heigl said she felt her career was out of control, and that Hollywood didn’t know what to do with a woman who speaks her mind. Does the actress now feel she is back in control of her career, he wanted to know? “Ummm,” Heigl began. State of Affairs Ed Bernero tried to step in to answer, but the reporter stopped him in his tracks. “Seriously, I want to hear from Katherine.” 
 
 “I don’t know that I said I felt my career was not under my control,” Heigl said. "I think I said I felt I had stopped challenging myself. And I was making choices that I loved, that I was excited about. I love romantic comedies. I loved doing them and I loved watching them but I stopped exercising different muscles of my ability. I felt I was sort of letting down my audience. I wasn’t challenging them either.” She said she chose State of Affairs as her next project — it’s a very serious drama in which she plays a CIA analyst — because “it’s an opportunity for me to flex some different muscles and show a different side of myself as an actor and a performer and a storyteller.” 
 
 As for the idea that she and her mother are difficult — and as one anonymous producer put it to The Hollywood Reporter, “not worth the trouble” — Heigl said that isn’t her intention. “I can only say that I certainly don’t see myself as being difficult. I would never intend to be difficult. I don’t think my mother sees herself as difficult. It’s important to everybody to conduct themselves professionally and respectfully and kindly. If I’ve ever disappointed somebody, it was never intentional.” At that point, Heigl’s State of Affairs co-star Alfre Woodard threw her a lifeline. “Good actors always follow the material, that’s why we’re both here,” she said.
– 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.)