Maid in movies

ON screen, Katherine Heigl hasnt been having an easy time romantically First she was Knocked Up in last years bawdy hit comedy, and now in 27 Dresses shes always the bridesmaid and never the bride. On top of that her boyfriend died in TVs Greys Anatomy, in which she plays aspiring surgeon Izzy.

Things are much happier in real life. She married musician Josh Kelley in December, just before 27 Dresses came out in cinemas in the US. Id been planning my wedding for nine months and then they decided to release the film a week or two after I got married, she recalls.

Id had enough of wedding and the whole thing by that point, but it worked out really nice and helped with the promotion of the movie because I had some personal experience as well.

Her character in 27 Dresses is Jane, a woman whos devoted herself to caring for others right down to being a bridesmaid 27 times and keeping the dresses in her wardrobe. All that changes when her younger sister arrives in town, falls for Janes boss and asks her to help plan their wedding C unaware that Jane fancies him herself.

Heigl has experience of being a bridesmaid, having been maid of honour at her sisters wedding in October. Its a wonderful honour and I was so excited and pleased that she asked me, she says.

But its a tremendous amount of stress and pressure on that particular day, even leading up to it, to make sure that everything goes smoothly. My sister is a real tomboy so to get her to go and pick a wedding dress and go to fittings she hated the hair and make-up tests. Trying to get her to do what she needed to do and to make everything run smoothly and be prepared for any problems that might arise was very stressful. Id rather not do it again.

After being a bridesmaid 27 times in the movie, when it came to her own wedding Heigl was mindful of what shed ask her bridesmaids to wear. She had four, including her sister as maid of honour and three really close friends.

She put them in red. My theme, my colours were sort of ivory and gold. It was a Christmas wedding but I thought it was cruel to ask them to pull off a cold cocktail dress so we went with cranberry red because it fitted into the Christmas vibe.

I didnt want them to hate their dresses. Ive never understood that theory that a bride wouldnt want her bridesmaids to look as good as her on her wedding day. It seems petty and silly. I wanted them to enjoy the experience too and to be excited to get dressed up as well.

She was the one who brought up the subject of marriage with Kelley.

She knew early on that he was the one for her and raised the topic after about nine months. I knew early on how much I really adored this person and when I couldnt really imagine my life without him, she says.

I didnt want to have to live my life without him. It felt very real and very right pretty early on. You go through those first couple of months where everyone is walking that tightrope of is this serious or just flirty?. But I knew that I wanted to go in that direction in my life, that marriage and family was important to me. So I didnt really want to just date. I wanted to move forward and then I asked him.

What, she proposed to him? Not to marry me, I just brought it up, she says.

For Heigl, 27 Dresses marks her first starring role and achieved an ambition to be in a romantic comedy that shed had since starting out in the business 17 years ago. This was the first one she read that made her laugh out loud.

While Jane has kept all her bridesmaids dresses, the actress is not such a hoarder. Shes really good at cleaning out her closet, she says. The only two dresses shes saved are her prom dress from 1995 (Ill never wear it again but I loved it) and a dress her mum made for her for a Christmas party when she was 14. Other than that, I get rid of anything I know that Im never going to wear, she says. The one I really hated putting on in the movie wasnt actually a dress but a bathing suit for the underwater wedding because it was a bathing suit, then a tutu and a flowered bathing cap. It was really unappealing.

In a collage in the film, shes shown wearing all 27 dresses, a sequence that was a nightmare to shoot over a day and a half. It was tortuous. I was already dreading it because it looked like a really hard scene on paper to imagine, she says.

I was already nervous about it.

And then by about dress four, 12 hours into the first day, I was like why cant this movie be called Four Unusual Dresses? Cant we just stop the madness?

Success means that Heigl is treated differently in the business.

Everythings changed. The level of success has changed, the level of attention has changed, certainly the level of respect and opportunities. Peoples reaction and responses have changed. Theres nothing thats even remotely the same except for my family and friends. My whole wardrobe has changed.

ö 27 Dresses (12A) opens in cinemas tomorrow Greys Anatomy continues on five tonight at 10pm