Ellen Pompeo and Katherine Heigl are women who wear many hats; they are mothers, wives, actresses, and friends — they’re confidants, powerhouses, and above all else, they are two people who know, maybe more than anyone, the importance of belonging to themselves.
Meeting for the first time on Grey’s Anatomy, they’ve seen a lot of highs both together and in their respective career paths, but they’ve also seen a darker side of the entertainment industry, one where an interview or a statement or a conversation can be turned and used against you with a career-altering vengeance.
Heigl knows that better than anyone, as her statements in a couple of interviews turned her from America’s Sweetheart to one of the most hated celebrities at the time; degraded for her remarks and called names like “difficult” and “ungrateful” or worse, “unprofessional.” The catalyst for her unfair treatment was as simple as her sharing an opinion about her role in Knocked Up, as she explains to Pompeo during their Actors on Actors segment. Before they get into the complexity of everything wrong with Heigl’s immediate descent into public disgrace territory, Pompeo says something that will undeniably go down as one of her most important interview quotes.
“You know what I love? There’s two roles women fit into, victim or villain. And the women who are victims are only victims because they don’t have the guts to be the villain.”
A victim or a villain, having guts or not, and more importantly — who gets to decide? Is the difference between a victim or a villain based on what the public chooses to label you as? Are you a victim if you speak out and are timid or already well-loved? Are you a villain if you speak out without having a bandaid or peroxide ready to help begin to heal the wound that might erupt after your statement?
Who says being a villain is a bad thing at all? Yes, the Maleficents of the world are all feared and powerful, but haven’t they, too, been burned? Hasn’t the world first been unfair to them? Hasn’t society wronged them simply because they exist differently? I, for one, love a good Maleficent — I admire them, and I strive to be like them.
Becoming the villain for Heigl was as simple as words she said the first time she felt confident enough to speak passionately and powerfully about her experience on set and watching her character on the big screen.
“I was so naive. I got on my soapbox, and I had some things to say, and I felt really passionate about this stuff. I felt really strongly. I felt so strongly that I also got a megaphone out on my soapbox. There was no part of me that imagined a bad reaction. I felt really justified in how I felt about it and where I was coming from. I’ve spent most of my life — I think most women do — being in that people-pleasing mode. It’s really disconcerting when you feel like you have really displeased everybody. It was not my intention to do so, but I had some things to say, and I didn’t think I was going to get such a strong reaction.”
Heigl opens up about how long it took to dispel the rumors going on about her to everyone, including herself. It should be simple enough to shrug off negative comments made about you if you know that they’re not true, but the actuality of it is that when you’re hearing so much negativity swirling around you, it’s impossible to shut it all out.
“I was in my late 20s. It took me until probably my mid-to late-30s to really get back to tuning out all of the noise and going, ‘But who are you? Are you this bad person? Are you ungrateful? Are you unprofessional? Are you difficult?’ Because I was confused! I thought maybe I was. I literally believed that version and felt such shame for such a long time, and then had to go, ‘Wait. Who am I listening to? I’m not even listening to myself. I know who I am.’”
Heigl knowing who she is has allowed her to experience a career resurgence. With a starring role in the Netflix hit series Firefly Lane, she was back on our screens and in our hearts, and it was a welcomed reunion. Admiring Heigl has never been difficult for me, or many of her fans, who were smart enough to look at her comments and take them as what they were — the truth of her experience, a series of thoughts she had about her own work, and an idea that people needed to hear, but weren’t quite ready to listen to.
Pompeo tells Heigl that she was “just a little early” because now, when these things happen on a platform called Twitter, everyone has a metaphorical megaphone.
“Damn it, I should have waited for Twitter. I’d be huge!”
Pompeo brings up the irony in how times have changed, telling Heigl that the whole world gets to “criticize everything and tell everybody to f*** off, and it’s OK. But when you did it…” Heigl picks up where Pompeo left off, saying that people didn’t like her, and at this stage of her life, the only reaction she has to that is “Oh well,” and rightfully so.
Pompeo drives the point home with a truth we’ve seen across several facets of the entertainment industry; the deeply-rooted desire to see the mighty fall, and how the public spectacle that ensues is something the public almost begs for.
“Can I mention the incredible amount of attention that you got very quickly is another thing that is like a disease in this town? Everybody gets built up, built up, built up, built up. They create this thing and then almost wait for something to happen. As an outsider looking in, I saw a lot around you that wasn’t anything to do with you or your fault. Not many people would know how to react to that much attention, that much focus, that much pressure.”
Heigl is a talented actress, powerful in her own right, and as layered as the characters into which she breathes life; she’s captivating on camera and off, and she’s also at a stage in her life where your opinion of her doesn’t matter. So if it comes down to being a victim or a villain, Heigl and Pompeo are both choosing the latter, and we applaud them for it. In fact, we’d like to give them their very own wings and horns ourselves.
Sometimes you have to put aside your worry about how others will perceive you, and show the world the unashamed and unfiltered version of who you are. You’ll be better for it, and you’ll soon discover the strength that exists in that space — the one where life rewards you for your vulnerability and honesty, and does so with the sweetest of treats: Peace.