Mar 6, 2007

Katherine Heigl's Costars Offer Praise

Katherine Heigl's Costars Offer Praise

MONDAY MARCH 05, 2007 01:00 PM EST
By Nicholas White

A week after Katherine Heigl slammed her employers over issues surrounding her stalled contract renegotiations, her Grey's Anatomy costars are saying they enjoy working with the actress.

"She's a super-talented girl," Kate Walsh told PEOPLE on Sunday at the National Association of Black Female Executives in Music and Entertainment Dreamgirls luncheon in Beverly Hills. "Everyone's just working hard."

As for contract renegotiations Walsh, whose character Addison Shepard is the subject of a possible Grey's spinoff, said, " I literally just worked with Katherine the other night. We just go to work. I don't know – I don't really get into all the stuff. Everybody is doing their own thing with negotiations."

One of Heigl's other costars, Sara Ramirez, says of the actress who plays Izzie Stevens on the hit ABC show, "She's lovely....Everybody's very professional – not just Katherine – but everybody else too."

Added Ramirez, "At the end of the day, we all have to be grateful for our jobs. We're working actors, and not only that, we're on a hit show."

Last week, Heigl's contract negations became public, and she eventually issued a statement criticizing ABC and Touchstone, saying she was "embarrassed" and had been treated with disrespect.

"I am embarrassed that this has become a public matter and disappointed that Touchstone felt it necessary to divulge private employment information," Heigl said in the statement. "I had hoped I would be able to deal with this issue confidentially with my bosses. I dropped out of the renegotiation simply because I wanted to treat myself with the respect I was not getting from them."

Heigl, according to a statement ABC released, is contractually obligated to remain on the highly rated TV show for "several years," and is "an integral part of Grey's Anatomy and its success."

Grey's creator Shonda Rhimes, who was honored at Sunday's NABFEME luncheon, had no comment.

http://www.people.com/people/article/0,,20014052,00.html

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