Katherine Heigl Says Working With an Intimacy Coordinator on ‘Firefly Lane’ Made Her Realize How “Unprotected” She Was on Set: “I Was so Grateful”

Katherine Heigl recently opened up about the “great” experience she had working with an intimacy coordinator on Firefly Lane that made her realize just how little support she previously received on sets after she earned a reputation for being “difficult” to work with.

Speaking to her former Grey’s Anatomy costar Ellen Pompeo, Heigl admitted she was apprehensive of the coordinator’s role at first.

“I was like, ‘I’m an old Hollywood broad, bitch. I know what I’m doing. You don’t have to tell me how to make out on camera,'” she recalled, per Variety. “I was so awkward about it.”

Heigl continued, “I ended up loving this woman so deeply, and being so grateful for her, because she protected us in a way that I didn’t realize how unprotected we were. I didn’t even really quite realize having somebody else stand there and say, ‘She won’t do that, find another way to shoot it.'”

The actress explained that she felt like the intimacy coordinator was “protecting” her. “I was like, ‘This is great. I don’t have to be the bad guy,'” she said.

Having someone else on set to maintain the cast’s boundaries took a “weight off” of her, Heigl said.

“We did have young girls on the set. There was a rape scene. And for her to be there protecting them, I felt this weight off of me in a way that I didn’t feel like I had to find a way to fight those battles for these girls,” she explained. “I’m always the bad guy. People like me to be the bad guy.”

Heigl was sharing her experience in response to Pompeo’s claim that intimacy coordinators “create a whole other slew of problems” on set.

Pompeo, who became a producer on Grey’s Anatomy in 2017, said that providing support to actors is an important part of her job.

“That’s one of the things I try to do now as a producer, specifically on Grey’s, is try to offer support — try to have a place for people to talk through things, to talk about things,” she said. “There was no one to tell me, ‘This is OK. This is not OK.'” She added that there is a very “exploitive nature” to acting.

Heigl famously exited Grey’s Anatomy in 2010 after she earned a reputation for being “ungrateful” and “difficult” to work with. Looking back, she said she was “so naive” and fueled by the show’s success, but maintained that she felt “really passionate” about her beliefs at the time.

“I started getting real mouthy, because I did have a lot to say, and there were certain boundaries and things that I was not OK with being crossed. I didn’t know how to fight that,” Heigl explained.

Pompeo mentioned that Heigl received an “incredible amount of attention” during her time on Grey’s Anatomy.

“I’d like to see other people try to walk a mile in your shoes during that time, and let’s see how they would’ve handled it,” Pompeo said.