Despite Heigl's constant reassurances that she is "quite boring... really," Movie Entertainment called Heigl a complex individual with many contrasts, referring to her as an "ex-model with a strong feminist streak" and an "actress known for her dramatic roles who really wants to do comedy."

In the wake of widespread media attention to accusations of sexism (including articles in New York Magazine, The New Yorker, Slate, The Los Angeles Times, USA Today, The Guardian, Vanity Fair and People) against director and producer Judd Apatow and his film Knocked Up, Heigl has been tagged as a potentially important and assertive modern proponent of women's rights.

In a highly-publicized Vanity Fair interview, as one of the lead actors in the hit film Knocked Up, Heigl admitted that though she enjoyed working with Apatow and Rogen, she had a hard time enjoying the film itself. She called the movie "a little sexist," claiming that the film "paints the women as shrews, as humorless an