Katherine Heigl Covers InStyle August 2009

Katherine Heigl (in Roberto Cavalli) graces the August 2009 cover of InStyle. Here’s what the 30-year-old Grey’s Anatomy actress opened up about:

On meeting her husband, singer-songwriter Josh Kelley: “I was fed up with trying to be somebody else and got really lucky and met a great guy who loved me for me. It’s hard—I think women have to struggle to define themselves, to find what they want. I keep telling my friends, seriously, write down what you want and make it specific. Like, I’m talking, do you want a beach house in Venice? Be specific and be creative and define not only what you want in your career but what you want in your personal life.”

On family tragedies—her brother’s death in 1986 and her mother’s battle with breast cancer: “Here’s the deal: This is what my family and I have been through, and although we’re not perfect, we are survivors. [My siblings and I] were taught to overcome—although that’s not the right word because you don’t really overcome that kind of stuff, but you do learn to live with it and you learn to live despite it… No one in my family ever said, ‘Life’s not worth living because this happened or that happened to me.’ It’s always worth living. And living well.”

On being criticized last summer for saying the Grey’s Anatomy material she’d been given to work with wasn’t Emmy-worthy: “Now I’ve got this moniker that I’m the foot-in-the-mouth gal, and I keep thinking, In what way? Because I said something you don’t agree with? Because I said something you don’t like? I’m just telling you my opinion. I hate the idea that I can’t be honest about how I feel about things because it’s going to piss somebody off who feels differently. That seems preposterous to me.”

Bigger cover pics inside! For more Heigl pics, visit InStyle.com.