First Published: January 19, 2014 2:47 PM EST Credit: Getty Images
PASADENA, Calif. -- 
Caption Katherine Heigl attends Variety’s Power Of Women Presented By Lifetime at the Beverly Wilshire Four Seasons Hotel, Beverly Hills, on October 5, 2012Katherine Heigl could be heading back to primetime in a new high-stakes drama series for NBC.
On Sunday, the network announced a pilot order for “State of Affairs,” starring the “Grey’s Anatomy” alumna. The series would be executive produced by Joe Carnahan (“The Blacklist”) as well as Katherine and her mom, Nancy Heigl.
“We got them on the phone and they had this love fest and signed off,” NBC Entertainment President Jennifer Salke told AccessHollywood.com of pairing up the actress with Carnahan, following the Executive Session panel at the Television Critics Association Winter Tour on Sunday. “So now we have them together and I think he is a great combination with her.”
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Salke said the pilot is currently “in the middle of a rewrite,” but explained to Access that the show is set around the political world.
“She plays a woman who’s kind of the right hand attached/liaison to the President and his sort of secret weapon in sort of going out there and dealing with sort of hot spot issues,” Salke told Access. “So it has a little bit of ‘West Wing,’ but it also has a little bit of like the intrigue and action… with big high stakes kind of stories week to week, not unlike ‘Blacklist’ type stories, but obviously different.”
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It was only last year that the reputation of the actress and her mom was written about in The Hollywood Reporter, which mentioned the actress’ proposed return to television in this project. When asked about the reports and what her experiences were like with the Heigls, Salke said they were collaborative.
“She’s been nothing but lovely, I have to tell you,” Salke said. “She and her mother are both very involved, obviously, and she’s been on board with us creatively with where we want to take the show from the very beginning.”
“We all really leaned into them,” Salke added. “They were hilarious, they were smart, they had strong opinions about what they wanted to do, but they were great and I am really looking forward to working with both of them.”
-- Jolie Lash
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