Why Blake Lively Replaced Katherine Heigl In The Age Of Adaline

“The Age of Adaline” — directed by Lee Toland Krieger and released in 2015 — is, put simply, a movie centered around the idea that Blake Lively is an inhumanly beautiful creature. This makes it hard to imagine that anyone else could have played Adaline Bowman, a woman unstuck in time who’s incapable of aging. What you may not know, though, is that “Grey’s Anatomy” veteran Katherine Heigl was originally supposed to play the titular role but ended up dropping out … so what happened here?

Heigl, who originated the role of Dr. Izzie Stevens on the long-running ABC medical drama — and left the series partway through its 6th season — was initially cast in the film against Angela Lansbury, who was supposed to play Adaline’s much older daughter, Flemming. (At this point, Andy Tennant, known for projects like “Sweet Home Alabama” and “Hitch,” was attached to direct.) Long before the movie came out, Heigl exited the project in 2010, according to a report in Deadline; at first, the outlet said that Heigl’s departure was due to on-set strife. (This is utterly unsurprising because rumors about Heigl’s “difficult” nature have plagued her since her time on “Grey’s Anatomy,” largely because Heigl butted heads with then-showrunner and creator Shonda Rhimes.) 

In an update to the story, Gary Lucchesi, a partner of Lakeshore Entertainment — one of the two companies that produced the film — said that Heigl left “The Age of Adaline” due to the fact that she had recently adopted a daughter and wasn’t ready to fully return to work. “She has made two movies with us and we certainly support her decision,” Lucchesi said at the time, referring to “The Ugly Truth” and “One for the Money.” He continued, “We were scheduled to shoot mid-March and we hope to achieve that. We are great fans of hers and if this is what she has to do, we respect that.” Natalie Portman was then offered the role but, according to Entertainment Weekly, she turned it down; eventually, Lively earned the lead role.

If you’re worried about Katherine Heigl after learning that she left such a buzzy movie before it even started filming, fret not; the actress has been working fairly steadily since she left “Grey’s Anatomy” and took some time to be with her family and daughter. In 2014, Heigl produced and led the NBC series “State of Affairs” as Charleston “Charlie” Whitney Tucker, a CIA analyst who spends her days preparing briefings for the President of the United States (played on the series by Alfre Woodard), but unfortunately, the series was canceled after just one season. Heigl then appeared on “Suits” in the show’s final two seasons as corporate attorney Samantha Wheeler, but her biggest hit came in 2021 thanks to a Netflix original series based on a hit novel.

“Firefly Lane” — adapted from the bestselling book by Kristin Hannah — casts Heigl as Tully Hart and lets her play around in two timelines, working her way up the corporate ladder as an aspiring news anchor in the 1980s and as a successful talk show host in the 2000s. (Ali Skovbye also plays teenage Tully in the 1970s.) Opposite “Scrubs” veteran Sarah Chalke — who plays Tully’s lifelong best friend Kate Mularkey — Heigl shines as Tully, a woman who projects confidence that’s masking a deeply pained interior, and the series proved that the actress can still capably commandeer a hit TV show.

As for Blake Lively, her star just kept rising after she led “The Age of Adaline” alongside Ellen Burstyn (who ended up playing her daughter Flemming), “Game of Thrones” star Michiel Huisman, and Harrison Ford. In 2016, Lively proved that she could lead a film all on her own with “The Shallows” — essentially a solo project, considering that she plays a woman stranded in the ocean and fending off a shark — and in 2018, she starred in the campy thriller “A Simple Favor” opposite Anna Kendrick, donning suits and brandishing martinis as fashion maven and mysterious woman Emily Nelson. (The untitled sequel is supposed to release this year, which director Paul Feig confirmed after a know-nothing on social media decreed that the movie was shelved.)

Recently, Lively has been in the news thanks to the never-ending drama surrounding her 2024 film “It Ends With Us,” based on the bestselling novel of the same name by Colleen Hoover. Lively, who produced the film and stars as aspiring florist Lily Blossom Bloom, filed a complaint with the California Civil Rights Department in December of 2024 alleging that her co-star and director, “Jane the Virgin” star Justin Baldoni, created a hostile work environment on set and also sexually harassed her. Baldoni retaliated by suing The New York Times over their reporting of Lively’s complaint, and Lively followed up by filing a federal suit against Baldoni and his production company Wayfarer Studios. All of this is still ongoing as of this writing, and it seems likely that the full truth of the situation regarding Baldoni’s behavior — which, according to Lively’s complaint, was fairly vile — will come out sooner rather than later. 

In any case, “The Age of Adaline” is streaming on Netflix now if you want to imagine an alternate universe where Katherine Heigl played the lead role instead.