Katherine Heigl brings Stephanie Plum – the popular heroine of Janet Evanovich’s worldwide best-selling eighteen-book mystery series – to vibrant life in Lionsgate and Lakeshore Entertainment’s ‘One For The Money’.

“Stephanie Plum is a woman who moves through the drama of her life with all the grace of an ‘I Love Lucy’ episode,” laughs best-selling author Janet Evanovich. “She destroys every car she owns. Her hair frizzes up in Jersey humidity. She can’t cook. She’s not going to stop a speeding train like Superman or catch a bullet in her teeth. But she’s the woman we all want to be.”

Since her first appearance in the 1994 bestseller, One For The Money, Evanovich’s beloved New Jersey girl-turned-bond recovery agent has solved crimes and nabbed felons over the course of eighteen global bestsellers, the latest of which, Explosive Eighteen, hit bookshelves this November.

As a recovery agent, Stephanie’s record is stellar; but she’s won the hearts of readers everywhere more for her genial humanity than her investigative prowess. “She’s heroic in small ways,” offers Evanovich. “She puts one foot in front of the other and at the end of the day, she’s proud of what she’s accomplished.”

Back in 1994, Evanovich could never have anticipated that Stephanie Plum would garner her a worldwide following and firmly establish her as a leading writer of crime fiction. Neither could she have believed that after seventeen years of interest from Hollywood, she would actually be watching film and television star Katherine Heigl bring Stephanie Plum to life.

“Seeing One For The Money made into a movie after all these years is…it’s terrifying,” admits the author. “It’s also exciting, it’s wonderful; it’s amazing. I absolutely love the movie. ”

Known for her charismatic work on television’s “Grey’s Anatomy” and the $200 million dollar box office hit ‘The Ugly Truth’, ’27 Dresses’ ($160M worldwide) and ‘Knocked Up’ ($219M worldwide), Katherine Heigl eagerly embraced the opportunity to create Stephanie Plum onscreen.

“For me, it’s always been about the story and it’s always been about whether or not I liked the character, and that limits me,” admits the star. “But Stephanie Plum is so much fun and has so much life in her. I fell in love with her.”

Not only did Heigl have to transform herself into someone radically different, she also had the opinions of millions of fans with which to contend. “Katie has a heavy burden because of the fan base,” says producer Tom Rosenberg. “Everyone has their idea of what Stephanie Plum should be. Katie had to make it her own while still delivering what the fans expected. There really aren’t too many people who could pull that off.”

“This project has been my little mountain to climb this year,” says Heigl. “It’s been really, really satisfying on a million levels to get to be a part of it and to make the trek up the mountain and get to see the view.”

Having seen Heigl’s performance in the film, Evanovich can’t imagine another actress in the role. “Katherine Heigl is so talented,” she enthuses. “She’s bold, she’s brave. She’s afraid. She’s vulnerable. She’s sexy. She has this wide range of emotions in this movie and she just nails them all. She walks like Plum. She talks like Plum. She absolutely is Stephanie.”

With Heigl in place, the production focused all of its efforts on doing justice to the source material, which meant finding the ideal supporting cast and creating just the right look for the film. As Gary Lucchesi explains, “We made a conscious effort to be loyal to the books’ following. We paid very, very strict attention to every detail.”

“I think it’s really, really important to get everything right,” adds Heigl, who is also an executive producer on the film. “You really don’t want to alienate the fans. They’re the people who have made this franchise. They’re the people who have given Stephanie and these characters a life after the first book.”

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Janet Evanovich, author of the popular Stephanie Plum series, decided Katherine Heigl would be perfect for the lead role in a movie based on her book, One for the Money, after she saw Heigl’s performance in 27 dresses. “I just knew it,” Evanovich told the actress. “From that instant, you were Stephanie Plum to me.”

The instant she is referring to is when Heigl’s 27 Dresses character fled from a bar, cursing loudly. The movie is an adaption of Evanovich’s first book and is set to hit theatres in January. It has been 17 years since the first novel in the Plum series was released, and Heigl will play the role of main character, Stephanie Plum, who goes from being a lingerie salesperson to a bounty hunter.

The book series has sold 80 million copies with nine landing at the number one spot on USA Today’s best sellers. Evanovich stated, “I don’t know why it took so long, but as far as I’m concerned, the search is over. Every time I write Stephanie Plum, it’s going to be Katherine Heigl’s face there. She totally nailed it.”

The author just released the 18th book in the series, Explosive Eighteen. Although Evanovich gave up any say in the casting for the main role and had sold the rights to One for the Money before being published in 1994, her ideal actress to play Stephanie Plum still got the part.

Names of certain actresses sometimes cropped up from time to time as potential leads, but none were who the author wanted. “Every now and then, I would get a phone call that would be: Jennifer Lopez is going to be attached to this,” said a disinterested Evanovich. “Or, Reese Witherspoon. There was never anybody really there.”

Many fans wanted Sandra Bullock, but the author was still not satisfied with any Hollywood actresses. “I had been going around to everybody saying Katherine Heigl has to be Stephanie Plum, and then one day, I got that phone call saying that it was Katherine,” said an excited Evanovich. Heigl, herself, was pleased to be chosen for the role.

When she was working on the set of The Ugly Truth, producer Gary Lucchesi gave her a copy of Evanovich’s One for the Money, and Heigl loved it. “Two months later, someone was able to get me to come out of the bedroom after I had gone through 10 books. (They are) so addicting,” said Heigl.

Lucchesi and Lakeshore Entertainment got the rights and chose Heigl to star as Stephanie Plum. However, the fans were not happy that blonde Heigl would be playing the brunette bounty hunter. Heigl said she tried dying her hair brown, but decided instead to wear a wig. The actress enjoyed going to the gun range to train for her role, but she said she had a hard time with the New Jersey accent.

“It was nerve-racking,” she said. “There were moments I saw it wavering. I’m normally the jerk in the audience who goes, ‘Blah, they totally lost the accent there.’ This was karmic.” Heigl claimed to be very vocal about staying true to the original story. “I became very possessive of Janet’s material. I was really loud about how important it was to honor the book,” she insisted.

Evanovich was kept in the dark and did not know how the movie would turn out. “I was terrified to see it,” the author said. “But when I did, it was everything I could have wanted and more. I was almost in tears when the movie ended. I was so relieved.” Heigl was ecstatic that she was happy with the movie and ended up developing a friendship with the author. The two talked about future plans for more Plum movies.

However, since there are 18 novels so far, it would be an impossible feat for Heigl to star in each one, since Stephanie Plum stays at age 32 during the entire series. “You’ll have to go to the gym and no Cheetos,” said Evanovich. Heigl jokingly claimed she could prevent aging with botox, then said, “But if we shoot six at a time, there we go.”

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