Katherine Heigl's new low: kitty litter commercials

She made her name as a leading lady in hits like Grey's Anatomy, Knocked Up and 27 Dresses, but now Katherine Heigl's got a new gig: advertising cat litter.

The 37-year-old is the new face of Cat's Pride Fresh & Light Ultimate Care cat litter, fronting a TV advertising campaign for the product.

Heigl has earned something of a reputation for being difficult to work with over the course of her career: she's infamously criticised some of her best-known roles, saying that Knocked Up "painted women as shrews" and withdrawing her 2007 Emmy nomination for Grey's Anatomy after declaring that she hadn't been given enough good material to warrant the nod.

It remains to be seen how much good material she'll be given in her new role, playing a feline therapist in the TV campaign for Cat's Pride:

"As soon as I read the script for the television commercials, I knew Cat's Pride was a company I could work with. They get it. They get cats," Heigl says in a video explaining why exactly she made the choice to be the new face of cat litter.

"These commercials are about showing the complicated relationship between owners and their pets and how a lot of the inherent tension could be resolved by the best-performing litter: Cat's Pride Fresh & Light Ultimate Care," she continues.

Heigl's most recent TV outing, the 2015 drama State of Affairs, was cancelled after one low-rated season. She's spoken out about her regret over leaving Grey's Anatomy, admitting she's keen to return to the hit show.

"I've told them I want to [return]," she said in 2012. "I really, really, really want to see where [Izzie] is. I just want to know what happened to her and where she went and what she's doing now."

While cat litter saleswoman may seem an odd fit for an actor who just a few years ago commanded multimillion-dollar paycheques for Hollywood rom-coms, Heigl may have more altruistic motives: the campaign is a partnership with her Jason Heigl Foundation, which raises money to rescue animals and fight animal cruelty.

- News.com.au