Heche’s Emmy Win Ignited Acting Career

ANNE HECHE has credited her first Emmy win with launching her career - she didn’t consider herself a serious actress before taking home the prize.

The star, 40, won a Daytime Emmy in 1991 for her work on hit soap opera Another World but couldn’t accept the prestigious TV award because she was completing another acting job in the mid-west at the time.

She recalls, “I was in Nebraska in a Motel 6 shooting a Hallmark movie with Jessica Lange and so, I was actually sitting, eating a hamburger and fries on a skanky (dirty) bed, watching to see if I was going to win. And when they called my name, somebody came out and said, ‘Well, Anne can’t be here right now because she’s in Nebraska.’ Some weird, like, stiff person, ‘She’s not here…’”

A stunned Heche couldn’t believe she’d been named the winner - and needed her agent to convince her she was talented enough to proceed with her career.

She explains, “The phone rang and it was my agent and I said, ‘Does this mean I’m an actress? Do I have to move to Hollywood or something?’ And she said, ‘Yeah, I think so.’ And that was it. The Emmy made me move.”