Although she has been called one of the sexiest people in the universe by major American magazines, Roswell star Katherine Heigl maintains a good sense of humour about these accolades.

"I don’t know how my family feels about me being called that (one of the universe’s hot babes)," she joked, "But, I’ll buy it! Why not?

"On a more serious note," she says, "I definitely don’t wake up in the morning and look in the mirror and think ‘I’m hot’ or ‘I’m stunning’. What’s really on my mind is: ‘All right, it’s another day and I’m just me,’" Katherine says earnestly during a recent Manhattan bash in celebration of her hit teenagers-from-space TV drama.

And – great news, Roswell fans! – the hit show will be back for a third season. When the second series finale was filmed, the show’s fate was uncertain, but just as it was aired here last week, the news broke that the show had new owners and another reprieve from the axe.

The show had also nearly been canned after its first series – until outraged fans bombarded the network with thousands of [bottles of] Tabasco sauce (an alien favourite), and convinced the bosses to save it.

Katherine is level-headed about her celebrity. "The best way to approach me is to just come up and talk to me and be cool. That’s all I can ask for."

A child model who turned to acting in her teens, Katherine made her feature debut in That Night, starring Juliette Lewis. She instantly knew she had found her path in life. "My first film was an amazing experience, and I knew that’s what I wanted to do." Between film projects, Katherine graduated high school early and moved from Connecticut to L.A., hoping to act full-time.

Her ever-growing CV includes movies with Gerard Depardieu (My Father the Hero), and Steven Seagal (Under Siege 2), plus Steven Soderbergh’s King of the Hill, The Bride of Chucky, tele-film The Tempest, Prince Valiant, Stand-Ins, and Wish Upon A Star with Peter Fonda (sic). And she will soon be seen in the movies Valentine and 100 Girls.