Anne Heche to Star in New ABC Drama

PASADENA, Calif. – Anne Heche famously dated Steve Martin and survived a messy breakup with Ellen DeGeneres before marrying her husband and having a child.

So perhaps it's fitting that the 37-year-old actress plays a relationship coach who settles in Alaska in the new drama "Men in Trees," debuting Sept. 22 on ABC.

"I've stumbled through and made so many mistakes, I'm pretty good with where I am," she said Wednesday at the Television Critics Association's summer meeting. "I am a person who takes a lesson from hopefully everyone I meet."

Heche has guest-starred on such shows as "Nip/Tuck," "Everwood" and "Ally McBeal," but now she's fronting her own one-hour drama on Friday nights.

"It seems like the greatest job on Earth, and I've been trying to get it for the last five years," she said. "I, with my family, decided that this would be most the most incredible thing for me to be doing in my life, and it's happening."