The Black List
Birthday Bash
To close out BlackBook’s 15th anniversary, we asked actor Kat Dennings, the star of CBS’ biting new sitcom 2 Broke Girls, to dig her claws into the 15 things she hates the most. (You’re probably one of them.)

1. Buffering/Loading. Every internet streaming experience will doubtless be interrupted at some point by buffering/loading. This is unacceptable. We can do everything on the internet—order pizza, buy clothes, adopt puppies, do taxes, talk to people in Lithuania— but we can’t watch Puffball: The Devil’s Eyeball without interruption.

2. Boatneck tops. Are you serious? Who in their right mind would wear a boatneck? I’ve never wanted my clavicle to be a focal point. People who are actually on boats don’t even wear boatneck tops. They wear coats and stuff.

3. Marzipan. It’s disgusting. I can appreciate the shape it’s sometimes molded into, but that’s as far as it goes. Someone once told me that right before you die, everything smells like almonds. It probably isn’t true and that person sounds like an idiot, but it brings me to this conclusion: Marzipan is made from almonds, almonds smell like death, and therefore, marzipan smells like death. Fruitshaped death.

4. “Hilarious” tip jars. Stop it. I was going to tip you anyway but since your tip jar is “hilarious,” it makes the whole thing much more difficult than it has to be. I’ve got news for you: God does not save a kitten every time I tip, and how dare you prey on my weakness like that. Here’s a dollar.

5. Nazis. Hate them.

6. Bicycle people. I can’t even deal with bicycle people. Don’t be in my lane. Be in the designated bicycle lane or on the sidewalk. Also, wear some sort of head protection. What do you think cars are made out of? Marshmallows?

7. “On accident.” It is not “on accident.” It is “by accident.” Example: “Your Honor, my prosthetic leg flew into his face by accident.”

8. Your/You’re, Too/To, and They’re/Their/There. Not to sound like some kind of asshole all over this list, but it just gets my goat when people confuse these.

9. Surprise full-body scans. “Step over here, please.” “Okay.” “Put your hands up like this.” “Okay…wait, why do I haaaaagghhhh! Damn you!” I’ve been tricked into airport full-body scans one time too many. Most recently, I stepped out of the machine and the security guy smiled at me and said, “Nice.”

10. The “Keep Calm and Carry On” signs. Don’t tell me how to live my life. Maybe I want to “Go Apeshit and Give Up.” It’s none of anyone’s damn business. These signs were originally meant to raise morale among the British public during World War II. Now they’re on mugs and the dorm walls of people I don’t like very much.

11. “Quirky.” Just cut to the chase and say,”Kat comes off as an empty, female-shaped shell occupied by a mustachioed British demon.”

12. That old lady that one time. I’d been walking down a delightful suburban street, listening to some Beck and generally minding my own business, when I looked up just in time to avoid bumping into a seemingly harmless old lady. Oh, sorry, I said, and kept walking. Something about her face stuck in my mind, and I thought to myself, Was she terrifying? I’ll just steal another look. I turned around and she was staring at me with and evil, toothless grin. I almost fell down, and then she laughed at me and walked away. That old lady that one time—I hate her.

13. Mass texts from people you met once. No, I do not want to go to your “awes0me BBQ;).” Nor do I want to find you a roomate by the end of next month. I deleted you from my phone but that didn’t do any good, did it? Because now your texts just display a bunch of numbers instead of whatever your name is.

14. When I’m out of chickpeas.

15. People who hate cats. Do you hate babies? Do you hate bunny rabbits? Do you hate sea otters? Of course not, so why would you hate cats? I’ll tell you why. Because unlike other animals, cats know you’re a dick. You don’t hate cats; cats hate you. Especially Kat Dennings.

Source.

Kat and Beth had a tiny note in People Magazine, thanks to Elvira for the photo! If anyone has a bigger one, or a scan, please feel free to email it to us and we’ll put that up in the gallery.

Daily Billboard also posted some pictures taken of 2 Broke Girls billboards, which are also now in the gallery.

I also want to remind everyone that if it’s annoying to check this site for Kat news, you can also follow us on the following sites; Twitter, Facebook and Tumblr. And if you use your Google Reader, just paste “http://kat-dennings.net” into your feed. :)

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2 Broke Girl isn’t your typical New York City sitcom (apart from that distracting laugh track, but we’ll let it go). It goes like this: heiress (Caroline, played by Beth Behrs) goes broke. Heiress gets waitress gig in a cheap-ass diner. Heiress makes friends with snarky co-worker (Max, played by Kat Dennings). Heiress and snarky co-worker brave the streets of Greenpoint, Brooklyn, together with just a few dollars to their name. Hilarity ensues.

KAT DENNINGS
Max is very tough and very Brooklyn. She’s been broke her whole life so she’s a really hard worker. She’s really committed and she’s very smart and very sharp. So she’s a very complicated girl and she seems really tough but she’s actually really sweet; she just doesn’t really get a chance to show it.

I recently had a Twin Peaks viewing marathon. I spent like, three days watching it. I saw no one and did nothing and I slept on my couch because I was so scared. It was insane. Zach’s Diner [where Max works] looks so much like the Double R Diner from Twin Peaks.

Michael Patrick King hired me to be in an episode of Sex and the City. It was when I was 13 and [the episode] is called “Hot Child in the City.” I played a bat mitzvah girl who hired Samantha to be my publicist. So, [Michael] gave me my first big job and now he’s giving me another gig.

BETH BEHRS
I was moving apartments when I found out that the show got picked up. I had a box in my hands and when I got a text from [co-executive producer and actress] Whitney Cummings telling me the news, I dropped the box, I was crying, I called my parents… it was exciting.

Kat and I get along so well. It’s like being with your best girlfriend all the time. And Jonathan Kite [who plays Oleg, the diner's cook] does amazing impressions – his Vince Vaughn is insane. I’m always like “Do Vince Vaughn! Do Vince Vaughn!” He can talk the whole day like him.

I thought a lot about what a crazy life change Caroline’s going through. For her to go from having a doorman hand her a Starbucks every single day – no concerns – to having nothing. And she lost all of her friends because no one wanted to talk to her after that.

Medium quality screencaps from Thor now up in the gallery! HQ screencaps to follow once I get my hands on a DVD or Blu-ray.

The official 2 Broke Girls website is now live. Click the image above to go check it out. It has profiles, episode stills, interviews and more. I’ve also uploaded the new stills in the gallery:

2 Broke Girls premieres on CBS Monday 19 September.

Screencaps from A First Look Into Renee The Movie now up in the gallery here.

The stars of CBS’s new comedy 2 Broke Girls, Kat Dennings and Beth Behrs, showed up at TCA today to talk about their Brooklyn-set sitcom about two waitresses from extremely different backgrounds (Dennings’s character, Max, has always struggled, where Behrs’s Caroline is a former heiress who has just lost all her money). Series creators Michael Patrick King (of Sex and the City) and Whitney Cummings (who was just at TCA on Monday for her new NBC show, Whitney) also chatted about the genesis of the series and the edginess of the humor. Here are highlights:

Dennings, best known for movies like Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist and this Summer’s Thor, was asked why she was making the transition to TV. She mentioned that although things were “actually picking up,” she was frustrated about doing smaller films that no one ever saw. She wanted “to do something where people will definitely see it . . . because I’m a hard worker.” While Dennings said she hadn’t thought about TV, the fact that Cummings and King were behind the show made it seem “like a gift” and that she felt “just really lucky this came along.”

King’s goal for the series is for it to be “as contemporary and as edgy as two broke girls would be today if they were living in Williamsburg,” while also striving for authenticity. That’s why he wanted Dennings, calling her “a legitimate outsider girl” who makes the comedy real. In her costar Behrs, King said they “discovered this beautiful character,” but Dennings is their “amazing, authentic outsider.”

Keep reading to find out more about 2 Broke Girls, including how it’s in sharp contrast to King’s prior project Sex and the City.

Sex and the City was a hot topic, because as Dennings pointed out herself, King got her career started when she guest-starred on the show as precocious teen Jenny Brier (or as Dennings referred to her, “the bl*w job Bar Mitzvah girl”). Behrs also said she loved SATC, as did Cummings, who admits that she’s such a big fan that she still gets butterflies in her stomach when she sees emails from King. As to what 2 Broke Girls and Sex and the City have in common, King amplified their differences, saying that in “Sex and the City, the girls had relationship checklists; these girls barely have checks.”

King said the show got moving because he had really wanted to do a sitcom, and then decided he wanted it to be a show “where people can go to see their friends,” and have it revolve around funny women, which he said he loves writing for. King then needed a cowriter, so he looked for “a really smart, funny writer with a hard comedy edge,” which he found in Cummings. He also cited Cummings’s stand-up background as a necessity, because the show is recorded in front of a live audience, so they needed jokes that make an audience laugh.

“Edgy” was a buzzword for the series because of the tone of its jokes. Cummings is “happy network TV is embracing edgier comedies,” but she and King think the place they’re really being edgy is by being so upfront about money. Cummings mentioned that we often see characters playing waitresses and then living “in gorgeous brownstones,” but 2 Broke Girls is frank about rent, finances, and being short on cash: “You never see that.”

Source.

Kat Dennings is coming to TV this fall, teaming with Beth Behrs for 2 Broke Girls, a new CBS sitcom from Michael Patrick King (Sex and the City) and comedian Whitney Cummings. In the series, Dennings’ Max has never had any money, while Behrs’ Caroline came from a wealthy family that have now lost everything, after her father was involved in a huge scandal. Working together as waitresses, the two formulate a plan on how to eventually start their own company.

The cast and creators spoke at the TCA (Television Critics Association) press tour today, and Dennings was asked why she would move to TV, even while her movie career was going well. Dennings nodded, saying, “Things were picking up and I was getting really exciting things – Thor was coming out and I was getting interesting projects.”

That being said, Dennings also noted she had done a lot of small, independent films and often when they were released, “These things just disappear. Four months of your life never get seen.” She added, “This came right at the right time. I’d just finished the most intense job of my life,” referencing her upcoming film, Renee. She said she was wondering, “What do I do now? I want to do something where people will definitely see it,” simply because, “I want people to appreciate it.” While she hadn’t thought about doing TV, she said she was quickly interested when approached by Cummings and King, noting, “Michael gave me my first job, it almost seemed like a gift. It was the perfect thing.”

That first job was an episode of Sex and the City, which Dennings recalled filming when she was 14, in which she played, in her words, “The blowjob bar mitzvah girl.” Things got highly amusing and bawdy when Dennings talked about her somewhat sheltered, home-schooled life growing up and that she even remembered asking Kim Cattrall what a blowjob was when filming Sex and the City – at which point Cummings couldn’t resist asking if Cattrall also showed Dennings what it was. When Dennings remarked that she could relate to her 2 Broke Girls character, because, “We didn’t have any money when I was growing up,” and that she wasn’t even allowed to watch TV, Cummings retorted, “But you were allowed to give blowjobs on Sex and the City!”

King came up with the kernel of the idea for 2 Broke Girls, but then asked Cummings to help him develop it, saying, “I really wanted everything that she has” and that “It was really important to both Whitney and I that we had jokes that made people laugh.” Cracked Cummings, “Thank you Diablo Cody for being unavailable!”

Cummings noted that 2 Broke Girls was coming at a time when the economy has taken a hit and that there was “Something really relatable, because all of us having been going through something like that.” King said he wanted to have a show that was very different from others on TV, including Sex and the City, where rent was “never an issue.” Cummings said they wanted to avoid doing the thing where their characters, “work in a coffee shop and live in a huge New York brownstone.”

Cummings is starring in her own new NBC sitcom this fall, called Whitney, and is not available to work on 2 Broke Girls on a daily basis, but King said she’d been integral in crafting the show, remarking, “Whitney was the architect of the show and now we’re in the house.”

Some of the jokes in 2 Broke Girls are fairly edgy – one critic at the panel seemed particularly offended by one about Stephen Hawking. However, King said, “Our job is to make people laugh and be surprised. We don’t go for a joke for shock value, we go for it for the situation.” He said that both the writers themselves and Dennings character Max may go too far sometimes, noting, “And maybe that’s a story!” He added, “We have no idea what the edge is at [for this series], because we’re just figuring out the middle.”

Source.