SIX ACTRESSES NOT IN SEARCH OF TV WORK

IN her dressing room, so newly occupied that the only visible decoration was a bag of Reese’s Pieces, Kat Dennings was pointing out the couch where she’d had a minor meltdown here on the Warner Brothers lot the night before.

That evening she was preparing to face a studio audience and film her second episode of “2 Broke Girls,” a CBS comedy that will make its debut on Monday, and she freely admitted she didn’t handle the pressure well.

“I was talking on the phone to my mother,” said Ms. Dennings, 25, a spirited, self-deprecating actress whose film credits include “The 40-Year-Old Virgin,” “Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist” and “Thor.” “I was like: ‘Mom, there’s no air. I’m going to throw up. What do I do?’ She’s like: ‘Go out there, you’ll be great. Go get some water. Eat a piece of fruit.’ ”

Ms. Dennings said she was revitalized once she took the stage, but she might want to keep her mother on speed dial anyway. This season she is among a handful of actresses in their 20s and 30s who are hardly household names yet have been given the pressure, the obligation and the opportunity of carrying their own network shows.

In a crop of new series that run the gamut from bawdy comedies (like “2 Broke Girls,” on which Ms. Dennings plays a sassy waitress who befriends an heiress who’s hit the skids) to “Mad Men”-style period dramas, the notoriously dues-paying medium of television has turned to these relatively untested young women to be the faces and voices of its broadcast networks.

Their résumés vary considerably. Some have played one or two prominent film parts or labored in the salt mines of supporting television roles, while others have hardly been seen on screen before. One possesses a quaint acting trophy called a Tony Award. None has the long track record or recognizability that usually prefigures a starring prime-time role.

Yet they understand that they came to their positions through some combination of the shifting popular culture, coincidence and the experimentation (or random flailing) of the networks — not any specific outreach to female talent or viewers.

“I don’t think that these shows are on because women are the stars of them,” said Whitney Cummings, 29, a creator of “2 Broke Girls” and the star of her own NBC comedy, “Whitney.” “The shows that just happened to be the best this year happened to be centered around women.”

They are also hopeful that their shows — if they survive the season — might signify a moment when characters who are their ages and in circumstances they recognize from their lives are finally considered worthy of their own narratives.

“There is something very interesting about a woman in her late 20s, early 30s,” said Laura Benanti, a Tony winner for the 2008 revival of “Gypsy” who is co-starring in the NBC drama “The Playboy Club.” “She’s clearly on the cusp of something, changing from something into something else. And that leads to many more stories to tell.”

It is a first-year class that includes Zooey Deschanel, a star of the romantic comedy “(500) Days of Summer” and lead singer of the retro-rock band She & Him. She is playing a socially awkward single woman living with male roommates in the Fox comedy “New Girl.” At 31, she has had a healthy film career, but she said her goofy charm made her an oddity in the movie industry. As she described it, the reaction she elicits from Hollywood is: “ ‘She’s not a cheerleader, she’s not a jock, she’s not a goth. We don’t know what to do with her. Who is she?’ Well, I’m my own thing.”

Ms. Deschanel said that the offbeat roles she covets have become even harder to come by in recent years, and Ms. Dennings echoed this point, saying that the harsh reality of filmmaking economics was a strong incentive to consider a transition to television. “It was really disappointing to lose something because you won’t get any money for the production,” she said.

Without comparable film or television credits, Ms. Cummings has been making her own luck as a stand-up comedian, parlaying jobs on Comedy Central’s celebrity roasts into a one-hour special and a pilot deal with that network. Though that project was not made into a series, it caught the attention of Michael Patrick King, who produced “Sex and the City” and directed its two films, with whom Ms. Cummings wrote the pilot script for “2 Broke Girls.” That show, in turn, was picked up by CBS just as NBC gave the green light to “Whitney,” a comedy about Ms. Cummings’s relationship with a live-in boyfriend. (She continues to receive creative and consulting credits on “2 Broke Girls.”)

Though she knows unfamiliar viewers may believe she is the beneficiary of overnight success, Ms. Cummings said she had been “aggressively, violently failing” for years.

“I’m calling my agents: ‘Will they see me for that part? Do they want to meet me?’ ” Ms. Cummings said. “They’re like, ‘No, just go to law school, you’re embarrassing yourself.’ ”

It is that do-it-yourself spirit that these women most admire about professional idols like Tina Fey, Amy Poehler and Chelsea Handler (whose memoir “Are You There, Vodka? It’s Me, Chelsea” is being adapted as an NBC comedy), and they want to see that quality reflected in the roles they play: independent, un-self-conscious, occasionally foul-mouthed characters once reserved exclusively for male performers.

(As Ms. Dennings put it, “Women are supposed to be mysterious, and there’s a veil you don’t cross, but vagina jokes are just gold, man.”)

In the pilot episode of the deeply irreverent comedy “Apartment 23,” which ABC is planning for a midseason debut, the lead character played by Krysten Ritter sells drugs, lets her neighbors watch her walk around naked and splits up her roommate from her fiancé.

But Ms. Ritter, 29, who has appeared on “Breaking Bad” and in movies like “Confessions of a Shopaholic,” said she saw her character as “this disenfranchised girl who refuses to conform and makes her money in these twisted ways.” She added: “I think that speaks to a generation. Everyone’s out there hustling. No one wants to climb a corporate ladder anymore.”

To find these roles two actresses said they had to turn the clock back to the 1960s, or at least the version of that decade depicted in “The Playboy Club,” a drama about the Chicago nightspot and its bunny-costumed hostesses during an era of social upheaval.

This series has already met resistance from KSL Television, an NBC affiliate in Salt Lake City that said it will not broadcast it, and Gloria Steinem, who once worked at the Playboy Club in New York, who said the show “normalizes prostitution and male dominance.”

Amber Heard, who portrays one of the principal Bunnies, said she was “playing a real character.” “In the ’60s, there were different opportunities and responsibilities afforded to women,” said Ms. Heard, 25, who has appeared in the films “Pineapple Express” and the coming “Rum Diary.”

“That being said, in 2011 I am a part of a group of women who do not have to choose between combat boots and an apron,” Ms. Heard continued. “Denying a woman’s sexuality is just as chauvinistic, if not worse.”

Ms. Benanti, 32, who plays a Bunny being pushed out of her job at the age of 30, drew a more direct line from the transgressive “Playboy Club” characters to the present day. “It’s because of women like this,” she said, “who are creating options for themselves that you get to have shows like ‘Whitney.’ ”

It’s not only the series about women clad in cottontails that have the potential to rile viewers. Ms. Ritter’s series, “Apartment 23,” has already had its title shortened from “Don’t Trust the Bitch in Apartment 23.” (“My publicist said it’s for the best they’re not calling it that,” she lamented. “We’d have such a hard time.”)

And “2 Broke Girls” and “New Girl” have stirred debate by describing their adult protagonists as girls, though Ms. Dennings said she fully endorsed the title of her show.

“When someone describes me as a woman,” she said, “I’m like, ‘Ucch, O.K.’ It’s like being called ‘ma’am.’ It’s more of a proper term, and propriety doesn’t have much of a place in TV comedy.”

Among the actresses there was no consensus as to why all of their shows landed in the same season. Maybe the success of the summer film comedy “Bridesmaids” demonstrated a larger appetite for stories about young women, or maybe enough female writers had risen through the ranks to create them. (In addition to the female creators of “Whitney” and “2 Broke Girls,” “New Girl” was created by Elizabeth Meriwether, the screenwriter of “No Strings Attached,” and “Apartment 23” was created by Nahnatchka Khan, a producer of “American Dad!”)

Or maybe, Ms. Benanti said, “networks have finally realized that women are watching television, and they buy things.”

Whatever had brought them together these women said they felt a strong sense of camaraderie with the actresses they already knew and those they hoped to meet someday: they were watching one another’s pilots and sending supportive messages on Twitter.

“There’s room for everybody,” Ms. Ritter said. “If one is successful, we all get to come up together. It’s all about cheering each other on.”

Ms. Deschanel agreed, saying, “It’s feeling like a very exciting time to be a woman.” She paused to correct herself: “A girl. A lady. Female. It always feels like it doesn’t describe me because it seems too old. But I’m a grown woman, I know.”

The New York Times.

Click the image to play the 2 Broke Girls Facebook game!

Anchor Bay Acquires Kat Dennings-Josh Lucas Film ‘Daydream Nation’
The movie centers on a whip-smart 17-year-old who moves to a strange small town haunted by the presence of a serial killer.

Anchor Bay Films has acquired all distribution rights for the U.S., U.K. and Australia/New Zealand territories to Joker Films’ Daydream Nation.

The movie made its debut at the Toronto International Film Festival where it opened the “Canada First!” sidebar.

Nation is the feature directorial debut of Michael Goldbach and stars Kat Dennings and Josh Lucas.

The story centers on a whip-smart 17-year-old who moves to a strange small town haunted by the presence of a serial killer. She starts an affair with her handsome young teacher and begins a friendship a troubled boy. When her teacher grows jealous of the girl’s new companion, the love triangle takes a violent turn.

Anchor Bay will open Nation theatrically in 2011. The company most recently released the remake of I Spit on Your Grave.

Among next year’s offerings are Beautiful Boy, starring Michael Sheen and Maria Bello; happythankyoumoreplease from budding director Josh Radnor; and Meet Monica Velour starring Kim Catrall.

The company is mulling a theatrical release of Tekken, based on the Namco video game.

Source.

Kat Dennings is a sweetheart. I knew this when Rusty interviewed her in Dallas last year with Michael Cera for NICK AND NORAH’S INFINITE PLAYLIST, but I had forgotten how easy it is to carry a conversation with her. Yesterday I spoke with Kat about her new film, DEFENDOR, which she co-stars in with the great Woody Harrelson. DEFENDOR follows a regular – but very eccentric – guy (Harrelson) who takes it upon himself to fight crime and stop an evil drug lord, whom he calls Captain Industry. This isn’t your ordinary comic book film, as Defendor never gets his way and always gets his ass kicked. God bless him for trying.

Check out our interview after the jump, where we talk about the hesitations of working with a first time director, how cool Woody Harrelson is, and what it’s like working on two comic book movies that go in completely different directions. If you don’t know the other comic book movie I’m speaking of, may the Gods have mercy on your soul. Or at least Thor, because he’s lurking just around the corner.

Chase Whale: Talk about how you got involved with the film.

Kat Dennings: Well, I got the script and no one was attached at the time I read it, so it was purely for the story. And I read it and I remember sitting on one couch, my mom was napping on the other couch and I was crying. I don’t cry very often, I’m a pretty tough cookie, especially with the amount of scripts that I’ve read I’m pretty jaded by this point. But I was crying and I was trying to keep it together and not wake her up and so I knew “I have got to do this.” The role is really different for me. There was really nothing for me to hold on to personally, because I’ve never been through anything that the character’s been through, obviously. Or not obviously, I don’t know [laughs], she’s a crack-addicted prostitute!
So I just knew that I really wanted to do it, I didn’t know if I could pull it off but I wanted to try. And I met with Peter [Stebbings], the writer-director and we had a lot of really good talks and both of us were just like “I wonder if I can do this.” And I came in and I read, you know, like you do with a normal audition and there were other people there and miraculously it came together. I’m very lucky.

CW: Going back to Peter, this is his directorial debut, whenever you got the script did you have any hesitations, or whenever you signed on did you have any hesitations? What did you do to put trust in Peter for his first film?

KD: The thing about first-time directors, it’s always kind of a risk, you never know. But the saying is, or whatever, everyone did something first. I mean, Scorsese did a first film, everyone does a first film. So it’s a coin toss, you either a get a maniac who’s going to lose his shit and not be able to do anything. Or you’re going to get a poised person who’s learning but really dedicated, and that’s Peter. Peter really took charge. I remember once Woody [Harrelson] got attached and once I got the job, we all had a meeting–me, Woody and Peter. And we talked for a long time and ate vegan food and I came out of there and was like “All right, sold.” I mean obviously, with Woody being in it…

CW: Going into Woody, his character is such a unique character, I’ve never seen him play something like this before. What was it like working with Woody playing this very unique character?

KD: As you know, first of all, Woody is one of the world’s most incredible acting treasures. He’s a sweet, wonderful man, incredible actor. One of the true greats. I mean, he’s been great in everything. He’s a legend, you know? We had a lot of talks about what are we going do. We had a lot of rehearsals, and I had never had this experience and he hadn’t either, where we were like “I don’t know what I’m doing.” Both of us! [laughs] First of all, every rehearsal process is different, sometimes you don’t even have one. But we had time to rehearse and both us were just like “I’m not gonna feel like I’m the person until we’re both on set and we both have our costumes and makeup on. Until you’ve got on a helmet and I’ve got a crack pipe.” [laughs]

And we both met with a lot of people who were really in these situations. Like Woody met with a young man who had Fetal Alochol Syndrome, which is what Arthur [Harrelson's character] has to deal with. He really made a nice bond with person, he was a great guy. But sadly this man had passed away during the film which was pretty rough for all of us. But I had met some people who had been sex workers or were currently sex workers or had been addicts or were currently addicts and it really gave me a big time reality check in my own life.

Also, with Woody’s character and my character you have these preconceptions about what kind of people they were. Like, yeah, she’s a prostitute and she smokes crack but she’s all these other things too, and she got to this point because of this. And what I learned is that anyone, from any walk of life or from any childhood situation can slip down that slope. It’s pretty sad, you know? But the film is a lot of things, it’s a superhero movie, it’s a comedy, it’s drama, it’s beautiful. We had the premiere the other night…and it just kind of all came together all of a sudden. I was a little bit sad, I just hope people see this movie. It’s a really good one. I’m really proud of it.

CW: Yeah absolutely! My next question is, this showed at Toronto and it got picked up and now it’s being released, how cool does that feel? Because there’s so many great films that just have a tough time finding a distributor and it’s so depressing.

KD: It’s incredible, especially I think this year was a tough year. Because you know, a lot of financial problems. Every studio had a budget and everyone was having a hard time. So for this to get picked up during the recession, it’s pretty amazing. And this is not a face movie, it’s kind of a fucked up movie. So it’s refreshing. It’s so great. I’m so happy and I just want people to see it. And you know, it’s coming out on DVD relatively soon, so if people see it that way great. There’s a lot of insight on that commentary, let me tell you.

CW: You’ve talked about how DEFENDOR is kind of a fucked up, character study/comic book movie. You’re doing THOR, what was it like working in the same genre but at two completely different ends?

KD: Polar opposites. I actually haven’t started filming my part of THOR yet. So the fun is still to be had for me. But yeah, it’s a complete disconnect. It’s like, one you have a very small budget, a 20 day shoot, kind of very intense, cold, sad beautiful small film. And then you have a huge epic explosion of gorgeous worlds and all this legend and Kenneth Branagh and Anthony Hopkins! [laughs] I don’t know, they couldn’t be more different. I can’t wait to feel how that feels. I really can’t wait to experience that. All the rehersal we had for THOR, the fittings, everything! I’m so excited. It’s like waiting for Christmas.

CW: It must be really cool to be in two comic book movies that both have their own charms.

KD: Yeah! For different reasons. But essentially, every hero has the same appeal. Your hero is supposed to have an honest soul and truth, purity and justice. Obviously THOR is Thor. And Chris Hemsworth, I mean honestly, it’s pretty daunting just talking the way Thor talks and Chris, the second he opened his mouth I almost passed out. He’s just so perfect. Obviously he’s a physically beautiful person but you just buy every word he says. You completely believe him, he’s got this amazing quality about him. And Woody playing Defendor couldn’t be more honest or more truthful and justice is his thing. So essentially heroes are all the same, except for like, Tony Stark, who’s kind of a dick [laughs].

CW: With DEFENDOR being a different type of comic book movie, it’s about a regular guy taking matters into his hands. What do you think people like about that?

KD: Well, I think we all have those revenge fantasies. I know I do [laughs]. You know when someone offends you and you just want to leap from building to building and rip their tonsils out…or maybe that’s just me…[laughs]. But it’s interesting because you know, what is a superhero? What is it? What makes the superhero? It’s the outfit and sometimes you have powers. But you know, Batman doesn’t have any powers! He’s a dude. And who says another dude can’t be a superhero? Like, you don’t have to have a cape and weapons to be a badass.

Source.

As you all hopefully know by now, Defendor is being released in cinemas across Canada tonight! And then in LA on Monday, where our own Rachel won a pass for two to the premiere. It will be awesome to hear what she has to say about the film over the weekend. :)

Have a pre-film interview with Kat from the Province:

She grew up toddling on the rolling green lawns of Bryn Mawr, Penn. — home to the world’s best women’s’ college and Katharine Hepburn’s alma mater — but Kat Dennings says while she fell in love with the classics, it wasn’t exactly a literary thing.

“I love the old musicals like Top Hat and An American in Paris,” says Dennings, who registered as a bona fide blip on the ingenue radar in the wake of playing Norah opposite Michael Cera’s Nick of Infinite Playlist fame.

“I didn’t want to be an actress from the very start. I went through a ballet stage first. Then I wanted to be a mermaid.”

Now starring in actor-turned director Peter Stebbings’s debut feature Defendor, Dennings says she has no problem taking on a variety of different roles, or even playing the crack-addicted sex trade worker (as she does in Defendor), as long as she maintains her personal and professional integrity along the way.

“I don’t really care if the choices I make are good or bad, but it’s important to me that they’re honest,” she says.

When it came to Defendor, Dennings says she was interested in taking on a low-budget project that seemed, in many ways, to be a labour of love for director Stebbings — as well as an ode to the steely-hearted city of Hamilton.

The story of a mentally challenged man who decides to clean up “the Hammer” by donning black clothing and taping a big “D” to his chest with duct tape, Defendor tells a familiar vigilante story with a human twist.

Stebbings says he was well aware of the archetypal source material he was working with, but wanted to strip it down to the basic mechanics of good and bad, and stick as close to the baseline as possible.

“I think people need to see how a lot of people in our society live. We turn a blind eye to all the invisible people out there, whether they are dealing with drug addiction or a disability,” says Stebbings.

“I spent a lot of time in Vancouver and I used to go to the First United Church at Hastings and Gore. I definitely saw how the other half lived,” he says.

Dennings wasn’t all that familiar with that other half, but in order to play the role of a teenage prostitute in this Canadian take on Taxi Driver, she did spend some time with a spokesperson for sex trade workers.

“I worked with a woman who was very familiar with this world and it was really helpful because this character [ironically named Kat] isn’t anything like me at all. She has nothing to hang on to,” says Dennings.

“I have a great family and supportive friends and I’ve been blessed in so many areas of my life. Kat, the character, has none of what I have. She’s got nothing to latch on to,” she says.

“I have to say, being in Hamilton for four or five weeks was also a huge help. That city certainly gets you in the right mood to smoke crack,” she says, her tone a perfect deadpan.

Starring opposite Oscar nominee Woody Harrelson, who plays Arthur Poppington (a. k.a. Defendor), Dennings says she found all the support she needed on set because Harrelson is the kind of actor who commits completely.

“If Woody hadn’t been there, the movie would have fallen apart. You have to believe in Arthur, and I swear, every time we were in a scene together and I looked into his eyes, I believed. He really transformed into Arthur — without tricks or anything — and that kind of made the experience for me.”

Dennings says she has no overall design on her career. She’s going to take it one part at a time, and right now, that would mean playing Darcy in the forthcoming Thor movie directed by Kenneth Branagh.

“Ah. I don’t know. I want to keep growing. Hopefully, I can do more comedy. I really like it and I think growing up, my favourite two actresses were Bernadette Peters and Madeline Kahn. They were great actors who made funny look easy. And that’s probably the hardest thing there is to do,” says Dennings.

“If they ever remake The Jerk, I’m going to fight to be in it.”

Source.

Actors Kat Dennings and Reece Thompson are being filmed doing a “walk and talk” down a Fort Langley back street for the indie drama Daydream Nation.

That’s basically what it sounds like — walking and talking in character, as the new teen in a small town and one of the locals, respectively. Except that as they walk, two guys man the camera on a dolly track that follows alongside them for the close-up shot. Two more guys are walking behind them, holding a dark sheet on an aluminum frame angled over them to cut the light of an overcast afternoon. Another walks backwards in front of them holding a “bounce,” a smaller white sheet, angled under their faces to deflect some of that light back at them.

As director-writer Michael Goldbach watches the flat-screen monitor in a portable tent nearby, the resulting shot looks luminous, the performances natural and unforced.

“Some of the actors were worried when they saw what we were doing with the lighting,” says Goldbach. “Then we’ll come in here, show them the monitor and they’re thrilled with what they see. The quality, the look of this film is going to impress people, considering how low-budget it is.”

That little scene could stand in for the filmmaking process as a whole — a lot of concentrated activity and wrangling going on just outside the frame to get those delicate onscreen moments.

Goldbach, who co-wrote 2004′s Toronto-filmed movie-insider comedy Childstar, watched his Daydream Nation script, inspired by his own teen years in small-town Ontario, draw industry notice and a couple of near-starts on both sides of the border.

One step forward came when American actor Dennings, looking for a dramatic role after the comedy hit Nick and Nora’s Infinite Playlist, got together with Goldbach for a three-hour coffee in Los Angeles a little over a year ago.

By then Vancouver-based producer Christine Haebler had joined with Goldbach, taking over from an American company. A shifting jigsaw puzzle of financing and casting elements took them through 2009, with Canadian Scott Speedman originally set to star as a teacher who falls for Dennings’ character, and Vancouver’s Thompson as the smart-talking stoner on the other point of a romantic triangle.

“Reece Thompson is a great find,” says Haebler of the actor who launched his career by starring in the U.S. indie feature Rocket Science. The 21-year-old Thompson had met Goldbach around the time that movie came out in 2007. “He’s a bit of an undiscovered Canadian talent in the sense that the Americans know him more than we do.”

Andie MacDowell of Four Weddings and a Funeral was in, then out, then in again as Thompson’s mother, as the shooting schedule moved from late summer, to November and finally December.

“We had a hole on our financing by midsummer,” says Haebler’s producing partner Trish Dolman. “Because of the cast we didn’t want to just go ahead and go very ultra-low budget.”

When the $3.5 million budget finally came together late last year, Speedman had to drop out because a family member got sick. The script went to American Josh Lucas.

“It was Christmas Eve and I’d just got off a plane to visit my family,” says Lucas, getting ready this day to film a night of interior scenes. “I had an email from my agent basically saying you have until five o’clock today to let them know.”

Lucas had just finished a busy 2009, and wasn’t in a hurry to start work right away, but the fact that Dennings was involved made him scan the script.

“I think this girl is the real deal,” Lucas says. The actor, who spent his high-school years in the tiny Washington state town of Gig Harbour, was drawn to Goldbach’s take on the intrigue and the drama of small-town life.

In early January, cameras started rolling for the 22-day shoot in Fort Langley and Maple Ridge. Dennings and Goldbach had some long phone conversations before she came up.

“When we finally got the green light, we had hours of talking about everything,” Dennings says during a break. “Certain actor-y things, just trying to dissect different scenes. It was really important [that] we were all on the same page about what we were looking for, because it’s a really short shoot.”

The timing was critical for her as well — just days after wrapping Daydream Nation she heads to New Mexico for a role in the mega-budget superhero feature Thor. “This is just a stroke of luck, there was a lot of stops and starts.”

As he choreographs the main unit and a splinter crew filming a few bocks away, the 30-ish bespectacled Goldbach doesn’t look much older than the high school characters he’s created.

“In high school, especially in Canada, people don’t fit in those neat categories that you see on television,” he says. “I’m trying to avoid the feeling of jocks, nerds and geeks — everyone has all of those qualities. Trying to work against the cliches — when you’re making a small, independent movie, having a little bit of originality is the only weapon you have.”

Source.

When Disney downsized the bulk of Miramax’s employees and announced that the company would be reducing its output to only three or so films a year, it was assumed that the next product slated to go into production — the Richard Linklater romantic comedy Liars (A to E) — would be safe from the scythe. After all, Linklater finished casting leads Rebecca Hall and Kat Dennings two months ago, and the story (which found Hall and Dennings visiting Hall’s exes on a road trip to retrieve lost items) offered plenty more juicy roles for actors.

Alas, when I talked to Linklater today, the greenlit project had suddenly run into a red light. “It’s no longer happening, unfortunately,” Linklater confirmed. “It didn’t really work out. It’s tough.”

As a result, Linklater has found himself unexpectedly unemployed. “I don’t think I have anything coming up!” he said. “Everybody asks me about School of Rock 2, and that’s not really happening. It’s not on the front burner. Mike White was writing on it a long time ago, but it’s become dormant.”

The School of Rock sequel had been buzzed about online as of late (White’s Gentlemen Broncos press tour probably contributed to that), but Linklater said the spike of interest doesn’t correlate with its likeliness to happen. “I’m surprised to hear all this. I saw Jack [Black] the other night, and we talk about it. We’re not gonna do it just to do it. Let’s just say it’s still kind of on the backburner and it’s no one’s next project.” ♦

Source.

Sucks. :/ Hopefully she’ll be cast in something else soon!

Woody Harrelson pic screened at Toronto
By Borys Kit and Steven Zeitchik
Sept 16, 2009, 03:46 PM ET

TORONTO — Sony Pictures Worldwide Acquisitions Group is in final negotiations to acquire the Woody Harrelson starrer “Defendor” out of the Toronto International Film Festival.

The company is set to buy all worldwide rights to the film except Canada, where the film is being released by Alliance.

Peter Stebbings’ movie stars Harrelson as a man who is under the delusion that he is a superhero and sets out on a series of adventures to protect a crime-beset city. Kat Dennings and Sandra Oh also star.

The acquisition marks the first buy of the festival for SPWAG, which has been ramping up its acquisitions of late. The film is the third fest pic to sell overall, following the Weinstein Co.’s purchase of Tom Ford’s period drama “A Single Man” and IFC’s acquisition of Nicholas Winding Refn’s action adventure “Valhalla Rising.”

Source.

Finally got around to capping the high quality version of the Defendor trailer, and I’ve uploaded the caps to the gallery here!

In addition, The Star says the following about Defendor:

If Lennie from Of Mice and Men fancied himself a superhero, you’d have Arthur (an endearing Woody Harrelson), a man with limited intellect and a huge desire to save the citizens of Hamilton from über-villain Capt. Industry. Defendor (spell it with an `or’ or face his wrath) dons a sweater marked with a duct-tape `D’ and truly believes he is a crime-fighting force. No, he can’t fly, but he’s sure bullets can’t harm him, he spouts every comic-book cliché written and he has some truly inventive ways of dealing with bad guys. Kat Dennings is the whore who unwittingly becomes his guardian angel; the two have enviable chemistry.

For “Ain’t We Got Style?,” a portfolio in the August issue, photographers Michael Roberts, Norman Jean Roy, Mark Seliger, and Art Streiber teamed up with Josh Duhamel, Mila Kunis, Emile Hirsch, and other rising stars (including our Kat) to re-enact classic Depression-era films. Take a peek at the works in progress, then view video from the photo sessions.

Click the photo to see the big version. This is for the August 2009 issue of Vanity Fair, and will hit newstands early next week.

Well, that’s finally done with! HQ screencaps of Nick and Norah, along with pictures from the storyboard. :)

We also have something else that Sandra pointed out; a piece from The New York Times Online called Great Performers, which has a short commentary on Kat, an article Catherine Keener wrote on Kat, along with four gorgeous photographs by Paolo Pellegrin. If you don’t know who Catherine Keener is, she played Kat’s mom in The 40-Year-Old Virgin.

Great Performers

“We try to spotlight individuals who are not as well known, and this year, that is Kat Dennings. She is in the movie “Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist,” and she first caught our eye when she played Catherine Keener’s daughter in “The 40-Year-Old Virgin.” Despite the fact that she is an actress who has a burgeoning career and has been featured in magazines as up-and-coming, she still lives with her parents in the carriage house behind their house, and she doesn’t know how to drive – her mother has arranged for her to have a car service so that she can get to and from auditions and parties and wherever she needs to be. She has the qualities of being both a very young girl and very sophisticated at the same time. She’s not an actress that’s intensively trying to be seen by the tabloids, and she has a kind of vulnerability about her that makes her very, very interesting.”

Catherine Keener on Kat Dennings

I’m not sure when I first met Kat Dennings. She played my daughter in “The 40-Year-Old Virgin,” and one day, we were having a read-through of the script and I looked over and there was this lovely girl. I thought, Who is this girl? She was kind of lit up from within. When someone is that beautiful, it’s great when they’re funny too, and from the beginning, Kat had her own rhythm: a way of being funny and emotional at the same time.

A lot of “The 40-Year-Old Virgin” was shot like a controlled improvisation. Anything and everything was welcome, and the director, Judd Apatow, never yelled “cut.” It took me a while to get used to that style of working, but Kat was a natural. In one scene her character, who is anxious to give up her virginity, is battling with me. As her mom, I don’t want her to grow up too fast. Kat’s character is in the bathroom, crying, and I’m outside the door with Steve Carell, who played my boyfriend. Kat was just screaming at me — cursing and yelling and calling me all kinds of names that were not in the script. I was thrown and I turned to Steve and I said, “I don’t know what she’s talking about.” Even though it was improvised, Judd kept that line in the movie — I clearly sounded like a frustrated mom and it was all due to Kat’s rant.

During the shoot, I looked out for Kat. I think we all did. I was protective of her and I stayed in touch with her after the movie was finished. It’s tough on young girls in Hollywood — it’s easy to fall into the tabloid culture. But that’s not what she’s made of. Kat has beauty and youth and talent, but there’s something else that sets her apart: she’s comfortable being different.

Catherine Keener has received two Academy Award nominations for best supporting actress, for “Being John Malkovich” in 2000 and “Capote” in 2006.

Paolo Pellegrin/Magnum Photos, for The New York Times.

Source.