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Actress Kat Dennings became an indie “it” girl in ‘Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist’ before setting small screens on fire with her role on ’2 Broke Girls.’ Here, she reveals why she loves talking dirty, hates being sexy, and enjoys doing laundry

BY LISA BUTTERWORTH
PHOTOGRAPHED BY SHERYL NIELDS
KAT DENNINGS is a hugger. I know this because it’s the first thing she does when we meet at Le Pain Quotidien on a typically mild evening in Studio City, Los Angeles, right before she apologizes for being late. “I’ve been at a photo shoot all day, and don’t be scared, I still have crazy makeup on,” she says before lifting her Ray-Ban sunglasses to reveal her mesmerizing blue eyes, dramatically ringed in sparkly black liner and shadow. They’re a wild contrast to her ultra-casual look-jeans, T-shirt, scarf, headphones—and demeanor as she drops her bags and slumps into the chair across from me. As it turns out, I’m lucky she made it to our interview at all. “I don’t have any gas in my car. The little orange dot came on last night on my way home,” she says. “[But I was like] fuck it. It’s two in the morning. I’m going home. ‘You better not die.’ I’m always talking to my car when there’s no one on the road, like, ‘Hold on, you asshole! Fucking hold on! I gotta get home, I gotta go to sleep.’ That’s the state of me right now.”

And it’s no wonder. The week’s been a big one for the 25-year-old actress. Her new sitcom, 2 Broke Girls, premiered two days earlier to over 19 million people (though she didn’t even get to see it air, since she was filming), and her face is plastered all over L.A. to promote it; I passed her gigantic mug on at least three billboards just on my short drive across town to meet her. With an audience of that magnitude, 2 Broke Girls is a bona fide hit, which means Dennings is busier than ever. In addition to working on the show all week and doing a photo shoot for InStyle all day, she’s swooped in for our interview only to have to run out in 30 minutes for another one. Her BUST cover shoot is the next morning, and she’ll got straight from there to the CBS studios for an appearance on The Late Lat Show with Craig Ferguson. She is understandably exhausted.

“You’ll have to humor me,” she says. “I’m out of my mind right now.” But that doesn’t stop her from being sweet, chatty, and extremely enthusiastic about everything, whether it’s coffee (“I love coffee. I could not live without coffee. It would be a disaster”) or John Waters (“He’s a genius”). Oh, and food. “I’m stoked,” she says perusing the menu. “I realized in the car that I hadn’t eaten today.” When our server comes to take our order, Dennings’ signature self-deprecation comes out. “I’m gonna get…hmmm.” Our waiter stands patiently while she contemplates her options. “Could I be more annoying?” Dennings asks. “Uh…um. I hate myself. Wait..” Another few moments go by before she says “OK” with purpose and settles on a veggie sandwich. Since I stuffed my face with an enormous chocolate croissant while I was waiting for her to arrive (to which she exclaims, “Good for you!”), I ask if she’ll feel weird if I don’t eat while we chat. “It won’t make me feel weird,” she says. “Nothing makes me feel weird.”

I get the sense that this is true. Kat Dennings has made a career out of playing the “weird” girl, who, for me-and I’d guess for the typical BUST reader—is often the most relatable character in a movie. In The 40-Year-Old Virgin, she rivaled Catherine Keener’s magnetism as her angst, newly sexually active daughter. And in The House Bunny, she stole scenes as an acerbic punk. But it wasn’t until she starred in 2008’s Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist that Dennings unleashed the full power of her subversive charm, working her way into the hearts of indie girls everywhere. In the “one crazy night in New York” romantic comedy, she plays the sassy, smart-mouthed lead with an endearing vulnerability. As she falls for Michael Cera’s Nick, ditches her douchey ex-bf, and has her first O thanks to Nick’s nimble fingers, it’s hard not to fall for her.

In fact, Dennings has been flying under the radar as Hollywood’s go-to alternative “it” girl for the past six years, and it’s easy to see why. Her dark hair, gap-toothed grin, and non-skeletal figure represent the antithesis of your typical starlet. Her charming sarcasm and offbeat humor simply seal the deal. But now, with a starring role on a prime-time network TV sitcom, I can’t help but feel like the secret of Kat Dennings’ awesomeness is out. Especially since Max, the young waitress she plays on the Laverne & Shirley-esque 2 Broke Girls, shares her easygoing, wry, feminist-y attitude. And though the show’s location (a diner in Williamsburg, Brooklyn) is obviously a set and the premise is slightly far-fetched (Max befriends a riches-to-rags heiress, and the two plan to open a cupcake bakery), Dennings plays a character who seems totally real. Max works two jobs to barely make ends meet, shops at the Goodwill, wears a Run DMC T-shirt to bed, and has an acrid wit about her. It’s a part that seems made for Dennings, which might not be too far from the truth. “I was the spoiled brat who got offered the role, straight up,” Dennings says. “I read [the pilot], and I was obsessed with it immediately.”

Some of her excitement about the gig, in addition to Max’s coolness and quirks, comes from the fact that the jokes she gets to make are surprisingly crass for a show that airs on CBS before the kids have gone to bed. For example, when her roomate/ co-server, Caroline (played by Beth Behrs), shows up to work after her shift was supposed to start: “You can’t be late again,” Max says. “I’m already worried about being late…every month!” Or when Caroline asks her to open the back door: “We’ve known each other two days and you’re already asking for the back door?” The humor lies mostly on Dennings’ delivery, which is good-naturedly sly and comically casual. “I think that’s totally awesome,” she says of Max’s indelicate tendencies. “And I think a woman saying stuff you’d usually hear coming out of a truck driver is just such a great shock to your brain that it’s interesting . Like, I kinda get hooked on saying it.”

Talking dirty in front of a live studio audience every week wasn’t the only draw for Dennings. As she explains what intrigued her about playing Max-which, if all goes well, she could be doing for years—it’s clear that finding strong female characters is a priority for her. “[Max is] the girl who can hang with dudes and holds her own but not have to be sexy. I hate that. I’ve always hated that, when I read scripts about, like, how a girl uses being a girl to get her way, or she’s trying to be sexy for men,” she says, pausing only to take a big bite of her sandwich. “’Cause all women are sexy—the end. And you can use that power if you want to, but there’s a certain even more powerful element to not using it; just leading with other things— how smart you are, how funny you are. So I think that’s very empowering for women, and I think it’s really good for men to see a girl like that on TV.”

It makes sense that the show’s main female character is strong-willed and a tad raunchy, since the sitcom was co-created by comedian Whitney Cummings, who Dennings believes based the role on herself. The production is also backed by a staff of notable female writers, including Morgan Murphy, blogging phenom Molly McAleer, and former Groundling Liz Feldman. “That was a real priority for Whitney when they were looking for writers,” Dennings says, leaning forward at the table. “It didn’t have to be women, but they wanted to make sure that whoever they got thought women were funny—funny and powerful.” When I mention it’s unfortunate that there may be writers out there who don’t think that, Dennings gets animated. “There are! It’s so sad,” she says. “It’s not like a girl-power thing, it’s an equality thing—saying women are just as funny as men, women can be funnier than men, and I’m OK with that.” She adds that the estrogen-fueled set makes for an awesome working environment. “It’s just a great energy. It feels good, being surrounded by smart women—comforting.”

It’s not, however, a completely lady-run operation. The show is produced by Michael Patrick King, whose last project was a little series called Sex and the City. It’s a strange course of kismet for Dennings: King gave the actress her first big break on a season 3 episode of SATC way back in 2000. Dennings played a snotty, entitled teen who hired Samantha to do p.r. for her bat mitzvah. Though that was her first recognizable role, Dennings had been working toward a career in front of the camera for years. “I feel like I popped out of the womb wanting to be an actor,” she says, swiping a thick layer of eye makeup with her finger. “It has no ties to my family at all, so it came out of nowhere.” Dennings grew up in the suburbs of Philadelphia, with her speech therapist mom and molecular pharmacologist dad. “We didn’t have much money, so we’d go to the library, and I’d get movies like Top Hat, An American in Paris, Gilda Radner stuff—you know, classics,” she says. “I was like, ‘Whatever that is, that’s what I want to do. I don’t know what it is, but it’s just…me.’ And then I just ran with it.” Dennings’ brother had a friend who was doing some acting, so he introduced her to his manager. Dennings worked the connection, getting auditions and work in New York and L.A., eventually moving with her family to Southern California.

Her parents still live in town, and when I ask how she plans to spend her next rare bit of free time, she tells me visiting them is one of her top priorities. The rest of her day-off to-do list sounds remarkably familiar. “Truthfully: sleep, do laundry, clean. That’s usually all I do,” she says, sucking down the last of her mint lemonade. “And I enjoy it. I really like home things. It makes me feel normal, like I have a center of some kind.” Nurturing that center doesn’t always involve getting groceries or making home cooked meals, though. “I clearly don’t go food shopping,” she says. “I have a jar of marinara sauce in the fridge, that’s it. And I usually get home late and I don’t even remember eating it. Then I wake up and see a plate of marinara sauce next to my bed, and I’m like, Did you eat marinara sauce? With a fork? What the fuck is wrong with you? That’s not food.”

Cooking may not be her forte, but she is crafty as hell. “I knit, I paint, I draw,” she says, leaning back in her chair. In fact her love of art almost took her on a very different path. “I was gonna go to art school for classical illustration,” she explains. “I was getting a portfolio together. Every piece of art I’d ever made was on the floor where I was living. I go away for a while, come back, and a pipe had burst or something. It was flooded. Everything got destroyed. Every single piece of art I had ever done,” she says. “I didn’t go to art school. I took it as a sign.” But Dennings finds other ways to express her creative tendencies—she happens to be a master of budget décor. A DIY upholstery tutorial she wrote for Zooey Deschanel’s website HelloGiggles.com involves nothing but fabric and a buttload of safety pins. “My whole living room [cost] $80,” she says , proudly. “My chair and couch, the whole thing.”

Dennings’ DIY mentality and general cool makes her a natural BUST cover girl. But I had to find out about her views on the F-word. When I lead into my question by telling her that she strikes me as someone who is actually representing BUSTy gals in the media, she interrupts with vigor. “Oh, P.S., I love BUST,” she says, pointing a finger in the air for emphasis. “As soon as I got this [interview request], I was like, Yes! I don’t care what it is, I’m doing it.” So I’m not entirely surprised by the answer when I ask whether feminism is something she ever considers. “I absolutely think about feminism,” Dennings says. “The way I view feminism—and I know there are a lot of different things going on—but, at it’s purest form, to me, it’s very positive, supportive, nurturing, empowerment thing. I mean, God, who isn’t a feminist? If you don’t think women are as good as men, you’re not a good person.” Before I interject with an “Amen, sister,” she continues. “I like to think that most of the population of people worth being friends with are feminists, if that’s what feminism means. Again—it probably means something else. I’m gonna get someone angry, setting me on fire for this, but I think it’s a positive, beautiful, and good thing,” she says. “Supporting women is the point. It’s the point of life. Women are life. You have to support us.” I have an overwhelming desire to high-five her. Perhaps that’s why I’m not paying close attention when out server swings by the table with our check. Dennings slips him her credit card before he even has a chance to leave the bill. When I marvel at her swiftness and try to protest, she simply cackles, and exclaims, “Too smooth! ‘Too smooth Dennings.’ Put that in your article.” As our time comes to a close, I ask if she has any upcoming projects we need to talk about. She rolls her eyes. “I don’t even know what day it is,” she mutters, as she gathers her stuff to leave. “I’ll have to IMDb myself to see what I’ve been working on.”

Dennings throws on her sweater and picks up her bags, heading out to her next interview. Just after she leaves the restaurant, a bus drives by bearing a huge 2 Broke Girls ad on its side, with Dennings’ adorable face covering half the vehicle’s façade. I don’t think she notices, and she probably wouldn’t even care even if she did. But for a closing scene, Michael Patrick King couldn’t have planned it better himself.

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KAT DENNINGS IS WEIRD
The bombshell 2 Broke Girls star finally found the spotlight she deserves—so why does she keep telling everyone how strange she is?
BY LAUREN BANS / PHOTOGRAPH BY TERRY RICHARDSON

Kat Dennings is hammering home that she’s a weirdo the way other actresses cake on their down-to-earthness and frequently indulged desire for In-N-Out burgers. “I don’t think I’m a weirdo in a bad way, there’s just a lot going on in my head,” she says. To be fair, she’s fielding a question as to why she’s called herself “weird” in just about every medium available—there was her recent tweet (“People are weird. Boys are weird. Men are weird. Love is weird. You are weird. I am weird. Life is weird. Weird is weird. Look, a MINOTAUR!”), multiple posts on her blog proclaiming her oddball status (“As you are undoubtedly aware from reading this endless omnibus of redonkulousness, I am kind of a weirdo” and then, just minutes into in our phone conversation, she labels herself “a weird one” yet again. Now she’s talking like she almost has it: “Maybe it’s a movie thing? I want to see as many movies as I can and I covet a lot of weird influential movies. I have a lot of favorite authors…Douglas Adams and Charlotte Bronte and Richard Brautigan. I get obsessed. That could be it—how I get obsessed with things. Though I think if I could put my finger on my exact weirdness I’d be able to change it.”

Change it? That would be a mistake. The 25-year-old star of CBS’s uncharacteristically lascivious 2 Broke Girls is swooned over for her deadpanning anti-ingénue persona as much as her anime sextoon proportions. Dennings was a natural fit to play Broke Girl Max, a tough, quick-with-the-quip diner waitress who charms with brassy lines like “Hey, when you get a second, stop looking at my boobs.” (True to form, Dennings sees Max as “a cross between Danny Zuko and Cartman.”) Michael Patrick King, the show’s co-creator and more famously the man behind Sex and the City’s epic run, pretty much molded the character specifically for Dennings. “I don’t think there’s anybody else like her so we basically hunted her down for this,” King says. “She has a kind of amazing outsider edge. It made everything else fall into place.”

Actually it wouldn’t seem illogical to assume that Dennings’s biggest roles—the wisecracking, indie-rock-loving teenage outsider in Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist; the caustic maneater with many a piercing in The House Bunny—were custom made for her, too. Dennings genuinely seems to be the brashly cool, funny girl she’s constantly cast to play, the type of girl for whom the term “girl crush” was invented. Just don’t call her quirky. “I hate that damn word!” Dennings shouts. “Quirky is what a guy would call a girl he doesn’t understand.” Noted. We’ll stick to weird.

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Meow Mix
By Lauren Bans
Photos by Terry Richardson

Kat Dennings has the sort of anime sextoon proportions that Russ Meyer might have built a film around. She’s got the requisite take-no-shit attitude, too, making her bones playing badass girls: the brash outsider in Nick & Norah’s Infinite Playlist; the pierced sorority sister in The House Bunny; and now Max, the snarky hipster-hating diner waitress on CBS’s uncharacteristically lascivious sitcom 2 Broke Girls – a character the 25-year-old instantly fell in love with, because she saw her as “a cross between Danny Zuko and Cartman.”

With a résumé like that, you could anoint Dennings as some sort of queen of quirk. But that would be a mistake. “I hate that damn word!” she shouts. “Quirky is what a guy calls a girl he doesn’t understand.” She would not, however, be offended if you called her weird. “I don’t think I’m a weirdo in a bad way. I just have a lot going on in my head,” she says. “If I could put my finger on my exact weirdness, I’d be able to change it.” That, too, would be a mistake.

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KAT DENNINGS TALKS 2 BROKE GIRLS, RENEE AND THE THOR SEQUEL

The new comedy series 2 Broke Girls, premiering on September 19th, is about two young women who waitress at a greasy spoon diner and strike up an unlikely friendship in the hopes of launching a successful business, if they can ever raise enough cash. Sassy and streetwise, Max Black (Kat Dennings) works two jobs just to get by, while uptown trust fund princess Caroline Channing (Beth Behrs) is having such a run of bad luck that she finds herself picking up shifts at the retro-hip Williamsburg Diner. At first, Max sees Caroline as yet another in a long line of inept servers that she must cover for, but she’s surprised to find that Caroline has as much substance as she does style, and the two girls from entirely different worlds become friends.

During a recent interview, actress Kat Dennings talked about what led her to make a weekly series commitment, that she loves how real her character is, how lucky they are to have such strong comedic forces behind the show, and how being in a business as risky as acting had often led her to wonder where her next paycheck was coming from. She also talked about playing a bi-polar girl in the indie drama Renee, and how her TV contract will allow for her to go do the sequel, if she ends up in Thor 2. Check out what she had to say after the jump:

Question: What led you to make a weekly series commitment?

KAT DENNINGS: To be honest, things were actually picking up. I was getting really exciting things, and Thor was just coming out, and I was doing really interesting projects, but I got to a point where I have done so many small films, and I’ve worked really, really hard, and then they just disappear. Four months of your life never get seen, and you start to feel tired. This came at the right time for me because I had just finished the most intense shoot of my life, in a really amazing way. It was an intense, complete physical transformation, and I was really drained.

And then, this literally fell into my lap. I was feeling like, “What do I do now? I can’t do another one of these films for a really long time. I want to do something where people will definitely see it because I’m a hard worker, and I want people to appreciate it. Not because I want people to look at me, but because I’ve been doing this since I was 10 years old.” TV wasn’t something I had intended to do, but when this came, and it was Whitney [Cummings] and Michael [Patrick King], with Michael giving me my first big job, it almost seemed like a gift, at just the right time. I was like, “God, this is exactly the answer to everything I’ve been wanting.” I’m just really lucky that this came along.

With so many films going on, both indie and blockbuster, were you hesitant about doing a TV show?

DENNINGS: I’m just in a really lucky place where I’ve gotten to work with amazing film people and amazing directors, like Kenneth Branagh, and amazing casts. This is just something different. It’s something cool and new, that I haven’t gotten to do before. If this goes for eight years, I’ll be thrilled. I love who I’m working with. I love this show because it’s real. It’s more like a half-hour movie than a half-hour sitcom. It’s very fresh.

What did you like about this character?

DENNINGS: I just love how real Max is. I’m from Pennsylvania, so I was in New York a lot and my brother lives in New York. I’m very familiar with New York girls, and I just love how gutsy and real they are. Max is so hard working. All she has to think about [is] her jobs and her rent. She’s never really had a moment to relax. It’s nice to watch that journey unfold.

What is your line for when sarcasm becomes too mean?

DENNINGS: I think it’s a personality thing. I have friends who are so sarcastic, but I never view it as mean. It’s just an intention thing. Hopefully, as the show goes on, Max’s soul will start to come out and you will know her as a person. What’s so great about a show that’s on every week is that you really get to know these people. As people get to know Max more, if she says something that could seem mean, they’ll know that it’s not because she is a good person.

You’ve got two strong comedic forces behind this show, with Whitney Cummings and Michael Patrick King. Were you familiar with their work before this?

DENNINGS: Yes, I was heavily immersed, as a matter of fact. I’ve always been a huge fan of Whitney’s. She’s so funny. And, I was actually on an episode of Sex and the City when I was 14. I played Jenny Brier, the blowjob, Bar Mitzvah girl, in the episode called “Hot Child in the City.” It changed my life. Really, it did. I was a home-schooled kid, living in the forest, and I didn’t even have cable. I’m serious. We had to get cable to watch that episode, and all my little home-schooled friends and their moms saw Kyle MacLachlan’s ass. It was pretty incredible.

When is the last time that you were broke?

DENNINGS: Well, things have been going well, as of late, but acting is one of the most risky businesses you could ever be in. You literally do not know where your next paycheck will come from, and there have been moments where I haven’t worked for a year. I’m a very safe spender. I save everything. I save all my money. My parents raised me like that. It’s never been an emergency, but there have definitely been times where I’ve been worried.

Do you have any regrets over having started in the business so young?

DENNINGS: No. I asked my parents, from the time I was 4 years old, if I could be an actress and they were like, “Absolutely not! You’re going to college and you’re going to be a normal person.” But, I wouldn’t stop. I wouldn’t let up, and I was very passionate. I was a smart kid. I wasn’t a rebel. I wasn’t difficult. I was just really passionate about this one thing. When I was 10, they were finally like, “Okay, you can try it for a month. If you don’t like it, we’ll stop. If you like it, we’ll go for another month.” To have their support was something that not a lot of actors get to have. I’m so lucky they have been amazing.

What do they think of your success?

DENNINGS: They’re very happy.

Did you study comedy at all?

DENNINGS: I haven’t actually studied acting at all. As a required thing, when I was 10 and I signed with this manager, she made me take her husband’s acting class once, which was enough. Acting is something that I couldn’t recommend to anyone because the odds of it working out are so insane. I don’t know how it worked out for me. I had no connections to this industry. I had no ins anywhere. I was just a normal kid. It’s amazing that it’s come this far. I’m so thrilled.

What was it like to play a bi-polar character in Renee?

DENNINGS: It’s based on the true story of this girl, Renee Yohe, and the organization To Write Love on Her Arms. It’s an amazing organization with a lot of cool young people behind it, and it was started for her. It’s about her journey and how she gets to that point of recovery. It’s an indie film, but I think there is distribution. They’re still editing it.

Will you be able to be in Thor 2?

DENNINGS: Marvel is so secretive; we never know anything until the last minute. But, one of the things that happened when I signed for this show was to make sure that I could still do films on my hiatus, so they would absolutely work that out. I did Thor before I did this show, so they would find a way to work everything out, if I was in Thor 2.

What do you like to do for fun?

DENNINGS: I don’t know. The time I had behind shooting the pilot and our first week of shooting was the only vacation I’ve ever had, since I was 10 years old. I’ve been working this whole time. I’ve never had that much space between jobs. This was the first time I’ve had space to do anything, or to take any kind of vacation. I had all these ideas, but I ended up just staying home, reading books, watching movies and seeing friends, which was the best vacation. My mom calls it a stay-cation.

What was your life like, growing up?

DENNINGS: Part of the reason why I relate to this show so much is because we didn’t have any money when I was growing up, and I used to get all of my films from the library. My mom would get me classic movies. I actually wasn’t allowed to watch TV, as a kid, except for PBS and Sesame Street.

How did you become an actress?

DENNINGS: I grew up in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania, and my dad is a scientist and my mom is a speech therapist. It came out of nowhere. I would watch these films, and I just took that little kid wanting to be a movie star thing way too far, and actually ended up doing it. My brother’s friend from karate was on Pete & Pete sometimes, and I met his manager. She sent me on auditions in Philly and then in New York, and then I started getting commercials. When I got Sex and the City, it just changed the things I was able to get. And then, I eventually moved out to L.A. and somehow wound up on 2 Broke Girls.

Why were you home-schooled?

DENNINGS: At that time, my parents were disenchanted with the school system, and rightfully so. I was also a weirdo. I didn’t always look like this. I’m an actor now, and all that weirdness growing up has just somehow worked.

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Our cover girl talks about her new TV show!

This Fall, Kat Dennings returns to TV in the Michael Patrick King comedy, Two Broke Girls. Read her interview here, then check out more quotes and photos in the September issue of NYLON, on stands now.

Your show takes place in Brooklyn, but you film in LA. What’s that like? The studio we were filming at has “fake New York” sets, and they look so real. It’s really creepy. When you watch it, it really feels like they’re in New York… And that’s actually a Michael Patrick King thing. He can really infuse [the show] with New York spirit. And this is a very different New York than Sex and the City.

Yeah. Not as glamorous
No. This is Brooklyn… I’m familiar with the whole Williamsburg scene, and I think it’s depicted pretty well… But Zach’s Diner looks so much like the Double R Diner from Twin Peaks.

Oh my god! I just started watching that. It’s so good!.. Season 2 starts to wane for me a bit, because I can feel Lynch stepping away. I can feel him being like ‘fuck it’. Because Season One is all Lynch, then Season Two is a little bit of Lynch. It feels different. But it was too much for me, because I had a viewing marathon. I spent like three days just [watching] Twin Peaks. I saw no one, did nothing except watch Twin Peaks. I slept on my couch because I was too scared. It was insane.

Tell us about your new show, Two Broke Girls. They hired one of my friends, Molly McAleer, to be a writer, and I am so excited. Do you know her blog, Mollshewrote? She’s fucking brilliant! I’ve been a fan of hers, and then we found each other on Twitter, because she’s friends with my brother’s best friend from Brown. It’s a whole thing…. And she told me that they were hiring writers… I called [the producers] and I was like “Hire Molls McAleer. TRUST ME!” and they did! Because she’s brilliant.

How would you describe your character? She’s very tough and very Brooklyn. She’s been broke her whole life basically, so she’s a really hard worker. She’s really committed and she’s very smart, and very sharp. Her whole life revolves around paying her rent, but she has this sort of secret joy she gets from making cupcakes, and she sells them at the diner and makes a little bit of side money through that. So she’s a very complicated girl.

Do you think being broke makes her bitter? Maybe, but it’s funny because when she meets Caroline, played by Beth, she’s bitter toward her because she’s rich and whatever, but she’s broke now. And that kind of evens the playing field. and then she sort of opens up and realizes that.

Have you ever been like that? I mean, I always sort of resented people who just got handed stuff. You know what I mean? I can’t even name any names, but there’s no one in my family who has anything to do with acting. There’s no one in the business. I ice-picked my way up. I had no connections; no nothing. So I can relate to that with Max, because we didn’t have a lot of money we didn’t have any “ins” with anything, so it’s just pure luck and tenacity that I got anywhere, and that’s kind of where Max is coming from. So I can really relate to that, and I’m an East Coast girl so I can relate to that. I love diners. I’ve never been a waitress… But I’ve done some pretty ghetto acting jobs in my life.

So how did you ice-pick your way into the business? My brother’s friend growing up, his friend from karate class – for real – sometimes had a guest spot on Nickelodeon shows like Pete and Pete. So I was like, “How do I do this?” And he introduced me to his manager, who’s in Philly, and she signed me, and I started going off to auditions in New York, and I just started getting stuff, like commercials. I was just the funny-looking kid in Philly, outgoing and whatever. And then I just kind of kept getting stuff. I didn’t really realize that was unusual. I got, like, two commercials in a month or something. But I was in New York almost every day. It was real a financial commitment for my parents, and a real time commitment for me and my parents, because they completely supported me, which was amazing. And then weirdly, Michael Patrick King hired me to be in an episode of Sex and the City when I was like, 13.

Tell us about that. It’s called “Hot Child in the City.” I played a Bat Mitzvah girl who hires Samantha to be my publicist… But isn’t that weird? [Michael Patrick King] kind of gave me my first big job and now he’s kind of giving me another gig.

Why did you decide to do a TV show? It’s more like a film with the relationships. Because I was like, “If I’m doing this, it has to have some kind of truth to it.” Otherwise I’m just selling out, you know? So that’s what people can expect, more real investment in the people, which I think doesn’t happen that much [on TV].

Do you watch a lot of TV? Actually, I definitely watch Cupcake Wars… and I watch shows that are already on DVD. The Nanny is my favorite. Golden Girls… we’re talking about classics right now… Twin Peaks obviously, and My So Called Life is my number one… God my first boyfriend looked just like [Jordan Catalano].

Really? Lucky you! Yeah. He was so beautiful… I saw [Jared Leto] at a NYLON party… He looks like he’s 20 years old!… Not a wrinkle on his skin. It’s crazy. [I think] he’s drinking virgin blood from Transylvania…. I met him. I think he’s really nice!

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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.

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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.

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.”

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KAT DENNINGS

Before she was asked to star in the CBS odd-couple comedy 2 Broke Girls, the 25-year-old actress (Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist, Thor) had been exclusively focused on her burgeoning movie career. “But when something like this falls into your lap,” Dennings admits, “you have to re-evaluate.” After reading the script for the pilot, in which she plays a struggling, cynical Brooklynite who takes a newly penniless heiress under her wing, she was won over. “In the past I’ve done small movies that I’ve poured my heart into, and they never get seen,” she says. “So the idea of having something on the air in two weeks—it’s instant gratification.”

Araks’s cotton blouse. Alexis Bittar earrings. Styled by Moses Moreno. Hair by Terry Millet using L’Oreal Professionnel; makeup by Jo Strettell for Chanel Beaute. Production by Stardust Visions. Fashion assistants: Anastasya Kolomytseva and Thomas Carter.
Photographs by Kurt Iswarienko
Interviews by Fan Zhong

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Kat Dennings may be a surprising casting choice for a movie like Thor given her work in films like Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist on The 40-Year-Old Virgin, where she played decidedly down-to-earth characters who were celebrated for their smarts at least as much as their sex appeal. But it’s precisely that sense of self-awareness that made her essential to Kenneth Branagh’s adaptation of the Marvel Comics superhero, where she serves as a wonderfully grounding influence that balances out all of the film’s celestial set pieces. Boxoffice recently sat down with Dennings at the Los Angeles press day for Thor, where the young actress talked about finding a balance between big action and her character’s disbelief, as well as the ongoing process of picking roles that not only challenge her creatively, but offer her greater commercial opportunities for the future.

Because this character didn’t exist in the comics, did you just use the script as a reference, or did you research the comics or the mythology of Thor at all?

I was familiar, but the thing about Darcy is that because she has no idea what’s going on ever, and she kind of is in her own little space-cadet world, I on-purpose didn’t do much preparation, because I wanted to feel like I didn’t know what was going on, just like she doesn’t know what’s going on. And because I’m lazy (laughs).

Many of your characters have that ability to cut to the quick of what’s happening in a scene. How much of your reactions were scripted and how much were you able to step outside scenes to find your own reaction to what was happening?

Well, that’s all Ken. Ken was the one that if you had a question, he’ll stop and come to you and talk to you for 15 minutes. But we took care of that in rehearsals, really, because we had a lot of rehearsals, and Darcy’s character was sort of there, but she wasn’t fleshed out. So that all came from rehearsing and his just unbelievable attention to detail. He wants every character to be completely filled out, and I think they got a lot of that from just watching me and Natalie interact, because we’ve been friends for years. They kind of saw what they liked and used it—which I think is really nice, because it’s sort of an unusual female relationship to see in a movie. Especially in a movie like this, because we’re not all hot and we’re not wearing anything tight; we’re just like cool bitches who are really passionate, and really love each other. There’s no cattiness, there’s no nothing. And Jane especially, Jane’s character is more interested in being smart and informed than she is in doing her make-up, which I think is really important—I think girls will really like that. And dudes, too, because she’s gorgeous.

As Tom Hiddleston said in the press conference, Loki saw himself as the hero of the story. Do you think that way as an actor—do you consider your character the hero of her story, or is it better to just do the scenes you’re in and not worry about the overall picture?

That’s interesting—it’s a good question. I think it’s interesting because just being a person, you’re the hero of your story, everybody is; you’re the hero of yours, I’m the hero of mine, everybody is our own protagonist. But with Darcy I didn’t think too hard, because there are so many questions, like where did she come from, who are her parents, why is she there, and we talked about that with Ken. We came up with a brief sketch of how she got there and stuff, but I very much stayed in the moment with her, because she doesn’t really think—she just says random shit that comes to her or she says something before she can think about it. So I didn’t want to get too deep into that for this. But maybe in the future there will be time for that.

How difficult was it to acclimate yourself to the machinery of a production of this size?

What’s interesting and very unusual for this movie is that most of it was practical. I mean, the Frost Giant stuff, obviously the endlessness was fake, but they took me on a tour and the sets were all built. The Destroyer in our sequences was built—they had a destroyer for us to look at, a 20-foot metal dude, all built for us and standing there so when we were reacting to it, it was really there, which is crazy. I mean, that’s amazing! And I think one of the hardest things for an actor is to be scared of nothing, to be scared of something that isn’t there, so Ken would have the first A.D. fire a gun with blanks into the air to scare us, or they would have an explosion rigged up, or if we were looking at Sif jumping into a burning building or something, for instance, they would have Jamie [Alexander's] stunt double on a wire flying into a building off-camera for us so that we would be reacting to something that was really in front of us—which was crazy! And I’m sure it comes from Ken’s earlier experiences where directors just tell you to do something, and don’t really help you. He does everything he can to make sure that you’re comfortable and you have something to really look at—which is part of why he’s so amazing.

How much do you have to think about which project you want to take on next, to take on roles that show people different sides of yourself?

I try to vary it. It’s less about showing people and more about my own boredom. If I do the same type of thing, I just get angry at myself, so I have to keep it interesting. And this is a tough act to follow. I feel bad for other directors, because it’s going to be really hard for them to impress me after Kenneth (laughs). But I don’t think is really have a plan for my career; I just get things sent to me or read something that I really love, and then I try to get it—and if I can’t, then I don’t. But I know it seems like this, but we really don’t have that much control, unless you’re like Brad Pitt; you just take what you can get, basically. And then every once in a while something incredible comes across, and if you’re lucky enough to get it, then you do it. And this was one of those things where I really wanted it and I got it, and I really fought to get it, so I’m still just reeling and excited about it.

Are you finding the things you get sent interesting, or is it your responsibility to make each of those potential roles interesting for yourself?

Unfortunately it’s usually the latter I think about ‘what can I do to make it interesting?’ Because most of the time, if it’s a good script, there’s got to be something wrong with it; like if there’s a really good story, and your role is kind of meh, you think, okay, what can I do to make this interesting for me. Because I don’t like coasting through stuff; it’s just not rewarding for me, and it’s not why I work. But sometimes you get both, and that’s incredible. It’s really lucky.

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