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VIVA ITALIA!
BY HUDSON MORGAN
PHOTOGRAPHY BY ANDREA VARANI
STYLING BY MIREILLE COMSTOCK

AFTER THE SMASHING FIRST SEASON of 2 Broke Girls, the new rule for rival shows might just become: If it ain’t Broke, fix it. As in, make the characters as funny and real as Max and Caroline, the financially challenged duo played so expertly by Kat Dennings and Beth Behrs. Make the humor as hard and heartfelt as in co-creator Michael Patrick King’s Sex and the City, with dialogue that dirty-dances right up to the line and often crosses it. And most of all, make it really, really successful—say, prime time’s No. 1 new comedy. Fresh off all of the above, Kat and Beth grabbed their favorite plus-ones, hopped a plan to Milan and sat down with Watch! at Four Seasons Hotel Milano to talk about the Broke Girls’ big break.

WATCH!: Viva Italia. Has either of you been here before?
BETH BEHRS: Never! Neither of us has ever been to Europe. We’re going to Paris tomorrow and then I’m going to Madrid and she’s staying in Paris longer. We’re super excited.
KAT DENNINGS: This is European Vacation.

WATCH!: How about a quick highlight reel so far?
KAT: I’m telling you, that osso bucco last night ruined my life.
BETH: It was sooo rich.
KAT: I told my boyfriend, “I’m actually going to die, I think. I should go to the hospital.” My heart was racing, I could feel the fat cells being born. I was like, This is the end.”
BETH: It was very decadent, but it was worth it!
KAT: Veal. Risotto. Butter. Cheese. Bone marrow. I ate so much. It took five years off my life.

WATCH!: Today’s photo shoot–was it different from other ones you’ve done?
KAT: It was very high fashion.
BETH: Very.
KAT: A lot of looks. Probably the most looks I’ve ever done. They tamed the shrew that is my hair.
BETH: I love that you have more of everything. Boobs, hair…
KAT: Nose…
BETH: And I just have less. You’ve got the boobs and the hair that I want, and I just have the less of it all.
KAT: I have more skin. I would trade bodies in a second.
BETH: But we have boyfriends who like our less and more. We’re doing fine in the boyfriend department.
KAT: We’re doing great. They love us.

WATCH!: Other than eating, what else have you all been doing in Milan?
KAT: I realized last night that when I’m drunk I become the Anchorman. Why do I do that?
BETH: I don’t know, but I quite enjoy when you become the Anchorman. Who do I become?
KAT: You were so adorable! You were you.
BETH: Oh, man. Do I become Julie Andrews but, like, intoxicated? “Allo there!”
KAT: Were you drunk?
BETH: A little bit.
KAT: I just started drinking recently.

WATCH!: Drinking for the first time in your life?
KAT: I’ve been drunk before, but like twice a year maybe. I like wine and beer—no liquor ever.
BETH: I like wine or scotch.
KAT: I didn’t drink for so long that it takes no time to get me wasted. Shwasted.

WATCH!: Why didn’t you drink?
KAT: I just never wanted to. I was very against it. I still don’t think it’s a good idea to get super wasted on anything.
BETH: If you were drunk last night, you held it well because I wouldn’t have been able to tell.
KAT: I was red! I was like, flushed!

WATCH!: 2 Broke Girls can get pretty risque.
KAT: Sometimes I can’t believe it.
BETH: The little Jewish boys episode! When the little Hasidic boy said, “How are you going to say anything with your mouth full,” we did a bunch of alternate takes that were cleaner, and that’s the joke that made it in! There was also a joke I had at the beginning of the season: “It’ll be nice to have my wad in his face for a change.”
KAT: They changed “mouth” to “face.” Remember? Face is actually more aggressive!
BETH: And dirty!

WATCH!: And they let you say that?
BETH: That’s what exciting to me. Kat and I get to do something that girls have never gotten to do on TV. That’s so cool, Kat! That’s something we get to tell our grandkids, like, “Dude, we were different and changed what we could say on television.” That’s crazy. Kat, what’s the dirtiest thing you’ve ever said on the show?
KAT: It was when we were trying to out-Oleg Oleg and we had to say the most dirty things. I don’t say dirty stuff. I swear all the time, but…not in a sexual way.
BETH: She’s not Max in real life. She’s very demure, poised.
KAT: Jewish nunlike! I don’t do sexual stuff, joke-wise. I’m straight-laced and you’re more of a wild child.
BETH: We’re the opposite from the show in terms of jokes. I’m dirtier with jokes. But in real life we’re both pretty nun-ish. A hot night is drinking a bottle of wine and watching a movie at our boyfriends’.

WATCH!: Kat, do people ever come up to you and start talking to you like a sailor?
KAT: I would be like, “Please step away, sir!”
BETH: “We’re calling security, sir. Don’t say vagina in my presence.”

WATCH!: Does the humor ever offend your parents?
KAT: Knowing your kids are making money at our age and working hard is rewarding for them. [Laughs.] And, you know, at least we’re not prostitutes.
BETH: It is Hollywood, though. Did you know back in the day that actors were on the same level of prostitutes?

WATCH!: Who’s the best person to confess their 2 Broke Girls fandom so far?
BETH: We had Amy Poehler tell us that she liked the show, and that was pretty crazy. Someone said Hasidic Jews loved that episode. Their friends were Hasidic Jews and thought it was the funniest thing they’d ever seen.
KAT: They were very respectful of the religion.
BETH: The thing about our show is, when we are pushing boundaries, it’s always coming from a real character place. The writers are so good; they never do it just merely for shock value because that wouldn’t be interesting. And I think sometimes people aren’t watching it well enough or just don’t recognize that.

WATCH!: Agreed. The criticism about stereotyping is pretty silly.
KAT: A racist show would have only white characters. That’s what a racist show is: pretending others don’t exist. We’re doing the complete opposite of that.
BETH: Also, it’s half-hour, and it’s called 2 Broke Girls! So, with a half-hour show you can’t flesh out everyone in the first season.
KAT: Friends went on forever and you know those characters in and out, but it took a long time.
BETH: On Will & Grace, Megan Mullally’s voice, like [high-pitched] “Hi, honey” didn’t even come until the end of the first season. You have to grow as a show, you know? Haters be hatin’.
KAT: Haters gonna hate.

WATCH!: Boom, well played. In the show’s pilot, Kat’s boyfriend makes moves on Beth. Would that ever happen in real life?
KAT: We’re both in committed, loving relationships, but we have completely opposite types anyway. I mean, I don’t really have a type. But you like a certain type, Beth, and it’s not a type I would like.
BETH: I’ve always liked men who are over 6 feet tall, burly, and could engulf you in a bear hug.
KAT; She likes bears.
BETH: Beth Behrs likes bears. There’s your headline! [Laughs.] In college, I dated not-bears. It’s a recent tradition.

WATCH!: Where do you see the show going?
KAT: I hope the girls get their cupcake business.
BETH: I’d like to see them start the business. It’d be cool if in a couple of seasons we actually started our own bakery. Or bought the diner and made that bakery.
KAT: I think the no-expectations rule is what to apply. I always kind of expect the worst of everything and then I’m like, “Heeeeeeey.”

WATCH!: Truth time. When are you going to get it over with and just make out?
KAT: We’ve already done it! They cut it out.
BETH: We kissed! The hoarder episode.
KAT: We run into Johnny [played by co-star Nick Zano] and his girlfriend on the street and I kiss him, I kiss her, and then I turn around and I kiss Caroline. But they cut it out! They said, “We’re going to save the kiss for something special and not just offhand like that.” And we’re like, “Oh, great.” So I wouldn’t rule anything out. [Laughs.] Maybe, at the end, we’ll get married.

Source.

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Kat is in May’s issue of Vanity Fair! Looking smoking, if I might add. There is nothing on her specifically at the source, but you should have a look anyway. There’s interviews and info on other lovely ladies and their shows.

Scans from CBS Watch! is now up in the gallery. Click any of the pictures above to be taken to them.

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Kat is featured in CBS Watch! magazine which is released next week. There is a feature with smaller pictures at the source, or simply in our gallery. The Just for Laughs article also includes Melissa McCarthy, Jim Parsons, Jason Segel and Angus T. Jones. On Kat, Alison Prato writes:

KAT DENNINGS
The Siren

FROM HER BREAKOUT ROLE as an angry teenager in The 40-Year-Old Virgin to her angst-y turn as Michael Cera’s hipster dream girl in Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist, Kat Dennings has always been one of the more fascinating young actresses on the big screen. And now, as Max, the smart-aleck waitress with a heart of gold on 2 Broke Girls, she’s proved another thing, too: She can headline a TV show.

Although Dennings, 26, couldn’t have predicted the show’s huge success—2 Broke Girls is the top-rated new series of the season—it became clear early on that she was part of something special. “I knew instantly that we all had great chemistry,” Dennings says while driving home from work. (She lives in the Valley, eschewing all things Young Hollywood; “I would rather die” than go to a Hollywood club, she says.) “And I absolutely loved [show creators] Michael Patrick King and Whitney Cummings. Beth [Behrs] and I are literally best friends now. We text each other all day, every day.”

If it all sounds like a lovefest, that’s because it is. But don’t mention all of the media hoopla about women in 2012 being funnier than ever, or Dennings will show just the slightest bit of (adorably imperfect) fangs. “I always feel like it’s kind of a sexist thing to even bring up,” she says, “because it’s not like women just happened, you know? Women are some of the funniest out there. Carol Burnett, Cher, Fran Drescher—these women are comedy icons. Funny women are not a trend. It’s definitely not something new.”

Case in point: In any given episode, her chemistry with Behrs—which she says was “absolutely instant”—is palpable and the rapid-fire parade of vagina jokes and political incorrectness they dish out is some of the funniest repartee on TV. Which brings us back to those aforementioned texts: What hilarious and naughty topics do these two talk about? “I can’t tell you!” Dennings says with a laugh. Then she reconsiders. “Well, OK, the last text I got from her was asking me if I wanted a Jamba Juice because she had gotten to work first,” she says. “Not very exciting.”

As for her work on 2 Broke Girls, Dennings is happy to have settled into a routine. “I’d be lying if I said it’s not exhausting,” she says, “but I’ve done some very exhausting small films that never get seen. Looking back [at some indie films], I don’t know how I’m still alive. Shooting night shoots in the middle of winter, playing a crack-addicted prostitute, with no money, no budget, no sleep. Toward the end of almost every shoot I get very, very sick. That’s been my trend. While this show is demanding, the schedule is remarkably human.”

In other words, Kat Dennings is not only still alive, she’s thriving.

Source.

Kat and the rest of the cast of 2 Broke Girls were at the People’s Choice Awards on Wednesday night and won an award for Favourite New Comedy! Congratulations everyone. Beth and Kat also presented an award. We have 149 images, medium and high quality, up in our photo gallery. In addition, we have new uber high quality scans of Bust and high quality pictures from the Winter TCA Tour. Just click any of the links below.

People’s Choice Awards.
Winter TCA Tour.
BUST scans.

Click image for rest of photoshoot in HQ.

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 is in the December issue of InStyle magazine, for a make-up editorial. She looks great, no?

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With its worn-in leather sofa and duct-taped-together flat screen, the loft set of Fox’s New Girl exudes the vibe of lazy afternoons and beer-fueled late nights. A few feet away, Zooey Deschanel is cutting loose during a photo shoot. There’s some emphatic twirling in a retro-chich, peony-pink party dress and some even more emphatic lip-synching into a toy microphone to a David Bowie track – all while rocking a rhinestone tiara. Refreshingly unself-concious, the actress is impossible to ignore. “I was the kid on stage in the chorus that people were like, ‘What’s going on with that one?’” she reports with a throaty laugh. “Sometimes it was a good thing, like, ‘I can’t stop watching you.’ Other times, it was, ‘God, get off the stage!’”

It’s safe to say Deschanel’s hearing more of the former these days. Thanks in no small part to the singular talents of its leading lady, New Girl has become a buzzy, critically adored breakout hit. (Fox’s highest-rated istcom premiere in a decade: Check! First new series to be picked up for a full season: Check!) But Deschanel’s Jess – a goofy charmer who, after a humiliating breakup, moves in with three guy roommates – isn’t the only funny gal making a serious impact on the networks’ fall schedules. From CBS’ 2 Broke Girls, starring indie-film darling Kat Dennings and newcomer Beth Behrs as cash-strapped waitresses rich in (often raunch) comebacks, to NBC’s Up All Night, led by Christina Applegate as a new mom readjusting to the workplace, smart, female-driven comedies are suddenly the toast of prime time.

What’s more, all of those series – as well as NBC’s Whitney – were created or cocreated by women. “It’s awesome and surprising,” says New Girl creator Liz Meriwether. “You’d never [predict], ‘Oh yeah, all these new shows that are working will be ones tarring women written by women.’ That doesn’t feel like what you’d expect from network television. It seems like a really good time to be here.”

Of course, comedians have been part of the fabric of TV since the days of I Love Lucy. And, more recently, Tiny Fey, Amy Poehler, Mike & Molly’s Melissa McCarthy and Modern Family‘s Julie Bowen and Sofia Vergara have all tickled our collective funny bone. But the sheer number of bold, winningly complex women currently populating TV screens is a welcome development. “‘Bridesmaids’ [proved] people are excited and comfortable with seeing women being ballsy and funny,” says Up All Night creator Emily Spivey. “I also thinks it was just in the air that women want to see a more realistic, fun representation of themselves.”

If these female-fueled shows ring true, it’s because the women involved often draw from personal experience. New Girl was inspired by the close friendship that developed between Meriwether and a guy acquaintance after both went through difficult breakups – though she admits she initially worried whether a mainstream audience would warm to her off-kilter sense of humor. “I was fully expecting it to be a cult classic,” she says. “Canceled after four episodes but, like, those four episodes were so good!” And Spivey drew upon her own struggles as a new mom returning to her gig as a writer on Saturday Night Live for Up All Night, which follows talk-show producer Reagan as she juggles her commitments to husband Chris (Will Arnett), newborn Amy and demanding boss Ava (Maya Rudolph).

Applegate can relate. Like Reagan, the actress – whose comedy career includes Married…With Children, and an Emmy-nominated turn on Samantha Who? – had spent much of her life focused on her high-profile profession. And like Reagan, she felt her priorities irrecovably shift after giving birth to a daughter, Sadie Grace, last January. “I’m so madly in love with her,” says Applegate, in between checking to see if Sadie is taking her bottle.” It’s beyond anything I’d ever imagined. I adore my job, but I think any [parent] would tell you we wanna be with our kids more than anything else. She trumps everything.”

No stranger to feminine high junks, veteran Sex andd the City executive producer Michael Patrick King recruited stand-up comic (and Whitney star) Whitney Cummings as his 2 Broke Girls cocreator. “I realised that if I wanted to do a show with an edgy feel and women in their twenties,” he says, “I [should] write it with a woman in her twenties who had an edge.”

Also integral to the show’s appeal: the chemistry between its two leads. Dennings brings the outsider sensibility honed in films like “Nick & Norah’s Infinite Playlist” to her potrayal of Max, Broke‘s working-class, often-crass Brooklynite. The bubbly Behrs, who was employed as a nanny this time last year, brings her wide-eyed enthusiasm to Caroline, the Wharton-educated socialist who lost her money thanks to Daddy’s Ponzi scheme. Like their odd-couple on-screen roomies, the actors have already developed an endearing camaraderie. “We clicked immediately,” says Dennings. “And I could just see the show, which was exciting.”

Deschanel knows the feeling. Reading New Girl‘s pilot script, the veteran film actress realised that, much to her surprise, she had found “the part that I was born to play” on TV. “I haven’t seen a character quite like Jess before,” says Deschanel, who’s also one of the show’s producers. “It’s nice to see modern archetypes being explored and so many women killing it in comedy. It’s a cool moment to be part of.”

Let’s hope this brand of broad comedy is here to stay.

Thanks, Elvira!

Kat and Beth attended the TV Guide Magazine Hot List Issue party last night in Beverly Hills, California. Click here for the gallery of pictures from the event, or any of the pictures below.

Click the cut for a video from the event: Read the rest of this entry »