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.— Alison Prato
Sabato De Sarno - Designer, Creative Director of Gucci