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:
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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 are 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.
