Q: Did Kat Dennings shoot Thor: The Dark World on a break from 2 Broke Girls? —Rob G., Athens, Ga.
A: No such luck. Dennings, 27, shuttled between TV in L.A. and film in England with no downtime. “It was a very tight squeeze,” she says. “The jet-lag was all-consuming,” she says. “I was performing in sort of a dream state.”
Does CBS ever object to some of the more risqué jokes on the show?
I think they’ve just given up at this point. A few times, we’d get an angry email like the day before shooting, saying, “Wait a second! You can’t say that on TV.” The best part of the show’s charm is the raunchiness and the pushing of the envelope. But the difference is it’s done by two girls who are very pure. It’s somehow forgivable. If it was delivered by some other kind of person, it would be extremely offensive.
Do you film jokes that don’t make it onto the air?
Sometimes they give us a joke to just wake up the audience. Something so insane that the audience losses their mind, and it just keeps them excited. When we throw in extremely raunchy jokes, they love it.
Have you ever gotten embarrassed performing some of the material?
I did during season one, but not any more. Now they can pretty much have me say anything. That’s all out the window.
In Thor: The Dark World, your character, research assistant Darcy Lewis, doesn’t wear glasses as much as she does in the first film. Is she breaking out of her nerd cocoon?
Well, glasses don’t necessarily make the nerd. I wear glasses in real life too, so I think they’re pretty awesome. But, yeah, Darcy wears glasses less in this movie. I don’t know whether it was a conscious decision, but I wore my contact lenses [more]. I actually had a bit of an emergency when we were shooting in London, because I thought I was going to wear glasses the whole movie, and I only brought enough contacts for a few days, for my personal life. And when I realized I wasn’t going to be wearing glasses I was like, whoa! I can’t see! They had to bring an eye doctor onto the set and write me a new prescription, pretty much.
Do you have some of your signature snappy lines in the sequel?
Yeah, Darcy says some pretty great things in this movie. She gets to branch out a bit. I like to think I have some of the best lines in the movie, only because—I do! [laughs] I’m really lucky that they gave me such fun stuff to say.
Your Thor costar, Chris Hemsworth, has to bulk up a lot for his role.
He’s a surfer, so he’s naturally a lean, muscular guy. I remember during the first movie bulking up was really hard for him because his body doesn’t, as he puts it, fit at that weight. He had to gain a lot very quickly and it’s all muscle. He would work out before we went to [the set], then [at night] he worked out more. He would get up at like four in the morning and drink a whole protein shake because his body lost weight during the night; it didn’t want to weigh what it was weighing. I mean, talk about commitment. He’s one of the most dedicated, talented people I’ve ever met. And he’s quite a dancer.
You’ve talked about having to convince your parents about your career choice. Do they feel better about it now that you’ve had such success?
Having an income as an actor is like the Holy Grail. The fact that I have a paycheck and I know how much I’m going to make in a year—I’m sure that’s every parent’s dream, and it’s also every actor’s fantasy. I’m so lucky to have that and to have a smidgen of security, you know? In any job nowadays, but especially in an arts-driven job. I never take it for granted, especially now that I’m getting older and I have more bills
