Max Black (Kat Dennings, pictured) serves up her to-die-for cupcakes on 2 BROKE GIRLS on the CBS Television Network. Photo: Sonja Flemming/CBS ©2011 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Despite an overflowing film career, Kat Dennings decided to take something of a break, leaving behind A-list scripts and unsigned contracts to commit to the small screen.
At the recent Television Critics Tour press conference, Dennings, merely beautiful on camera is something more striking in person, explains why a popular cinema actor would take the leap into the minor leagues.
“…things were actually picking up, and I was getting really exciting things, and “Thor” was just coming out, and I was doing really interesting projects, but I think it got to a point where I have done so many small films, and I’ve worked really, really hard, and these things some ‑‑ they just disappear,” Dennings says, looking across the table like a classic ’40s ingenue with long wavy-dark hair, full technicolor lips and full figure. “Four months of your life never get seen, and you start to feel kind of tired and sort of, you know ‑‑ this came right at the right time for me because I had just finished the most intense shoot of my life in a really amazing way.
Now her thoughts come easily and Dennings exhales, finds her range and explains as if reading from a well-rehearsed teleprompter. “Drama, so intense, complete physical transformation, and I was really drained in a great way, but that emotional, mental drain that only comes by playing someone bipolar, and this fell into my lap, literally, right at the right moment, right when I was feeling, ‘What I do now? I can’t do another one of these 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 to work hard, 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 ten years old…”
So rather than the TV actor aching to claw into motion picture, Dennings has had enough of her day in the Klieglight and craves (now at least) to experience a less glamorous medium, like an award-winning legend who keeps returning to the little theater.
“I lived in the woods, so this ‑‑ I hadn’t thought about doing TV. It wasn’t something I had intended to do, but when this came and it was Whitney (Cummings) and Michael (Michael Patrick King), and having that Michael gave me my first sort of big job (Sex and the City), it almost seemed like a gift, like this perfect thing that was just at the right time, and I was, like, God, this is exactly the answer to everything I’ve been wanting. I’m just really lucky that this came along.”
Dennings pulls most everyone’s eyes deep into the hallway as she leaves where tonight her made-for-herself television show, 2 Broke Girls will debut at 8:30 p.m. ET/PT on CBS. Lucky too that no matter the outcome of the program, Dennings can always fall back on merely being a world-class film star.