Now that “2 Broke Girls” is cancelled, we’ve got a big Kat Dennings-sized hole in our hearts.
But while the CBS sitcom might be off the air, Dennings is just getting started. The 30-year-old actress had a successful film career prior to 2 Broke Girls, and she’ll likely return to the big screen before long. In the meantime, we decided to look into the actress’s past…and we found some surprising trivia.
1. She was homeschooled.
While Dennings attended Friends’ Central School for a half day, that was the limit of her traditional education. She began acting at the age of 10, and her parents decided to homeschool; as a result, Dennings graduated high school at 14.
“I took charge of my education towards the end of it,” Dennings told Complex. “I just couldn’t deal with being in the tiny room with my parents anymore. But it worked great. I don’t think I could have dealt with traditional school, just the way my brain is wired.”
The daughter of a poet and a molecular pharmacologist, Dennings has quite the pedigree. However, the “Dennings” name is all hers—she was born Katherine Litwack, and she adopted “Dennings” when she went into acting.
2. Her first role was in a potato chip commercial.
Soon after, she appeared in Sex and the City, which led to consistent work in the WB’s Raising Dad alongside Bob Saget. In that show, she also worked alongside Brie Larson.
On the big screen, Dennings was able to book notable roles in The 40-Year-Old Virgin and Big Momma’s House 2. After playing Darcy Lewis in Thor, Dennings joined the cast of 2 Broke Girls, which ran successfully on CBS starting in 2011.
3. She’s written a screenplay.
Dennings wrote a screenplay called Your Dreams Suck, co-authored with her brother, Geoffrey Litwack. It hasn’t been made into a film yet, but it did land on the Hollywood Black List, a highly esteemed annual survey that lists the best unproduced scripts in Hollywood.
Hopefully, Your Dreams Suck eventually sees the light of day, but in the meantime, just landing on the Hollywood Black List is an achievement.
4. She’s “substance-free.”
Dennings doesn’t partake in mind-altering substances, if you catch our drift. She says that she already acts strangely enough without the help, so she never experimented.
“I just don’t,” Dennings said when asked about her substance-free lifestyle. “I shouldn’t. I’m an idiot already, so I don’t need any enhancement. I don’t feel like I’m the kind of person who can deal with some kind of foreign stimulant. I don’t need an excuse to act a certain way. Some people use that to show their true feelings, whereas I do that all the time.”
5. She says that she’s not into acting for the glamour.
That sounds unusual, but as Dennings told Complex, she thinks her motivation is what makes her successful—and she’s not about to change her off-kilter personality for anyone.
“People make the mistake of drinking the Kool-Aid, believing your own hype, letting people tell you you’re this or you’re that or you’re too this,” she said. “Just listen to yourself and take the roles that challenge you and try to do a good job. If you do that, if you’re honest about things, you can’t get too far astray. If it’s about the work for you, then you’re gonna go far. If it’s about the glitz and anything else, forget it, you’re in it for the wrong reasons.
