Kat Dennings

Biography:

Katherine Victoria Litwack, better known as Kat Dennings, was born on June 13, 1986, in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania. Her mother, Ellen, is a poet and speech therapist, and her father, Gerald, was a molecular pharmacologist and professor. The youngest of five siblings in a Jewish family, she grew up in Penn Cottage, a historic 17th-century home in Wynnewood, which she has described as haunted. She began acting in commercials at nine, with her first ad for potato chips never airing, and earned her SAG card by working as an extra. Homeschooled for most of her childhood, she briefly attended Friends’ Central School before graduating high school at 14. Soon after, her family moved to Los Angeles to support her acting career. She adopted the stage name “Dennings,” feeling her real surname was unattractive, drawing inspiration from a family friend’s name.

Dennings made her television debut in 2000 on Sex and the City, later starring in Raising Dad (2001–2002) and appearing in projects like The Scream Team, ER, Without a Trace, and CSI. Her film career began with Raise Your Voice (2004), followed by supporting roles in The 40-Year-Old Virgin, Down in the Valley, and Big Momma’s House 2. She gained wider attention in 2008 with Charlie Bartlett, opposite Anton Yelchin and Robert Downey Jr., and appeared the same year in The House Bunny and Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist, earning a Satellite Award nomination. She went on to star in Defendor, Daydream Nation, and several independent features, while also appearing in music videos. Her breakout came in 2011 as Darcy Lewis in Marvel’s Thor, a role she reprised in Thor: The Dark World, WandaVision, and Thor: Love and Thunder.

In 2011, she also took on one of her most recognized roles as Max Black in the CBS sitcom 2 Broke Girls, co-starring Beth Behrs, which ran for six seasons until 2017. She continued with films such as To Write Love on Her Arms and Suburban Gothic, and later starred in Hulu’s comedy Dollface in 2019. In 2018, she appeared in the film Friendsgiving. Though raised Jewish, Dennings has said she identifies more culturally than religiously. She previously kept a blog and YouTube channel, and as of 2021 lives in Los Angeles with her cat, Millie. A supporter of animal welfare, she abstains from both smoking and drinking.