What Happened To Kat Dennings After 2 Broke Girls?

It was back in 2000 that Kat Dennings made her television debut, and it was particularly auspicious: appearing as a demanding youngster whose million-dollar bat mitzvah is being organized by Kim Cattrall's character, Samantha Jones, on "Sex and the City." That led to a series-regular role on "Raising Dad," a Bob Saget sitcom that ran for just one season, followed by a series of guest spots on various TV series, ranging from "CSI" to "ER." She also appeared in movies, with high-profile supporting roles in "The 40-Year-Old Virgin," "Charlie Bartlett," and "The House Bunny" leading to her first starring role on the big screen, in the 2008 rom-com "Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist." Then came the cherry on top of her career sundae, joining the Marvel Cinematic Universe in "Thor." 

In 2011, Dennings was cast in "2 Broke Girls," a risqué sitcom in which she and co-star Beth Behrs starred as servers in a low-rent diner while trying to scrape together enough cash to launch a cupcake business. The show proved to be a massive hit and Dennings its standout as wisecracking server Max Black. After six successful seasons, the show finally ended its run in 2017.

So what's she been up to since then? To find out, keep on reading to discover what happened to Kat Dennings after "2 Broke Girls."

Kat Dennings clearly enjoyed working in the world of animation with "The Simpsons" — so much so that her next big project was "Dallas & Robo," an animated comedy. Dennings voiced Dallas Moonshiner, an outer-space trucker whose best friend is a cowboy hat-wearing robot named Robo with a passion for poetry, voiced by WWE star John Cena. Created by Mike Roberts — whose other projects include "Bojack Horseman," and "Final Space" — the series was initially produced for YouTube Red, a short-lived subscription service. 

As it turned out, though, neither YouTube Red nor "Dallas & Robo" stuck around for long; the series was axed after just eight episodes, and the YouTube subscription service was shuttered in 2018.

Yet that wasn't the end of the road for "Dallas & Robo." In 2020, reruns of those eight episodes were picked up by the Syfy network, set to air as part of its late-night TZGZ adult animation block. Promoting the series' revival, Cena said he remained proud of the show, but felt that the timing of its release was what ultimately led to its demise. "We came out at a time where a lot of services came out and, for lack of a better term, ['Dallas & Robo'] just kind of got lost in the shuffle," he told Newsweek. 

When "How May I Hate You" failed to make the grade, Kat Dennings picked herself up, dusted herself off, and launched into a new female-led comedy produced by Margot Robbie. "Basically, my manager said, 'Margot Robbie wants you to read a script.' And I was like, 'Okay! Sounds good! Whatever it is, I'll do,'" Dennings told BuzzFeed. That show was "Dollface," which debuted on Hulu in 2019. Dennings starred as Jules, who, after her boyfriend dumps her, decides to rekindle the female friendships she let fade while she was coupled up; Shay Mitchell and Brenda Song played those friends, with Esther Povitsky joining the cast in the second season as a co-worker who joins Jules' friend group. 

As Dennings told Collider, she found the role — and the premise — entirely relatable. "Yeah, that's been me. I've been that person," she admitted. "You've done it to your friends, and you have friends who've done it. ... We've all been a Jules ... "

The second season arrived in February 2022, with the lengthy gap between seasons resulting from the pandemic shutdown of film and TV projects. Absence did not cause viewers' hearts to grow fonder; while the first season was streamed by enough viewers to warrant a second, that was not the case with Season 2. It wasn't long after that TVLine broke the news that "Dollface" had been canceled — making Dennings a free agent once again.

One interesting aspect to note about the projects in which Kat Dennings was involved after "2 Broke Girls" is the fact that she was a producer on three of them: "Dallas & Robo," the failed pilot "How May We Hate You," and "Dollface." Having that degree of control over her work is something that Dennings had long sought. "The executive producer thing was so exciting for me. It felt very long earned because, you know, this is my 25th year of working," she told BuzzFeed of her "Dollface" producing responsibilities. "You learn a lot as you go, just like in any job, but I felt really ready for that responsibility."

Working with Margot Robbie's production company, LuckyChap Entertainment, proved to be a great fit for Dennings, who'd come off "2 Broke Girls" looking to make a career shift. "I wanted to do something different," Dennings said in an interview with Collider. "I didn't really wanna do a sitcom again next, and I wanted to have a little more creative input on whatever the next project was."

While an executive producer credit is often awarded to people who have very little to do with a TV show on a day-to-day basis, Dennings insisted that she was very hands-on with "Dollface." "'Executive producer' is definitely a thing that some people like to just slap their name on and it's part of the deal," she explained to Marie Claire. "But I was very involved."

Kat Dennings returned to the Marvel fold for the fourth film in the series, "Thor: Love and Thunder." At first — whether she legitimately didn't know, or deliberately misled interviewers in support of Marvel's intense secrecy about its projects — Dennings claimed to have no idea whether or not she'd be in the movie. "Well, I have not gotten a call so I kind of doubt it since they're shooting it right now so probably not," Dennings told IGN. She did, however, add a caveat. "But anything Marvel ever asks of me the answer's always yes."

Dennings apparently received a call after all; when the movie came out, she was indeed in it — albeit in one brief scene that proved to be more of a cameo than a full-fledged return. That scene, appearing near the beginning of the film, featured Darcy visiting Natalie Portman's character in a hospital room, where she was being treated for cancer.

Dennings finally acknowledged that she was in the film after it had already come out. "Since ['Love and Thunder'] has been out for a while, I feel like it's finally time to post the Darcy selfie," she wrote on Instagram, alongside a photo of herself wearing the character's glasses.

While Kat Dennings has appeared in film and television, and even voiced the occasional animated character, in 2020, she dove into an entirely new medium for "The Sandman," an Audible podcast series based on the DC Comics character created by Neil Gaiman (which was also adapted into a 2022 Netflix TV series). In the podcast, Dennings plays Death — one of the Endless, and sibling to the titular Sandman, aka Morpheus, King of Dreams (voiced in the production by James McAvoy). Other actors in the prestige project included Andy Serkis, Bebe Neuwirth, and Riz Ahmed. 

As Dennings revealed in an interview with Entertainment Weekly, it all started when she and Gaiman chatted via social media. "We became Twitter friends through the miracle of the internet," Dennings said. "He'd always said, 'I hope we can work together,' and I would be like, 'Uh, me too!' So one day he just texted and asked, 'Would you like to be the voice of Death? We're making "Sandman" as an Audible original.' She was always my favorite character, I could not believe it and agreed without any further thought."

As listeners know, Dennings' fun-loving take on the character is a major departure from the way the Grim Reaper is typically characterized. "The cool thing about Death is her 'job' really goes against her adorable bubbly personality," Dennings added. "Her storylines are obviously very serious and pretty dark, but her personality and attitude keeps it somewhat cheerful."