Hollywood notebook - Kansas City Star (blog)
By RICK BENTLEY
McClatchy Newspapers
McClatchy Newspapers
Updated: 2011-09-21T20:37:42Z
LOS ANGELES - Amber Heard holds court at the SLS Hotel Bazaar, talking to anyone who can find her in the bar's maze of curtains, walls and art exhibits.
This isn't the first time Heard and I have talked. I thought she was destined for a long TV career back in 2007 when she stole the show in the short-lived "Hidden Palms." But Heard was lured away from TV by feature films ("Pineapple Express," "Zombieland," "Drive Angry," "The Informers").
Now she's back on TV starring in the new NBC drama "The Playboy Club," which premiered Monday night. She plays a young woman from a small town who goes to work at the Playboy Club in Chicago in the early 1960s. With her blond hair, green eyes and the kind of figure that would make Hugh Hefner propose, Heard perfectly fits the Playboy Bunny mold.
Heard sees the series as an opportunity to show off her acting skills.
"It's hard when you pour your heart and soul into a character you believe in and you try to tell a story you're inspired by and the film goes nowhere," she says. "I've been busting my (rear) for a long time and I'm now interested in real viewership getting to see my work and dedicating my life to something that just doesn't end up on a shelf."
She has a realistic outlook when it comes to TV. If "The Playboy Club" goes off the air, Heard will return to making movies earlier than she planned.
She hopes viewers respond to the series because she likes her character Maureen, who is a little manipulative.
As for critics who call "The Playboy Club" sexist, Heard says they should remember the series is set in a time when women were treated quite differently than today.
"There were different expectations for women," Heard says. "I am fortunate to be part of this new generation where I don't need to choose between combat boots and an apron. I can do it in heels."
We got our first look at Kat Dennings, one of the stars of the new CBS comedy "2 Broke Girls," in 2000 when she was just 14.
She played Jenny Brier in the "Sex and the City" episode "Hot Child in the City." You might not remember her by that name but more by the colorful moniker used to describe the character. Let's just say it's a much more vivid way of saying she's the oral sex Bar Mitzvah girl.
Dennings grew up in Bryn Mawr, Pa. Her father, a scientist, and her mother, a speech therapist, were disenchanted with the school system and decided to do home-school her. Despite limited access to the outside world, Dennings wanted to be a movie star from a young age. Her brother's friend from karate was on the Nickelodeon show "The Adventures of Pete & Pete" and he introduced Dennings to his manager. Her first professional acting job was on "Sex and the City."
"Yeah, that was me," says Dennings with a false display of pride. "And it changed my life. Really, it did. I was a home-schooled kid living in the forest and I didn't even have cable. I'm serious. We had to get cable to watch that episode. So all my little home-school friends and their moms saw Kyle MacLachlan's (rear end). It was pretty incredible."
Unless the new CBS comedy takes a wild turn, there won't be any special Bar Mitzvah gifts or naked behinds. Dennings and Beth Behrs play two very different women who end up working together at a diner.
Dennings says her humble upbringing makes it easy to relate to the money-starved women.
"We didn't have any money when I was growing up. I used to get all my films from the library. My mom would get me classic movies and stuff. And I actually wasn't allowed to watch TV as a kid growing up except for, like, PBS, 'Sesame Street,'" Dennings says.
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Source: http://news.google.com/news/url?sa=t&fd=R&usg=AFQjCNEKtPPsrn0qYbBRGRv3zW32bKnvZA&url=http://www.kansascity.com/2011/09/21/3158088/hollywood-notebook.html
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