Kat Dennings has lifted the lid on why she ditched her birth name for the one we know today, and it’s a tale that’s got 90s fans at Trevor Decker News buzzing. The actress, currently starring in ABC’s Shifting Gears, spilled the details on Kylie Kelce’s podcast “Not Gonna Lie,” tracing her stage name to a mix of childhood savvy and cinematic inspiration. Here’s what she had to say, straight from the source.
Dennings, born Katherine Victoria Litwack, told Kelce, “My real last name is Litwack — that’s all you need to hear.” At just 9 years old, she decided it wouldn’t cut it. “I was like, ‘This isn’t going to work for me. This is not going to work,’” she recalled, laughing at her own foresight. “She-slash-I was very ahead of her time. It was a CEO situation. I was like, ‘This can’t be displayed on a poster.’” Enter “Dennings.” She got the idea from Janine Denni, the French wife of The Black Cauldron author Lloyd Alexander. “Randomly, he was my mother’s best friend,” Dennings said. “So I went there every week until I was 15 years old, and they were like my grandparents, he and his wife.” Her reasoning? “I thought it would be a super sick idea if I took her name and made it different. Literally, that was the thinking. That’s as far as it went. So Dennings is from her.”
Then there’s “Kat.” Dropping “Catherine,” she turned to a surprising muse: Christina Ricci’s Kat Harvey from the 1995 film Casper. “My favorite character at the time,” Dennings called her on the podcast, explaining the choice. “So I was like, ‘Okay, Kat Dennings. This is it, I can really picture it.’” For anyone who’s followed my looks back at 90s films and TV—where Casper holds a special spot—this reveal is a nostalgic jackpot. Ricci’s 90s streak, from Addams Family to that ghostly classic, makes this a slam dunk for our beat.
Ricci’s Kat Harvey was 90s teen royalty: sharp-tongued, big-hearted, and totally in command. Dennings didn’t just nab the name—she’s brought that same spark to her career. It’s on full display in Shifting Gears with Tim Allen, a sitcom we’ve tracked since its start. Her quick-witted jabs there feel like Harvey’s sass reborn, and now, with this Casper link laid bare, it’s like a 90s echo pulses through her work. “It’s insane,” she admitted to Kelce, reflecting on how it all came together—a 9-year-old’s hunch that’s still paying dividends.
The 90s were nickname central—think “J.Lo” or “Leo”—and Casper was a cornerstone of that vibe. By tweaking “Denni” into “Dennings” and picking “Kat” from a film she loved, Dennings built a name that’s both her own and a tribute to an era when Ricci ruled and movies like that stuck with us. She’s killing it now alongside Allen’s Home Improvement-style humor, but this peek into her past locks her into 90s lore. For a site that thrives on these finds, it’s a story that’s too good to pass up.
- Tim Allen Shares Exciting Plot Details for Toy Story 5 - April 17, 2025
- The King of Kings Expands to 3,535 Theaters After $19.3M Box Office Opening - April 17, 2025
- The Life of Chuck Trailer Reveals a Genre-Bending Emotional Journey - April 15, 2025
