24-year-old Dennings (The 40-Year-Old Virgin, Nick & Norah's Infinite Playlist) is perfectly cast in Thor as the eyebrow-raising sidekick assisting the nerdy, driven Jane Foster (Portman) and Dr. Erik Selvig (Stellan Skarsgård) on a data-gathering trip to rural New Mexico, where abnormal disturbances turn out to be the result of inter-planetary travel activity. When a hot but clearly disoriented and potentially dangerous blond man appears in the middle of nowhere, Darcy tasers him into submission while Jane makes googly eyes; when S.H.I.E.L.D. agents raid their research lab and take everything in sight, Darcy laments the loss of her iPod. She's a product of generational apathy, distilled down to its most hilariously cynical bits; she is many of us in the audience.
Movieline spoke with Dennings about her involvement in Thor, managing expectations for future Thor sequels, her close friendship with co-star Portman, and the status of three upcoming projects: Daydream Nation, which pits her in a love triangle with Reece Thompson and Josh Lucas; Renee, a psychologically taxing drama based on the life of troubled 19-year-old Renee Yohe; and Your Dreams Suck, the 2008 Black List script Dennings co-wrote with brother Geoffrey Litwack.
You've been modest about your work in Thor, playing it down in the media, when in fact you provide the film's very important comic relief.
Oh! Well, I don't know. I'm just really grateful, honestly, to be in a movie like this, with the people that are working on it. I'm just really surprised that I didn't get cut out. [Laughs] But, yeah, just really excited about it. It's not like Darcy was in the comic books so I can't really say if she's coming back. I don't know, if she's needed, then absolutely I will. But yeah, the other characters are built in, have a fan base, and have a history, so I don't want to put my foot in my mouth and say something that doesn't pay off.
What kind of purpose do you see Darcy fulfilling in the film, especially in contrast to Natalie Portman's Jane?
Jane is a scientist and deeply passionate about that, and Darcy isn't really that passionate about anything, but she just loves Jane and wants to help. So she's sort of an eager little puppy but also really bored and really lazy.
She's also the closest character the film has to an audience stand in, commenting on the silliness of Thor's Asgardian traits on Earth to beat the audience to the punch.
Yes, that's exactly how I look at it! She's the one who says what the audience is thinking, and that's really fun to play with. And if you say it, then it's out and [the audience] can stop thinking it. So having someone in the film say it takes any air out of the impulse for other people to say it.
That goes for Thor's cocky, godly swagger -- he's used to being feared and respected and making demands -- and, of course, for those abs, which you get to ogle, which is what we've all been doing from the other side of the screen.
Yeah. It's pretty amazing! But don't kid yourself; that is hard. The discipline, and also to work out for the hours that [Chris Hemsworth] worked out while also being Thor in the movie Thor. So he'd be shooting all day and then he'd go to the gym for hours at night.
So I'm guessing you had it a lot easier.
Oh yeah, I didn't have to do anything! But that was really hard. And he's so energetic and so upbeat and so much fun. He could have been a jerk if he wanted to, but he was such a good guy.
You and Natalie were friends coming into Thor; how did you first meet?
We met on the set of my friend's music video, actually, two or three years ago. It was called "Carmensita," by Devendra Banhart. He's one of my best friends. I was hoping to work with her, and then it happened!
This year in particular we've gotten to see the lighter side of her, and that continues in Thor.
Absolutely. She's hilarious! She's so wickedly funny, and people haven't gotten to see that side of her until now.
So you two have known each other for a while, and you're out on location together in New Mexico. What do you do in your down time?
Oh my God, there was so much goofing off. There was a lot of, I'd be sleeping, the phone would ring and it would be Chris like, 'Meet me downstairs in five,' and I'd be like, 'Oh, God!' I'd get up and we'd go to breakfast. There were a lot of tired breakfasts. That was the story of our lives. We had the best time.
You mentioned that since you shared most of your scenes with both Natalie and Stellan [Skarsgård], he was subjected to a lot of girl talk?
Oh yeah, poor guy. Poor guy. I'm so bummed he's not here, I miss him. But he lives in Sweden so that's probably why. It's a little far to drive. But Natalie and I just never stop talking. Never stop talking. And Stellan was in all of those scenes with us -- we'd be talking about boys or something and we'd turn around, and Stellan is just napping in the back seat. Poor guy, with two ridiculous young girls talking about silly things. [Laughs]
You didn't read the script for Thor before being cast, so how did that process work?
They didn't let us read a script, it was top secret. But I knew, obviously, that it was Thor, that it was Kenneth Branagh, that Natalie was in it -- and that was pretty much all I knew. And that was enough. I mean, say Kenneth Branagh and I'm done. So I auditioned like everybody else.
What did you know of your character going in?
They gave me a brief character description and like two pages of a sort of fake scene, because they didn't even use the names Darcy or Jane. They used different names so that no one could say what the movie's about. You just had no idea.
Ah, the internet age.
People are ruthless, man. You never know. You have to be really careful.
Were you looking for a project on this scale?
I never really look for anything, I just see what comes to me. I was hoping that eventually I'd get to be in a movie like this, and it happened.
Looking at the films you've made, you seem to work with people that you stay close with after the job's done.
Yeah! I've been really lucky. I've worked with some really great people and made some amazing friends out of it. I just met my new best friend, Juliana Harkavy, on this movie Renee. She's just like a soulmate that I've waited my whole life to meet.
Renee's sort of a change of pace for you, isn't it?
It's based on To Write Love on Her Arms. So it's about Renee Yohe, who that was sort of started for. I play her, and it's very heavy. Really, really heavy stuff, so totally different. And Juliana plays my best friend in it. Brutal. Really brutal. [Per the organization's website, To Write Love on Her Arms is "a non-profit movement dedicated to presenting hope and finding help for people struggling with depression, addiction, self-injury and suicide. TWLOHA exists to encourage, inform, inspire and also to invest directly into treatment and recovery."]
Is it the heaviest role you've played to date?
Absolutely. The heaviest role I've ever played, and the heaviest role I could ever play, probably. Suicide, drugs, depression, self-harm, bi-polar, the whole thing. I'm still exhausted. I just finished that a month ago.
Has that taken time and space to decompress from?
It really does. This is the first time that I haven't really had a break, because I went straight from that into filming a pilot for CBS that I just wrapped yesterday. It's called Two Broke Girls; Whitney Cummings and Michael Patrick King wrote it and are producing it together.
You've got another film coming out soon -- Daydream Nation, with Reece Thompson and Josh Lucas.
Oh, yes.
I imagine it's a tough choice to be torn between the two of them.
It's pretty amazing. It's very romantic, and kind of intense. Yeah, I've been pretty busy, which is amazing. Lot of different kinds of things, so I think my next project is a nap.
You've branched out into screenwriting already; have you considered moving into producing or directing?
Absolutely! I don't really talk that much about it but I write, and directing is on the horizon one day. Directing is something I really want to do. I wrote a script with my brother which ended up, somehow, on the Black List in 2008.
That's right! Your Dreams Suck. What's going on with it now?
It's still... I mean, the process of getting a movie made is so ridiculous so it's still in the pipeline. We have amazing producers and we're giving it to people to read right now.
Do you plan on acting in it as well?
No. Just writing!