‘Dollface’ Team Talks “Friendship Love Stories,” Getting Women Behind the Camera

After becoming a breakout star on 2 Broke Girls, Kat Dennings is returning to TV on Hulu’s new comedy series Dollface in another story about the power of female friendship. 

Dollface focuses on Jules (Dennings), who after being dumped by her longtime boyfriend, is left to rekindle the friendships she left behind in favor of her relationship. The actress, who is also an executive producer on the series, said that although stories of women having each other’s backs have been seen before, from Sex and the City to Girls, the show adds a fresh spin, as well as a personal one, by exploring how women sometimes choose their partners over their friends.

“That’s something I don’t see all of the time, and I’ve been through that myself and I really like showing that — seeing how the different friends either welcome her back or don’t trust her anymore,” she told The Hollywood Reporter.  

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The series comes from 26-year-old creator Jordan Weiss, who wrote it as a test script for a writer’s assistant job before Hollywood came calling. More specifically, before Margot Robbie came calling, who executive produces the show as her first TV series through her LuckyChap banner. 

“She took a huge chance on me; I originally wrote this when I was an assistant — I was 24 — and she read it and was willing to champion it,” Weiss said. “I think her willingness to believe in me at that stage says everything about what kind of producer she is.” 

The creator wrote the script with the intention of telling a “friendship love story,” after seeing the same romantic tropes played over again and again. 

“I feel like my entire life I’ve heard a million love songs, seen a million movies about romantic comedies — guy getting the girl — seen a lot of shows where there was a will-they-won’t-they between two characters I rooted [for] to end up together. It was always a romantic relationship,” Weiss said. “I wanted to see a show that was about all of those things but between two women in a platonic friendship, because I think that the most important love stories in my own life have been with my girlfriends.” 

The series also includes magical elements as the story gets inside of the characters’ heads and occasionally blends fantasy and reality through animated sequences. And as a story that focuses so heavily on women on screen, the production team was careful to include lots of women behind the scenes as well. 

“It would be really dishonest to not have women writers, women producers and women directors,” said showrunner Ira Ungerleider. “We had half the shows directed by women, we have Margot and Jordan and Kat and Nicole [King] as executive producers and almost all of the writers except for one is a woman, so that felt like the most honest way to be doing this story.” The shoot also included female camera operators and a boom-woman, which Dennings adds, “was fucking awesome.” 

Dollface, co-starring Brenda Song, Esther Povitsky and Shay Mitchell, is now streaming on Hulu.