Kat Dennings On The True Stories That Inspired Friendsgiving

While Dennings can breathe a sigh of relief knowing she's experienced just the normalcy and not the mayhem during Thanksgivings past, it was a trippy experience for her to learn that writer-director Nicole Paone and Åkerman, who also was one of the producers of Friendsgiving, actually did.

"This is loosely based on their real experience — they're obviously way more fun than I am," Dennings says, laughing. "They were kind of regaling me with stories in between takes. I was like, 'Oh, my God, this is real?' They were like, 'Um, yeah.'"

Thankfully, recreating the craziness was a lot more fun than Paone and Åkerman actually living it, explains Dennings, whose character is based on Paone. Making the experience even better was the fact that a huge ensemble of talent came along for the Friendsgiving ride — including Aisha Tyler, Wanda Sykes, Christine Taylor, Margaret Cho, Deon Cole, Fortune Feimster, Andrew Santino, Dana DeLorenzo, and Brooklyn Nine-Nine alum Chelsea Peretti. 

"It was just so much fun to make. All these actors, these great comedians, were all together in one house," Dennings, who next stars in the Disney+ MCU series WandaVision, marvels. "Essentially, the film takes place in one location. So, there was an element of reality to making it where we were all crammed together in one place for a month or however long we filmed it, and it was just a really fun time."

Friendsgiving is now playing in theaters and is new on digital, Blu-ray, and DVD.