Kat Dennings on bold bangs, bright lipstick, and Beth Behrs's wedding

Here’s Kat Dennings rocking a bright lip in her new commercial for MasterCard. Right after she shot this spot, she got a makeover — new bangs that she’s wanted for a decade. (Photo: Michael Simon/startraksphoto.com)
Here’s Kat Dennings rocking a bright lip in her new commercial for MasterCard. Right after she shot this spot, she got a makeover — new bangs that she’s wanted for a decade. (Photo: Michael Simon/startraksphoto.com)

For six years, Kat Dennings had to keep her hair a certain way to portray diner waitress Max Black on 2 Broke Girls. When the show wrapped permanently, she was ready for a new look.

“I’ve been talking about getting bangs for like a decade, so I was like, ‘Why not? Let’s just do it!’” she tells Yahoo Lifestyle about the look she debuted on social media earlier this month.

The hair makeover actually took place on the set of her new commercial with former NFL pro Joe Montana for MasterPass by MasterCard. “As soon as we wrapped, we cut my bangs in the trailer,” reveals the actress, whose next move professionally is shooting a pilot for Hulu called Dollface.

So far, she’s loving them. “I feel slightly perkier, like it gave me a new lease on life. [Laughs] I really love them and I love how they look with my hair up. I usually wear my hair up in a bun, so it kind of makes me look like I’m a little more put together than I am. So I think they’re here to stay for a little bit.”

Watch her new commercial here:

That means she’ll probably still have the bangs when she’s walking down the aisle in the near future. Not at her own wedding, but at her BFF and former 2 Broke Girls co-star Beth Behrs‘s upcoming nuptials with Mad Men‘s Michael Gladis. Dennings is a bridesmaid.

“We just ordered our dresses,” she reports. “It’s going to be a beautiful wedding. I’m very thrilled for her. It’s going to be gorgeous.” Though Dennings has yet to see the dress in person, because she ordered it online, she’s crossing her fingers that it’s something she’ll be able to repurpose. “It looks stunning,” she says. “It definitely looks like I could wear it again.”

Although she’s happy about the dress, the thought of possibly toasting her friend at the wedding gives her anxiety. “Oh, my God, are all bridesmaids supposed to that? I hope not,” she says. “I was a maid of honor once for a wedding and gave a speech. It went well, but I had never been more nervous in my entire life than I was before I gave that speech.”

Kat Dennings poses with Beth Behrs at the 2015 People’s Choice Awards. (Photo: Getty Images)
Kat Dennings poses with Beth Behrs at the 2015 People’s Choice Awards. (Photo: Getty Images)

Something she’s less nervous about? Being bold when it comes to lip color. “I’ve been wearing red lipstick since I was, like, 14 years old,” she says. “One holiday, my mom got me a book called Making Faces by Kevyn Aucoin. He was this unbelievable makeup artist, and this is an instructional book about how to put on makeup and to do different looks. I would go to my mirror, sit down, and just spend hours trying to re-create the photos.”

There was no going back. “I hate to be predictable, but I think Marilyn Monroe put that seed in my head that red lipstick equals glamour and confidence and, honestly now, if I’m not wearing a colorful lip or at least like a deep lip, I feel like my face looks weird.”

As for finding the right shade, “Once I find one thing that works, whether it’s from a makeup artist or a shade I stumble upon, I’ll be hooked on it. I’ll go to the drug store and I will buy anything that I think I’m going to like. If I find four … that I like, I’ll take them home and just experiment.”

Dennings also frequently blends two shades of red together. “It’s all about just trial and error,” she says. “For instance, I hate lip gloss; it looks terrible on me. I don’t like it. I just don’t feel like myself in it. But I love matte and I love a lip stain. So sometimes I’ll put those two together.”

So how many red lipsticks does she have? “Oh, boy,” she says with a laugh. “I must have hundreds of tubes of reddish lipstick.” But they weren’t all things she picked up. “I’m very lucky enough to have a lot of friends who are makeup artists. Because they know I love a bold lip, sometimes they’ll get a color that’s like, ‘Well, clearly no one will wear this but you, here. It’s dark maroon.’ And I’m like, ‘Great!'”

Read more from Yahoo Lifestyle:

Follow us on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter for nonstop inspiration delivered fresh to your feed, every day.