“Ideally, of course, I would just be covered in cats.”
Kat Dennings for The Wildest, 4 February 2022
Millie
Millie is Kat’s current fur baby. The kitten was 3 or 4 weeks old when Kat adopted her from what she remembers as not a shop but a “organic, kind of crunchy health pet place” where people could leave pets in the hopes of seeing them be rescued. “One day I went in there for something, probably for my dad’s dog, and they had three little kittens. I asked what the backstory was, and apparently, an old lady opened her garage one morning and just saw three kittens in there.” Kat’s eyes first fell on the fluffier, orange babies, who were already spoken for. Then, “she was in a ball, the only brown one, in the back of a cage being very antisocial.” The connection was immediate. Millie’s likely a Norwegian Forest mix and she’s an only child.
Millie was meant to be baptised as Owl. However, upon a remark by her mother that such a name would be “disrespectful to her as a species”, Kat named the kitten Millie, likewise as per her mother’s wisdom. Millie’s full name is indeed Mildred, perhaps a fitting name for an old lady in feline form, the perfect companion for a self-appointed old lady at heart.
Millie enjoys waking Kat up for breakfast, watching YouTube videos whose target audience is that of the toe-beaned kind, and only cares for papers when her human needs them for work, which is, fairly, a cat’s only way to help getting things done. But do not go thinking Millie is your common cat, for she’s not without her fair share of eccentricities. Millie’s every veterinarian’s dental hygiene dream come true, as she thoroughly enjoys brushing her teeth, which she naturally does upon being presented with a toothbrush spread with some tantalising appropriate toothpaste, as Kat’s not shy about demonstrating. She’s also a big fan of takeout chopstick pouches. “She would find one and drag it upstairs and hide it, and I just found this little stash of empty chopstick pouches.” So much so that for Millie’s birthday in 2021, Kat pulled off a surprise she knew would rock Millie’s world. “I saved all the chopsticks pouches for months and months, and I surprised her. She sat on the bed, and I filmed it in slow motion — again, I know, I’m insane. I threw a hundred chopstick wrappers into the air and filmed her reaction, and she could not believe it.”
As far as relationships with the human species go, Millie enjoys Kat, momma Litwack and grew to love new papa Andrew W.K. “She went right over to him when they first met. And he’s respectful and hands off, and she did the ankle sniffing and she rubbed her head on him right away. And now she just can’t get enough of him.
Millie was professionally shot by photographer Mike Rosenthal for People’s The Beautiful Issue of 2019. She had a little cameo of her own during the Songs to Save them All fundraising concert and campaign, promoted by the Best Friends Animal Society, which aired on the 23rd of July 2020. Sadly, Millie allowed her human to go accompanied for next year’s show.
On the 7th December 2021, The Wildest published a list of Millie’s favourite things, complemented by Kat with a video to her Instagram. You can get ahold of both here.
Pumpkin
Described by Kat as “the closest thing to an angel I’ve ever encountered”, Pumpkin was a stray before becoming a member of the Litwack family. Like Daisy, Pumpkin wandered around the house, sporting a predilection for the roof, sometime during Kat’s teenage years. Her passing had a deep impact in Katherine, who confessed “I swore once Pumpkin crossed the rainbow bridge that I would never love again and that I was never ever ever getting another cat — it really broke my spirit.” In 2015, Pumpkin was remembered in a tee Kat herself designed for a charitable sale to help North Shore Animal League, of which you can learn more in our philanthropy page.
Pumpkin was professionally shot in 2008, when Paolo Pellegrin was commissioned by The New York Times to document the lives of eight actors chosen by the publication. As a result, we were served a glimpse of Kat and Pumpkin’s intimacy as Pellegrin focused his lenses on Kat from the comfort of her own home.
Daisy
Daisy was Kat’s first family Kat. We do not know much about her. According to Kat, Daisy simply appeared on her childhood home’s porch one day, noting “She was very smart and could even open doors with her paws”.“I’m an enormous cat lover. Of course, I love all animals, but cats have a special place in my heart. Cats are very mysteriously elegant. And that’s both a blessing and a curse.”
Kat Dennings for People, 16 August 2021
Zoe
Zoe was the Litwack family pet. After being admitted into intensive care, she breathed her last on 12 February 2020. Kat shared the news on Instagram with a message both heartbreaking and heartwarming, calling Zoe “the best little pup a family ever had”, who “probably lived enough lives for 10 dogs.” as a canine of around 14 years of age. Finally, Kat urged fans to adopt a senior pet.