Litwack, was a molecular pharmacologist , and college professor and chairman. Dennings is the youngest of five children. Beginning her career at age 9 by acting in commercials, Dennings said her family never had much money for formal acting training. Dennings was homeschooled ; her only enrollment at a traditional school was for a half-day at Friends' Central School. Dennings made her professional debut with an appearance on HBO 's Sex and the City in , in the episode " Hot Child in the City ", playing an obnoxious year-old who hires Samantha to handle publicity for her bat mitzvah.
In , Dennings appeared in the Disney Channel film The Scream Team as a teenager who stumbles into a group of ghosts. Dennings continued working on television, guest-starring on Without a Trace as a teen whose boyfriend goes missing, and on Less than Perfect in In February , she was cast in a pilot for CBS titled Sudbury , about a family of modern-day witches, based on the film Practical Magic , but the series was not picked up.
Dennings starred in Charlie Bartlett in , the story of a wealthy teenager Anton Yelchin who acts as a psychiatrist among students at his new public high school. Dennings played Norah Silverberg, the daughter of a famous record producer. Actors Sam Rockwell and Josh Hartnett were also involved, but the project was not greenlit because of its subject matter of nuclear war was considered too controversial.
In , Dennings appeared in The Answer Man , a film about a celebrity author whose manifestos become a sort of new Bible. She also co-starred in the Robert Rodriguez -directed dark children's film Shorts that year. Dennings and other rising stars were featured in the August issue of Vanity Fair , photographed re-enacting scenes from famous Depression -era films.
Dennings was cast in the romantic comedy film Liars A to E , to be directed by Richard Linklater , [ 26 ] but the project was cancelled due to cutbacks at Miramax Films by the studio's parent company, Disney. The following year, she starred in the independent feature Daydream Nation , as a girl who moves from the city to a strange rural town, and is caught in a love triangle with her high school teacher Josh Lucas and a teenage drug dealer Reece Thompson.
