Kat Dennings says a casting director called her 'fat,' not 'pretty enough' when she was 12: 'Very cruel'

Kat Dennings is reflecting on the challenges of Hollywood casting.

The 2 Broke Girls star recently recalled the troubling atmosphere surrounding her auditions as a child.

"The time that I was auditioning and starting to act, it was a very different environment than it is now," she said in an interview with PEOPLE. "There was not a lot of inclusivity at all. It was very harsh. There was a lot of extremely negative feedback, and people would not hold back."

Dennings, who appeared in projects like Sex and the City and The 40-Year-Old Virgin as a teenager, elaborated on a few "very cruel" comments she received as a child actor. "For example, I was 12. I'd go into an audition and I'd do it, and my manager would call me and I'd be like, 'How'd it go?' And they'd be like, 'Well, they thought you weren't pretty enough and you're fat.'"

Fortunately, the Thor actress didn't take those comments to heart. "For some reason, it didn't break my spirit. I was like, 'I'll show them,'" Dennings said. "I guess props to my parents because they were like, 'They're idiots. Don't listen to them.' And I was like, 'They're idiots, I'm not.'"

Related: Kat Dennings tells Whoopi Goldberg she lived by her 'I don't want somebody in my house' quote before marriage

Looking back, Dennings can't believe she received such horrible feedback. "It was pretty crazy, thinking about it," she said. "I'm like, 'How can anyone say that about a little kid? This is insane.'"

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Dennings indicated that casting in Hollywood has become "much softer, kinder" compared to the "completely insane" environment in which she grew up. "There's body positivity, there's inclusivity, there's representation, and there was none of that before," she said. "It was really gross."

Related: Two Broke Girls star Kat Dennings and 'Party Hard' singer Andrew W.K. are married

Dennings' latest project, Shifting Gears, is an ABC sitcom starring Tim Allen. "He's Santa Claus and Buzz Lightyear," she told PEOPLE. "He's a big part of my consciousness growing up, so it was very surreal to work with him, but in a great way, because he's a very kind person."

Related: Sally Struthers says Betty White once 'fat-shamed' her over a plate of cookies: 'Very passive-aggressive woman'

The show opportunity surfaced at a critical moment in her career. "I was like, 'God, I don't know what I want to do. I am just feeling so crazy,'" Dennings told PEOPLE. "Then the next day I got this call to do this show. So it felt like I wished for something and I got it. It just felt like a meant-to-be thing."

Shifting Gears airs Wednesdays at 8 p.m. ET/PT on ABC.

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