Kat Dennings Says Her “Switching Gears” Father Tim Allen Is Her ‘Favorite TV Dad of All Time’ (Exclusive)

"It's surreal to work with him," the actress says of her costar on the new ABC sitcom

Kat Dennings and Tim Allen are a father-daughter match made in TV heaven!

Over the course of her decades-long career, the actress, 38, has had her fair share of on-screen dads. As she embarks on a brand-new journey with ABC's Shifting Gears, Dennings reflects on her relationships with her former costars and exclusively tells PEOPLE why Allen, 71, holds a special place in her heart.

"Tim Allen, I will say, is my favorite TV dad of all time. It's been a real joy doing this show," she says, also noting that the actor's crew has been with him since his days on Home Improvement, which ran from 1991 to 1999, and Last Man Standing, which lasted from 2011 to 2021. "They followed him through all of his projects, which I think is a real testament to him as a person."

Related: Kat Dennings Is 'Crawling Home Broke' After Giving TV Dad Tim Allen the 'Double Bird' in ABC's Shifting Gears Trailer

"We have a very funny banter. We really enjoy these scenes where we're arguing. It's really fun," she adds of their on-camera rapport.

According to the show's official logline, the new series follows Matt (Allen), a "stubborn, widowed owner of a classic car restoration shop." When his estranged daughter Riley (Dennings) and her two kids move back into his home, "the real restoration begins."

Before Dennings got the call for Shifting Gears, she was in a "dark, sad moment in time," feeling lost and unsure of her next move.

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"I was like, 'God, I don't know what I want to do. I am just feeling so crazy,'" she recalls. When a friend suggested she think about what her "dream job" looked like, the 2 Broke Girls alum realized she wanted to do another multi-cam sitcom.

"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," she continues. She also "grew up watching Home Improvement," she says, so starring in a show alongside a "cultural mainstay" like Allen was a no-brainer.

"He's Santa Claus [in The Santa Clause films] and Buzz Lightyear [in the Toy Story franchise]. 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," she says.

While Allen may be her favorite TV dad to date, Dennings says she looks back fondly at all of her previous paternal costars. Some of them include the late Bob Saget, who played her father in the 2001–2002 sitcom Raising Dad.

"I'm so sad that he's gone," she says of Saget, who died at age 65 in January 2022. "But he was a lovely, lovely person."

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In 2005's The 40-Year-Old Virgin, Dennings played Marla, the stepdaughter of Steve Carell's title character. She describes the movie as "such a moment in time." Not only did it become Carell's breakout film, but the hit comedy was also Judd Apatow's directorial debut.

Dennings recalls feeling an anxious energy on set from the cast and crew, who were all banking on the movie's success.

"Steve Carell, I remember him being like, 'God, I hope this works out.' And he had just done The Office pilot or something like that, and now he's one of the biggest stars in the world, rightly so," she says. "He is the loveliest man you'll ever know."

"I've been very lucky. I've had very good experiences," she adds of her screen dads.

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Shifting Gears airs Wednesdays on ABC.